Box Turtle Bulletin

Regan DuCasse

April 28th, 2012

There are several things that never cease to baffle me.

1. That regardless of much better forensic investigation, less bias in law enforcement AND criminals that aren’t too smart: it doesn’t matter the brutality of a crime. People are still to reticent about the death penalty.

2. That it hasn’t been good news to the anti gay, that gay people are no threat, are NOT mentally ill or incompetent and certainly that the viciousness and level of cruelty and violence that young people are capable of inflicting on gay people or anyone is what should scare the shit out of them.

Homosexuality will never be nearly so sick or dangerous, as the inflammatory and irrational information fomented about gays that can incite young people to commit such acts.
It’s not only ruinous to the potential of gay young people, but their attackers as well.
Lose, lose. Lose all over again.

Priya Lynn

April 28th, 2012

Regan said “There are several things that never cease to baffle me.

1. That regardless of much better forensic investigation, less bias in law enforcement AND criminals that aren’t too smart: it doesn’t matter the brutality of a crime. People are still to reticent about the death penalty.”.

Well, I don’t know about other people but for me its not that I oppose putting murderers to death, its that I don’t want innocent people executed. I know at one time in one state the governor found there were more innocent people (proven by DNA) on death row than there were guilty people, at that time he suspended all executions until it could be investigated, I’m not sure what came of that. That’s why I oppose the death penalty.

Now some people will say “That shows the system works.” but in most of these wrongful conviction cases the accused was convicted on the basis of eyewittness testimony and these people were exonerated only because there was DNA evidence to prove their innocence. Many other convictions are based on eyewittness testimony but there is no DNA evidence to be examined so unless one believes wrongful convictions only happen when there is DNA evidence available its a certainty that innocent people have been put to death in the States. Better forensic techniques are often irrelevant because in many of these convictions the main or only evidence was notoriously unreliable eyewittness testimony.

What amazes me is that the same people who say government is incompetent and should be eliminated also think that when it comes to the death penalty the government is infallible in determining the guilt of accused people – remember Rick Perry saying he had no concern whatsoever that any of the over 200 people his state executed recently were innocent?

Yes, I’d love to see heinous murderers put to death, but I’m not willing to risk killing innocent people to do so. I’m from the school of justice that says better 10 guilty people go free than one innocent person be convicted, better no murderers be executed than one innocent person be executed.

Priya Lynn

April 28th, 2012

This from a very brief search:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/04/20/doj-hid-exculpatory-evidence-in-hundreds-of-cases/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/04/08/more-prosecutorial-misconduct-in-illinois/

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/01/10/another-day-another-exoneration/

Priya Lynn

April 28th, 2012

This one relates directly to my first comment:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2011/09/12/perry-ignores-reality-in-death-penalty-debate/

Timothy Kincaid

April 28th, 2012

I love that Jim always tries to include a picture. A visual image makes such a impression.

Sometimes too much of an impression.

I don’t look like Ryan really. But I see the length of his neck, his hairline, the set and color of his eyes, and I see a younger me looking back. And it is that connection that reminds me why we do what we do.

It really is a lot of work to keep something like BTB – or all the other sits that work towards equality – going.

It takes time from our lives , time that could be spent on family or relationship or career And at times it seems that the sole reward is either apathy or even abuse. and I do sometimes think that life would be simpler if I put it down and let someone else use their voice instead.

But then I see Ryan and I know that I can’t not write. I can’t not encourage, I can’t not demand, I can’t not nag and reprimand and scold and be a general pain in the ass. I can’t not ask readers to live up to ideals I fail at. I can’t not spend half an hour searching thesaurus and dictionary for the right word only to get the spelling wrong.

I can’t not do this. Whether I do it well, whether anyone reads, whether it’s appreciated or scoffed at. I can’t look into Ryan’s eyes and know that I didn’t at least try.

