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The way death row inmates are treated is arguably a reason to be against death row. There was also a case where a person on death row couldn’t present exculpato

The way death row inmates are treated is arguably a reason to be against death row. There was also a case where a person on death row couldn’t present exculpatory evidence to prove his innocence because his last appeals lawyer didn’t do it. The Supreme Court literally decided you can prove you have evidence that proves your innocence, that you were done dirty by an incompetent lawyer, it doesn’t matter, you should still be killed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinn_v._Ramirez https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinn_v._Ramirez

boomboomsubban 3y ago
One of the other death row inmates mentioned in the article as having failed the junk science law, Kosoul Chanthakoummane, was partly convicted for hypnosis induced testimony. The appeal response on calling it junk science was, paraphrased, "hypnosis induced testimony was known to be bogus in ~2005, when your trial was. You should have argued it then." That alone is terrible. But to make that bullshit even worse, Texas continued to use hypnosis induced testimony until 2021. It makes me wonder when the last death penalty sentence for "shaken baby syndrome" was in Texas.
- lisper 3y ago
  Why? Shaken Baby Syndrome is a real thing. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shaken-baby-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20366619 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shaken-baby-s... [UPDATE] To those of you downvoting me, would you kindly explain why? It seems like a reasonable question to me.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    lisper, it sounds like the only source you've consulted on Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is the Mayo Clinic website. SBS is a subject with a very long history and surrounded by great controversy [1]. I urge you to look a bit further and make an effort to understand why there is controversy. For example, the Wikipedia article on SBS has a section on "Legal Issues" that gives some details. Or you may find informative Wikipedia's article about Waney Squier, a doctor who was involved in SBS cases as an expert witness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waney_Squier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waney_Squier The "Legal Issues" section on the SBS also mentions Waney Squire's case. ____________________ [1] Btw, this is a "controversy" in the sense of often acrimonious debate between experts and not in the sense of the "controversy" that Young Earth Creationists demand be taught in schools. It's a controversy about methodology and medical and science ethics; the kind of thing that gets up some scientists' noses.
  - tbugrara 3y ago
    For the love of god, read the damn article before commenting.
  - beepbooptheory 3y ago
    https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/hypnosis/about/pac-20394405 https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/hypnosis/about/p...
    - lisper 3y ago
      Sorry, you're going to have to be a little more explicit here. What does this have to do with shaken baby syndrome?
  - beerandt 3y ago
    It is, but those claiming psedoscience aren't even claiming that the set of symptoms aren't "real", just that they don't deserve their own label because of the implication. "We can't explain this trio of internal head/brain/eye trauma with lack of corresponding external trauma, but don't you dare make the reasonable claim that shaking a baby can/does nominally cause the symptoms we see when a baby is, in fact, shaken."
    - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
      That's not how it goes. Shaking was proposed as an explanation for the triad, not observed as the cause. Then the syndrome was named after the proposed explanation and used as a justification to assume shaking whenever the triad was observed. The Guardian article makes this timeline clear. Moreover, the Syndrome was used to justify suspicion of deliberate harm in cases where the triad was not observed at all, as I think in Roberson's case, if you read between the lines - no article about the case mentions the triad, only generic injuries that could, allegedly, only be caused by shaking.
    - lisper 3y ago
      Sorry, I am very confused here. The comment I was responding to said: > to make that bullshit even worse, Texas continued to use hypnosis induced testimony until 2021. That is a sentiment with which I sympathize. But then... > It makes me wonder when the last death penalty sentence for "shaken baby syndrome" was in Texas. This I don't get. Shaken baby syndrome is a real thing, and it seems to me that if someone shakes a baby to death they are guilty of murder (or at least negligent homicide) and should be treated no differently than if their victim had been older. What does it have to do with hypnosis?
      - beerandt 3y ago
        It's all about labels. To discredit and manipulate. Because 4th/5th amendment issues aside, if an interrogation or testimony via hypnosis is verifiable, who cares if hypnosis is 'real' or 'junk science'? If a man shakes a baby and that baby dies, who cares if 'SBS' is 'junk science'? It's still murder. The label shouldn't automatically validate (or invalidate/discredit) the underlying information/ action/ admission.
