Justice????????

[Bob Wright]

From today's Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) there is a story concerning a man convicted of killing a Memphis Police officer in 1999. He was tried and convicted and sentenced to death row. He appealed and won a new trial, which ended with a hung jury. Another trial ended with a hung jury. He then pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter to obtain a lesser sentence. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Since he had already been imprisoned fifteen years, he was set free.

Bob Wright

 

[wwb]

Just another example of the fact that our LEGAL system is not a JUSTICE system. Seen it before, and I'm sure I'll see it again.

 

[bsnake]

He'll be back in after he commits another violent crime on another innocent.

 

[Jeepnik]

I k now from personal experience that you can commit a violent, premeditated murder of innocent young woman and get a plea deal to 2nd degree. The legal system has nothing to do with justice. It has nothing to do with what is morally correct. It is all about protecting the guilty and letting the victims their families and friends suffer.

There are those that say capital punishment doesn't prevent crime. Well, I can absolutely prove to you that no one who have committed a crime and been executed has ever committed another crime. Start executing the guilty and I assure you it will have an effect on the crime rate. As with a child, you have to be consistent with punishment.

 

[Pat-inCO]

There are those that say capital punishment doesn't prevent crime.
Well, I can absolutely prove to you that no one who have committed
a crime and been executed has ever committed another crime.

You are ABSOLUTELY correct, and I fully agree.
The problem I see are the cases (yes, multiple) where they go to "beyond a
reasonable doubt" for the conviction. I believe a few of those are actually
innocent (DING-DANG few, but a few). Thus the question, do we execute a
few innocent people (let's not get into the discussion of other crimes that
they committed) to assure no repeat offenders of those that are guilty?

I would LOVE nothing more than to be completely sure of the persons guilt,
then, for death penalty cases, be rid of them. Specific example; some mope
is on video, recorded while the crime is in progress, SHOULD be executed
as soon as the initial conviction is complete. He (or she) did it, we can see
that, BE RID OF THEM!

I'll bet there are not a whole lot of people on the forum that would care
about the mope's childhood or family. They had a nasty childhood, (delete
your favorite expletive from here) HAPPENS! That is NOT an excuse to take
it out on anyone else in our society. :roll:

{getting down off my soap box and no longer preaching to the choir}

 

[gramps]

He'll be back in after he commits another violent crime on another innocent.

He might get killed trying to strong arm someone. A lot has changed in the last 15 years. :shock: :mrgreen:
gramps

 

[SamV]

Well, at the risk of playing devil's advocate, and being completly uninformed about that case, I might say justice worked. Why? A retrial was granted and the prosecution could not get a conviction. Twice. Maybe the prosecuting attorneys were not that good. Maybe they really didn't have a good case. Maybe on the fourth go around, the defendent realized he could walk with time served and so accepted the plea. I don't know. I hate to see clearly guilty people get away with their crimes. And like most people, hate to see plea bargains and reduced charges for expediancy.
My Dad, who was as conservative and law and order as they come, always stressed that we have to take the mistakes that let the guilty go free as opposed to possibly punishing the innocent. I served once a jury that dealt with a fatal shooting, and I can say that no one in the jury pool had any sympathy for the shooter. However, everyone struggled deeply with the process.

 

[blume357]

I agree with SamV above... I've seen numerous reports on the internet about some evil doer when in reality it is not the whole story....

interesting side note... was discussing with a friend today about a grandson of a nice lady we know in our small town who got arrested for selling meth.... seems he never went to court for lack of evidence or some such.... my friend then questioned if he was even guilty of this... but I said the last I heard was that while out on bail waiting to go to trial he had "gotten religion and turned his life around"... my point was if you were innocent would you need to 'get religion and turn your life around?" Now don't get me wrong... I hope this is true and he is on the right path... I don't think sending him to prison would have helped....

 

[Phoenix too]

... The legal system has nothing to do with justice. It has nothing to do with what is morally correct. ...