Regan DuCasse

April 29th, 2012

Priya Lynn: you know how the anti gay use outmoded and distorted information about gay people to bend public opinion to their way?

Very much the same thing happens about the technical and investigative abilities of forensic criminal science.
Those who were released from death row, were convicted well before not just forensic science improved, but also the legal and social sophistication of the accused themselves.
And in those cases of the exonerated you might have heard about, and (by the way, a playwright friend of mine who did a Laramie Project type play about it), was also guilty of why the police and investigators didn’t believe those who were convicted in the first place.
A great deal was left out of the profiles of their lives prior to conviction.
It’s not a wide spread trend as the public is lead to think either.

It’s actually extremely difficult to convict a person of a capital crime. It’s not like there is an eager rush to execution by ANY means.

But now the pendulum swings and people are willing to throw the baby out with the bath water.
When the booking process started involving taking DNA samples, along with fingerprints, the ACLU came right in and protested it as an ‘invasion of the person’ so therefore un Constitutional.
Forgetting also that such a process would, by elimination, ALSO exonerate as much as convict the RIGHT PERSON. The ACLU lost on this one. And rightly so. So a cheek swab is as routine as a body search and fingerprinting. And with that, some major cold cases have been solved because of it.

Those cases in which there is NO doubt (and they do happen people), in which the evidence is exceptional in being irrefutable, there is no need to keep such dangerous people alive. And every reason to believe they remain so, even while in prison.

It’s not the big ‘government’ monolith that investigates and deals directly with the evidence, witnesses and victims.
In my neck of the woods, I’m a member of the team that takes the FIRST evidence and ours is the most enduring.
So this isn’t about trusting ‘the government’ at that level per se.

But those of us closest to it, understand that actually, up the chain of gov’t, they are the ones actually making the job more and more difficult. They don’t allocate enough money, or they spend it the wrong way.
And people like me, in the sciences, are not easy to find, nor hire.
Nor is there much incentive for more people to enter the field.

Close contact crimes, they are much, much easier to solve.
Especially domestic violence cases.

I know when someone is MISINFORMED about what they think they know about crime solving, the justice and penal system, the way you would know when they are about gays, lesbians and the transgendered.
Things are a lot more accurate, the accused where they belong, than even just 15 years ago.

And just as the anti gay use politics to gum up the truth about gay people, those that don’t want ANY kinds of standards or controls on law enforcement and investigation, are harming it in the process.
And the public will find that many capital crimes could have been PREVENTED, had the police or forensics not had their ability to function gummed up by politics.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t question some matters of gov’t bureaucracy on this subject.
I can understand not putting your trust fully in gov’t.

But I don’t think you’re imagining what would happen if you had NO law enforcers or investigators or forensics experts at ALL.
And every day you hear about a violent act, a missing child, a woman who can’t live in her own home safely, then who do you expect to get justice for them?
The jails, frankly, aren’t full ENOUGH.
One in 25 people is a sociopath.
One in 29 is violent.
Jails are just going to have to be a fact of life, just as hospitals and schools have to be.

Regan DuCasse

April 29th, 2012

@Priya Lynn: thanks for the article. And I understand the criticism of Perry.
Even the Innocence Project contradicts itself sometimes. Barry Scheck, notoriously denied the reliability of DNA at the OJ Simpson trial for example.
When Simpson’s DNA was found to be on the hairs of the cap found. Scheck denied Simpson even wore it.
See, it all depends on whose ox is gored. Otherwise Scheck’s IP has been touted as responsible for nearly 200 exonerations.
Now mind you, those exonerations might have been for the specific crime for which the individual was accused.

But they left out the part where some were convicted for OTHER crimes.
And then CONVICTIONS have rested on the same.

Hopefully soon, I’ll be working directly with witnesses. There are some who are quite reliable. And it’ll be up to me and the rest of the team to help the witness or victim be as accurate as possible. But these days, so many surveillance cameras are all over the place, the camera can be a much witness and plenty of criminals have been caught that way.