  - rossant 3y ago
    Shaking and child abuse are obviously real things. However, the way to diagnose shaken baby syndrome has been the subject of an ongoing scientific controversy for decades. With several colleagues, we have just published a textbook about this sensitive issue [1]. I've also written about how I, as a neuroscience researcher and software engineer, came into this diagnosis [2]. Finally, an introduction to this fascinating scientific topic can be found here, with many references for those interested [3]. [1] https://shakenbaby.science https://shakenbaby.science [2] https://www.cambridgeblog.org/2023/05/a-journey-into-the-shaken-baby-syndrome-abusive-head-trauma-controversy/ https://www.cambridgeblog.org/2023/05/a-journey-into-the-sha... [3] https://cyrille.rossant.net/introduction-shaken-baby-syndrome-controversy/ https://cyrille.rossant.net/introduction-shaken-baby-syndrom...
    - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
      Hey, can you please post your cambridgeblog.com article on HN? As you say in your article, there must be hundreds, if not thousands of people in jail for having shaken their babies to death. I can't imagine any harm more horrible that our society can perpetrate than punishing someone for the death of their loved ones when they had nothing to do with it. To think that this is done systematically is inconsolable, insufferable to contemplate.
      - rossant 3y ago
        Sure, done: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402 I totally agree. This is insufferable. This is not just a virtual, academic subject to me. I've cofounded an association of French families [1] that has been contacted by 1300+ people in the past 8 years or so. I see parents losing their baby to foster care for 6, 12, 24 months or more. To say they are broken for life is an understatement. I see fathers, mothers, nannies maintain their innocence for years until they are convicted to 5 to 15 years of jail, because medical experts have certified that no other explanation than shaking could have ever caused the child's findings. Three more people I know have been convicted in the past couple of weeks. I feel so absolutely desperate and hopeless seeing people going to jail one after the other, week after week, while I can't do anything about it. All cases are not illegitimate, of course, but there are serious reasons to be doubtful when there is no external evidence of trauma, strong and sustained denials, and no antecedent of abuse. For sure, we have tried to alert medical authorities, doctors, politicians, institutions, judges, celebrities, scientists, journalists for years, and almost no one actually cares, while those who do will do everything in their power to cancel and suppress us (Waney Squier is one among many other examples, Chapter 1 of our Cambridge book provides more examples). I see no other example in our modern history of an active, systematic endeavor that has been so destructive to so many people for so long. [1] https://adikia.fr/ https://adikia.fr/
Spivak 3y ago
It's so frustrating because in the twisted universe where Thomas lives the ruling makes sense. To him justice is an algorithm that produces an outcome and only needs some minimum threshold of "overall the justice system locks up roughly the people we think it ought to" and all the appeals and after-the-fact proving your innocence gets in the way of the efficiency and to him, the effectiveness, of that algorithm. And the thing is in a different context we celebrate this logic. When we do elections we don't really care about choosing the best candidate. We just go through the process, fight to protect the sanctity of the process because what's actually important is that people accept the outcome even if it makes so sense. Peaceful transfer of power and finality.
- rdedev 3y ago
  But those two are not the same right ? In elections everyone involved (candidates and voters) have agreed to the system. If they feel the system is not working as such they could always check the results. Sometimes something may pop up and we update the results. This is not the case in the justice system you mentioned above where it's not possible to correct any mistakes after the fact
  - Spivak 3y ago
    You are saying pretty much the opposite of reality. For elections there is an emphasis on finality and we would never overturn an election years later because of something like I had "an incompetent campaign manager." You can do things like recounts but the process ends shortly after the election and then that's it. But for criminal trials the appeals process is effectively endless, in most cases if there's new evidence that that proves your innocence you can get a new trail or if it's definitive enough just be let out of jail with an "our bad." I think this is good but Thomas wants it to be more like elections where once it's decided it's decided, you go through your punishment and we just accept that sometimes mistakes will be made.
- lozenge 3y ago
  It's called "just"ice, not "systemish". Getting the right outcome is meant to be a core goal of the system. Besides, there are many legal reasonings that would allow the process to give the right answer - that innocent people should not be killed. Thomas chose to find a different reasoning instead.
beerandt 3y ago
>you can prove you have evidence that proves your innocence, No. This isn't a case of OJ finding the Real Killers(tm). It wasn't even "new" evidence. >Ramirez appealed to federal court where his federal public defenders uncovered evidence of intellectual disability and extensive childhood abuse that hadn't been presented at his initial trial. The ruling only overturned (the 9th circuit precedent) whether the 'default' position of the appeals court should be to accept/consider new arguments not made at trial. It was not suddenly discovered that the convicted might be intellectually disabled. Which is itself is still quite the leap from suddenly discovering 'exonerating evidence'.
- luminouslow 3y ago
  You missed the second part: >"Jones also appealed to federal court, where federal investigators found evidence suggesting he was innocent. In both cases, ..."