My neighbor is in law school. She has a full-boat scholarship; she's good. The other day she was down here on one of her periodic rants, and I can assure you not only would she agree with the above, she said it, multiple times, during her two-hour rant. She figured after her outburst in class, where (according to her, and I have no reason to doubt her) she took on the prof and the entire class on the subject of morality and justice in the law. She fully expected to lose her scholarship and be kicked out. Again, according to her, she did not go gently in that good night, but called the lot of them names that I can't write here.

Neither side is interested in justice, they are only interested in winning for their side, and morals have no bearing.

 

[blackhawknj]

Conversely it's the attention to technicalities, obscure and often narrow rules that makes the difference between our legal system and so many others.

 

[blume357]

Yep, I'd rather have our legal system with all its flaws and the ability, at least in theory, to improve it than some draconian system where a dictator, religious leader or king and his police decide if you are guilty or not and what punishment you get.

 

[Paul B]

Justice? There ain't any such animal. My neighbor stopped a crime in progress, a felony of grand theft auto to be exact. The perps were juveniles and he gets arrested tried and convicted of aggravated assault. Is literally forced to plead guilty to get probation and not go to prison. Why? because one of the investigating officers was the uncle of one of the perps. Justice? my aching rear end. :x It does not exist.
Paul B.

 

[ronto]

The death penalty is a just punishment if carried out in a timely manner. The problem is it attracts bleeding heart lawyers that stretch it's imposition over decades with costs to the taxpayer of never ending appeals. Life without the possibility of parole would not attract as much attention and thus not as many bleeding heart lawyers and thus would cost the taxpayer much less and would still keep the criminal out of society. Although life w/o parole would not equal the "revenge" component or supposed deterrent effect of the death penalty which has never been proven conclusively.

 

[rugerguy]

key word is "system" and in fact you can see folks all the time, " milk the system" and in this case "work the system"..............NO ,not justice or they would take them out ASAP, and in what ever way or means ,remove them from society, look back in history and see the 'ways and means', please let justice prevail..........
only thing the prison system has become is the "new" mental institutions.........boy are we stupid, Mother Nature does a much better job..........

 

[redhawker]

A retrial 15 years after...hummmm....

I wonder #1 - How many witnesses are now dead? #2 - How many witnesses could not be found? #3 - How many witnesses now (15 years after then first trial, likely 16 - 18 after the actual crime) can't remember things as clearly as 15 years ago?

With the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" it doesn't look like it would be that hard to get at least a hung jury.

 

[gtxmonte]

You guys are quick to judge something or someone you likely know nothing about. Forensics and the like have come light years in the last 15 years. If he was granted a retrial after that long, there was a REASON that was compelling enough for a judge to grant one. Could have been misconduct, new evidence, or any number of things. So blaming the "system" here is very short sighted. We see stories very often of people being released because new evidence, or DNA, or this and that, proved a person was wrongly convicted. So maybe the "system" saved this guy

The fact that he copped to manslaughter, only means his lawyer knew he would likely walk with time served. Doesn't mean he was guilty or innocent.

And while I am a supporter of the death penalty for violent crimes...........the fact that people DO get proven innocent, only fuels the fires to abolish it, or at the least grant these people countless appeals. NOBODY wants to be the cause of an innocent person put to death

 

[blackhawknj]

Conversely I have read of trials where people were convicted 20, 30 and even 40 years later. Again, we don't want something like the People's Court under Roland Freisler.

 

[Jeepnik]

As I mentioned earlier I know that our legal system does not dispense justice. I also know that justice can be and has been dispensed but that individual suffered the consequences. Sad world where folks doing the right thing are the one's punished.

I pray I'm never in that situation cuz I'm going to jail. My advantage today is that I'm old enough where I won't have to serve much time before I'm judged by the only one that matters.

 

[blackhawknj]

"Justice" is a lot like reloading-to get the results you really want you learn to do it for yourself.

 

[Bob Wright]

As a matter of interest, "The Rest of The Story", the one who was freed under that action, was convicted yesterday in the shooting of a young boy. Seems the man was trying to kill a friend of his and his shot struck a 14 year old boy. The boy was wounded and has since recovered from his wounds, but with some nerve damage to his leg.

Bob Wright