41 exonerations isn’t much. Considering the homicide, rape or other violent crime ratios in different cities.
If the public doesn’t want to rely on the police or other agents to deal with crime.
Who, pray tell, do they think should?

Priya Lynn

April 29th, 2012

Regan sometimes there isn’t sufficient evidence in a murder for advanced forensic techniques to make a difference, as I pointed out, many of these wrongful convictions are the result of notoriously unreliable eyewittness testimony. That hasn’t changed and won’t change, there will always be cases where there is doubt, humans will never be infallible, there will always be wrongful convictions.

You said “But I don’t think you’re imagining what would happen if you had NO law enforcers or investigators or forensics experts at ALL.”.

I don’t know why you’d even say that, I certainly don’t advocate eliminating the justifice system and what would happen in that scenario has no bearing on wrongful convictions.

You mention that some of these people were convicted of other crimes and once again I don’t know why you bring that up unless you’re trying to suggest that because they were convicted of other crimes they somehow deserve it when they’re wronfully convicted. If that’s what you’re trying to say I couldn’t more adamantly disagree.

You mention that there are some cases in which there is not doubt. I know that and I agree its frustrating to let such people escape the death penalty because other cases are not so clearcut. I’ve thought a lot about this and tried to come up with a solution, I thought about a rating system for degrees of confidence in convictions but no matter what there is always a grey area and there will always be cases where there is doubt, sometimes very significant doubt despite a jury willing to convict. You mention only 41 exonerations as though you are willing to see some innocent people put to death in order to execute the many who are guilty – that will never be acceptable to me under any circumstances and I don’t care what the ratio is.

You mention outmoded and distorted data but you haven’t given any examples of that in the links I posted. I read about wrongful convictions on a regular basis at Dispatches from the culture wars, often involving the most sickening of prosecutorial misconduct where evidence that would exonerate the accused is witheld because to some people in the justice system they’d greatly prefer to see an innocent person executed rather than admit they made an error. And such misconduct is almost never punished so the corrupt remain in the justice system to do it over and over again.

Humans will never be perfect. There will always be murders where there is little evidence for advanced forensics to analyze, very very few murders are recorded on video, there will always be unsophisticated juries willing to convict where there is signifcant doubt, there will ALWAYS be wrongful convictions and it will NEVER be acceptable to me to put one innocent person to death even if 1000 muderers convicted with certainty are not executed ( and I don’t believe for a second that the ratio is that wide).

You say “If the public doesn’t want to rely on the police or other agents to deal with crime.
Who, pray tell, do they think should?”.
Once again, I don’t know why you make such a statment. Of course I want to rely on the police and justice system to deal with crime, I’ve never stated or implied otherwise. It is an imperfect system and always will be but there is no other alternative and we can always work to make imperfect systems as good as possible.

Priya Lynn

April 29th, 2012

Regan a couple of more things:

If the death penalty is applied to all murders its going to be unjust even in some cases where there is no doubt the murderer is guilty. Would you favour the death penalty for a father who killed the man that raped and murdered his 8 year old?

You go on and on about advanced forensic techniques as though that ensures there will be no wrongful convictions – it doesn’t.

Look at the Treyvon Martin murder case. No video cameras, advanced forensic techniques are of no value in determining guilt in this case, it comes down to one man’s word and an analysis of a fraction of his behavior that we know of before the killing. I think Zimmerman is probably guilty of murder, but no way is there ever going to be anything remotely close to certainty in this case to say its fine to execute him. This is going to come down to a jury going on their gut feeling and there will ALWAYS be cases like this.

Priya Lynn

April 29th, 2012

Further to video cameras capturing murders:

Even if a murder is captured on video it is only helpful in the same way that eyewittness testimony is, it comes down to notoriously unreliable judgments about whether the accused is the person in the video or someone that just looks similar. So, no, video of a murder is not going to allow certainty of conviction every time either.

jerry

April 29th, 2012

Thanks Timothy for being a pain in the ass. We needed it to remain alert and our enemies need it to create shame if that’s possible.