  - vGPU 3y ago
    He was already on parole for a previous violent felony. The police literally arrested him at the scene of the murder where he was half naked and covered in the blood of the victims. He also admitted to having committed statutory rape on the 15 year old that he murdered. Just about every single person on death row will suddenly claim to have found yet another round of evidence proving innocence when their previous appeal doesn’t work out. It’s a classic delaying tactic, and in this case I agree with the Supreme Court.
    - Retric 3y ago
      The Supreme Court decides what types of arguments can be made, they remand the specifics of individual cases to lower courts. It would have been perfectly fine to say your guilty as hell, but feel free to argue your case indefinitely as there aren’t enough death row inmates to matter.
      - beerandt 3y ago
qingcharles 3y ago
Yes, it's often very, very, very hard to introduce new evidence of your innocence after trial. Trial is the point that you show all available evidence to the jury. In Illinois you can attempt to present your evidence only after you have exhausted all of your regular appeal routes (appellate court, state supreme court, SCOTUS, state habeas corpus, fed habeas -- there are 11 levels here first) which can take a decade. Then you have to petition the court. But you have to do it yourself, you don't get a lawyer to help you at the first stage. So if you have no idea what you're doing (and certainly a prison is going to do whatever they can to impede you in this by restricting your access to any instructions or legal materials), then you just have to suck it up and take the needle. In fact, I don't think enough emphasis is put on the fact that these people are generally fighting their cases from prison and it is 1000X harder to do from inside than outside. They have no access to a phone directory to try to call anyone. They might not have any money to make calls. The prison might only give them one free letter a week. And then you need an address to write to - where do you get that? A phone call is probably limited to 20 mins, and if you call and the other person misses it, you can't call back to a prison. And don't get me started on legal materials in prison. If you are lucky enough where you can actually get to a library (all prison law libraries shut during COVID and many have never reopened) you'll rarely see a computer. Often it is just piles of moldy books. And of course the previous person didn't want to risk the chance they would ever get back to the library, so at the very least they have torn out all the pages they need from the book you wanted to read, or worse, have straight up stolen the book. And we're not taking into account how much energy is required to fight the system and how exhausting it is for an inmate. It is mentally unbelievable to do all this work locked up. You have to do everything on paper with a pencil too at most places. Copying out huge citations and writing huge motions. Then you have to perhaps write them out another 19 times because that's how many copies the court requires by law and you don't have access to a photocopier. Plus everyone around you at the prison is just running buck wild, screaming, shouting, fighting, gambling. It's no fun. And these lawyers fighting for death row inmates are awesome, amazing, unbelievable people, but there are very, very few of them. And only death row cases get any real traction. The innocent people who are convicted and get life without parole don't get noticed. The innocent people who get 80 years without parole are way down the list, even though it is a de facto life sentence. I'm helping a guy now who is inside on a life-without-parole case. No lawyer has stepped up to help him out. I'm trying to help him find a lawyer. I've just been helping a guy reconnect to modern life after getting out from a 40 year sentence for a crime he didn't do.
spamizbad 3y ago
That's because the purpose of the death penalty is to function as a sort of secular human sacrifice, to ward off evil-doers possibly doing bad things, due to a belief that deep down bad guys are rational actors and will choose not to do commit capital murder based on punishment.
- Filligree 3y ago
  Um, no? It’s to achieve vengeance. This doesn’t seem that complicated.
  - j_maffe 3y ago
    Yes that's usually the motive behind its supporters but not the used argument when it is criticized.
    - JohnBooty 3y ago
      Yeah. People (particularly politicians, in public) are afraid to say that mostly what they want is vengeance. So they frame it as "deterring others in the future" which sounds sort of noble. It's like they know the vengeance thing is f--ed up. Why else would they lie? Perhaps even worse is that the politicians themselves might not even crave vengeance. A lot of the time, they're just pandering to voters who want it.