Priya Lynn

April 29th, 2012

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/626542.stm

Regan DuCasse

April 29th, 2012

Wow…Priya Lynn: If you don’t understand why I’d bring certain things up, then it’s worth it for me to try and make you understand.
You’re right that there are certain aspects of forensics that aren’t infallible, and you agree not everything is.
THAT isn’t the point, the point is in the cases that ARE irrefutable, and continuing to improve investigative and justice factors that keep things moving FORWARD and getting proper justice.

There are several documentary style shows on television that show that investigative process that might help the public understand better how the initiation of it goes.
“First 48” on A&E network.

“Cops” and “America’s Most Wanted” are long running series about on the street procedures by peace officers, and AMW is about engaging the public in finding dangerous criminals, or the missing. And such shows have worked very well by way of catching wanted criminals.

And I do NOT appreciate you really thinking that I’d want an innocent person put to death in favor of making sure executions go forward.

I’ve been known to know exactly when a case smells, whether it’s involved police doing the wrong thing, or prosecutors or law enforcers. Not just the accused.
What’s helped in contentious major cases, is to have it documented and put before more sophisticated scrutiny.

Are you REALLY trying that hard to see me that way?
That I’d want the innocent to be executed? YOU should know better than that about me personally.

I TOLD you that such exonerations only illustrate a portion of the profiles of the accused.
They only said it happened, and didn’t spend too much time on why such mistakes occurred. Unreliable eyewitnesses notwithstanding. Understand there are also ALIBI and character witnesses to consider as well.

They leave out long criminal records, criminal associates and lack of an alibi for when a major or capital crime is committed.
In other words, it’s not all that unreasonable or all that hard to place guilt on them either. There isn’t any more reason for investigators to rush and get the wrong perpetrator, than it is to miss the right one. But understand the urgency, when a menace is loose and the public is crying out for a solution.

Eyewitness reliability and lack of DNA evidence isn’t the only evidence that’s put together to make a case. And although some crimes ARE caught on camera, what I was referring to was IDENTIFYING a suspect is made much easier and more accurate than an eyewitness account.

Precisely because a major case DOESN’T have witnesses or video evidence, it’s TRACE and HARD evidence that’s mostly relied on, as well as CIRCUMSTANTIAL.
However, I’ve noticed that the way some defenders want certain adjudication to operate is to IGNORE circumstantial and trace evidence. To even ignore video evidence. And ignore the criminal records of the accused.

None of these can be manufactured out of nothing, but those that fall under such intense suspicion are not so wholly innocent: they still make the jobs of their defense attorneys extremely difficult. And God himself couldn’t defend them.
Which is why I would ask what do you think would happen with no standards of investigation, or evidence gathering or scrutiny of suspects and their histories?

There is a great deal of trending towards throwing up the hands and not dealing at ALL with law breakers in the most meaningful and efficient way. Why I mentioned the number of sociopaths in our midst. Decriminalizing, or legalizing certain pathology, without defining consequences is so naive and patently stupid, where to begin?
Perhaps it’s impossible to MAKE people do the right thing. It’s another to ENABLE doing the wrong thing. And blurring the lines and expectations of people as to what right and wrong is.
As if TRUST in another person isn’t necessary as a character assessment.
Which is why, the falsely accused, or wrongly convicted, weren’t so ‘innocent’, but weren’t to be trusted as to their innocence either. Sorry, law enforcement can’t ‘take it on faith.’ The word of a suspect without an alibi witness. Especially a suspect with a record already.

And I think, you, typical of the public doesn’t understand the definition of REASONABLE doubt as opposed to no doubt at all.

What has made incarceration and death row so incredibly expensive, is the need for more and more prison personnel. Whose own safety has to be considered. And making their work gainful enough so that corruption is kept to a minimum. And then there is the automatic appeals process, no matter how undeniably guilty and undeserving of clogging up the justice system’s arteries, each and every death row inmate has that option, for as long as possible.
Leaving even less resources for those whose cases need to be handled where there is some doubt as to their guilt.

Perhaps now the time has come to change the types of jurors and their qualifications to serve. Especially for major crimes. They do need to be more sophisticated, able to follow tedious trains of testimony and evidence presentation and have some knowledge about the gathering, preservation and standards of evidence needed for an accurate and reasonable conclusion.

Here’s a very dangerous trend towards sympathy for the devil, I’m talking about.
Nearly two years ago, a fan Brian Stowe, of the opposing team was assaulted outside of Dodger Stadium on opening day. There was an altercation that left him so brain damaged, he’s permanently crippled from it.
Early in the investigation, sketches went out, a few eyewitness accounts placed a number of gang members as likely suspects. The sketches were pretty generic when it comes to that look. After nearly two months, an arrest was made, it WAS of a gang member who did look a great deal like the sketch, because of the placement of his tattoos.
After several weeks in prison, (the suspect had violated many parole orders), he was released for the assault on Brian Stowe, but he’s still on the hook for his other violations. Like his associations and weapons and not checking in with the parole officer.

This past opening day, this same gang member was at the game. He’d been provided a limo ride and during the game and exiting it, people asked for his autograph and he was given huzzahs for beating the rap of prime suspect for the assault on Stowe.

This was a difficult case for the LAPD. But a KNOWN gang member, being treated like a conquering hero is demoralizing enough.
It’s like THAT around here, Priya Lynn. The in our faces way anyone wants to just fuck with people, whether civilian or not.
It wouldn’t surprise me, that a call for decriminalizing gang membership is far behind.

Palmer

April 29th, 2012

Another hijacked thread.

Jim Burroway

April 29th, 2012

Another hijacked thread.

Not really. Daily Agenda threads are open threads.

Jaime

April 29th, 2012

Regan,
Historically you have impressed me with your lucid points. It seems that you and Priya are talking past one another. I will admit last night when I first read your third post – “41 exonorations is not that many” ( if I’m recalling correctly off the top my head – I apologize, I’m trying to piece this together on my iPhone without being able to refer to the old posts.) I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. You have made excellent points about the need for the respective of law, but I haven’t seen you address Priya’s fundamental assertion – true fairness and impartiality in state-sponsored execution, and should the state be involved in that at all. You seem to be arguing for deterrence effect from execution, is there?

Regan DuCasse

April 30th, 2012

Hi Jaime, sometimes I’m trying to get through each of the points, or be as coherent as possible (before my coffee, big mistake), and I realize in retrospect it didn’t come out quite the way I wanted.

I think what I was trying to say, mostly, is that executions are not carried out swiftly or eagerly. And in the case of these exonerations or the types of exonerations they were, is not fully reported.
In my experience, it was extremely difficult to defend the accused. Meaning, that the kinds of circumstances, and associations made them easier targets as guilty of the crime.
This is a distinct difference from the usual indictment of investigators as ‘quick to judge’ or capable of manufacturing evidence out of none. Law enforcers know who the problem types are in any given neighborhood, and more often then not, criminals get away with a lot.
I had to do some research about suspect classes and the higher incidence of incarceration, less parole and execution.
Certainly, the poor are more vulnerable as crime victims and perpetrators, and there are groups more isolated in zones of economic stress.
However, comparing this to the era of the late 60’s to now, for example, the younger generations in these groups have had FAR more opportunity to NOT engage in being a criminal class as a matter of fact.

However, being jailed or engaging the criminal justice system is more of a choice than any other of life’s conflicts, challenges or disasters.
Now that I’m up close and personal with the criminal class every day, there IS a different quality, attitude and understanding going on I know the average civilian isn’t privy to.

Those exonerations were only partial of a wrong that was righted. But that doesn’t mean they still weren’t a menace or a problem to society.
That is but one of the reasons they were on death row in the first place. The reason, still kept from the public.

Now, there are still thousands and thousands of examples of those irrefutably guilty of violent capital crimes.
The justice system’s response is disjointed and as outmoded as the public’s understanding of it.
Justice has to catch up with those irrefutably guilty and what to do with THEM, and freeing up the system for those whom guilt is still a question mark.
The problem is the will for those who have the power to, to make those changes necessary to make execution possible and efficient.
And prioritizing access to those who need defense and legal advocacy the most.
Having NO executions, still allows the most dangerous to have an opportunity to do more damage. Incarceration isn’t enough to keep them from being dangerous. There’s always complaints about prison conditions, about not enough support and advocacy for convicts and in some ways that prison itself is cruel and unusual punishment.
More of a symptom of having no will for being hard enough where it’s most needed and most important.

There is so little will to do ANYTHING, that nothing meaningful EITHER way, is getting done.

And you know what’s said about what all is needed for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.

Regan DuCasse

April 30th, 2012

And btw…
Sometimes, because of my experience with law enforcement and forensic science I expect QUESTIONS and respect that I have some knowledge or insight into how things work.
However I’m also frustrated by it. But I’m not uninformed.
To be lectured by anyone who hasn’t had that experience and can’t, reminds me very much of all those prejudiced anti gay people who lecture gays and the transgendered without knowing any, and not wanting to.
I’m not asked, I’m being TOLD.
It’s as emotional and controversial issue, I know.
But I signed on to this work, precisely to be more knowledgeable and experienced and hopefully to be qualified to know what reforms are necessary.
No one asked what I thought those reforms should be.
Instead, I’m getting told how bad it is by examples like this article.
As if I didn’t already know a great deal about that, and a lot more. It would be extremely difficult for me to get all I know into any given post.

Executing the innocent isn’t as likely as anyone here would like to believe. THAT I know.
And it’s not worth, not having a death penalty at all, when there are people very worthy of it.

Those who the state has not proven guilty, are another category. And those supportive of life in prison, are very contradictory in what they put their trust in.
They don’t trust DNA to establish guilt, just innocence. It can go both ways.
They don’t trust the state in executing the guilty, but they trust the state to keep prisoners locked up enough to keep the public safe.
In the middle is a woeful knowledge of just HOW BAD a bad person can be, and how many of them are running around loose.
Outrage at a national prison population of 2.4 million is misplaced.
There likely should be 5 times that locked up.
And no, it’s not ‘just minor drug charges’.
People who use drugs are dangerous, incompetent, violent, stupid and unstable. Once EVERY avenue of rehab, probation, fines and community service is dried up. They’ve shown themselves to be a major problem. Domestic violence, DUI’s and assaults and robberies are in that mix. THAT is when they start doing time.

The next time a body turns up, or a person goes missing, or there are strings of robberies and rapes, or there’s a casual drive by shooting…don’t wonder how these people are free, it’s those people who think prison should be like a day camp that are also the problem.

We’re commemorating the Los Angeles riots in 1992.
Out of the 50 odd people who were murdered during that nearly two weeks of violence. Half of them remain unsolved.
I have NO illusions about exonerations, the guilty, the innocent or the dangerous.
It’s not an abstraction for me, it’s my professional life.
I learned a lot from my late parents on this issue.
My father was a probation officer, who changed to juvenile probation the last 15 years of his life.
And my mother was a social worker.
And some of their charges lived with us from time to time.
The track of criminality isn’t what I think a lot of people think it is.
But respect that this issue takes up more of my life, than most of those posting here.

Jaime

April 30th, 2012

Regan,
What are your thoughts on Gov. Quinn’s findings/conclusions? What about Cameron Todd Willingham? I ask because I am trying to get you to address the outstanding question – why is it justified for there to be state sponsored executions? What deterrent, help does it serve?