- dsego 3y ago
  It's retributive justice, it's not a deterrent. To quote a post I recently found resonating with me: "Look, we don’t necessarily hang murderers to deter other people from committing the same offence. We kill them simply because the punishment has to carry the same weight as the offence. The family of the murderer must go through the same anguish and pain that the murder victim’s family went through. The killer has to be stopped from enjoying all the things that come with being alive. When you kill another person, you deprive them of worldly enjoyments like food, sex, conversations, bathing, laughing, crying and therefore it is only befitting that you too get deprived of same and the only way to do so is through the death sentence. If we are going to shy away from punishing wrong-doers on the basis that the punishment won’t stop other people from committing the same offence then we might as well not send anyone to jail because sending people to jail has never stopped other people from committing the same offences." https://www.sundaystandard.info/iocom-a-retributionist-i-support-the-death-penalty-2/ https://www.sundaystandard.info/iocom-a-retributionist-i-sup...
awinter-py 3y ago
scotus doctrine on capital appeals rapidly converging to 'the sign says abandon hope all ye who enter here and it would violate due process if we didn't tap the sign'
Racing0461 3y ago
This is the kind of bullshit that makes me against government death penality. If the supreme court can't throw out "administrative procedure" in favor of a "correct ruling", then where does one go next? Is the only way to get the "correct outcome" a BLM george floyd type protest? It seems like the court system is becoming like getting support from tech companies these days where the only way to get a "normal" level of service/outcome is to start a shitstorm on twitter as the normal support systems doesn't have the approval to make a profit affecting decision.
- kbelder 3y ago
  But following proper administrative procedure is a key component of a fair justice system. It's not all that's necessary, but it is necessary, otherwise you have rules being bent on whims of justices, prosecutors, or public sentiment.
  - Racing0461 3y ago
    Yeah, i guess a governor's pardon is the systematic solution for a case like this (if he is indeed innocent).
slashdev 3y ago
It would make for a good Monty Python sketch. That’s really a sad state of affairs.

boomboomsubban 3y ago

One of the other death row inmates mentioned in the article as having failed the junk science law, Kosoul Chanthakoummane, was partly convicted for hypnosis induced testimony. The appeal response on calling it junk science was, paraphrased, "hypnosis induced testimony was known to be bogus in ~2005, when your trial was. You should have argued it then." That alone is terrible. But to make that bullshit even worse, Texas continued to use hypnosis induced testimony until 2021. It makes me wonder when the last death penalty sentence for "shaken baby syndrome" was in Texas.

lisper 3y ago
Why? Shaken Baby Syndrome is a real thing. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shaken-baby-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20366619 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shaken-baby-s... [UPDATE] To those of you downvoting me, would you kindly explain why? It seems like a reasonable question to me.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
  lisper, it sounds like the only source you've consulted on Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is the Mayo Clinic website. SBS is a subject with a very long history and surrounded by great controversy [1]. I urge you to look a bit further and make an effort to understand why there is controversy. For example, the Wikipedia article on SBS has a section on "Legal Issues" that gives some details. Or you may find informative Wikipedia's article about Waney Squier, a doctor who was involved in SBS cases as an expert witness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waney_Squier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waney_Squier The "Legal Issues" section on the SBS also mentions Waney Squire's case. ____________________ [1] Btw, this is a "controversy" in the sense of often acrimonious debate between experts and not in the sense of the "controversy" that Young Earth Creationists demand be taught in schools. It's a controversy about methodology and medical and science ethics; the kind of thing that gets up some scientists' noses.
- tbugrara 3y ago
  For the love of god, read the damn article before commenting.
- beepbooptheory 3y ago
  https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/hypnosis/about/pac-20394405 https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/hypnosis/about/p...
  - lisper 3y ago
    Sorry, you're going to have to be a little more explicit here. What does this have to do with shaken baby syndrome?
- beerandt 3y ago
  It is, but those claiming psedoscience aren't even claiming that the set of symptoms aren't "real", just that they don't deserve their own label because of the implication. "We can't explain this trio of internal head/brain/eye trauma with lack of corresponding external trauma, but don't you dare make the reasonable claim that shaking a baby can/does nominally cause the symptoms we see when a baby is, in fact, shaken."
  - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    That's not how it goes. Shaking was proposed as an explanation for the triad, not observed as the cause. Then the syndrome was named after the proposed explanation and used as a justification to assume shaking whenever the triad was observed. The Guardian article makes this timeline clear. Moreover, the Syndrome was used to justify suspicion of deliberate harm in cases where the triad was not observed at all, as I think in Roberson's case, if you read between the lines - no article about the case mentions the triad, only generic injuries that could, allegedly, only be caused by shaking.
  - lisper 3y ago
    Sorry, I am very confused here. The comment I was responding to said: > to make that bullshit even worse, Texas continued to use hypnosis induced testimony until 2021. That is a sentiment with which I sympathize. But then... > It makes me wonder when the last death penalty sentence for "shaken baby syndrome" was in Texas. This I don't get. Shaken baby syndrome is a real thing, and it seems to me that if someone shakes a baby to death they are guilty of murder (or at least negligent homicide) and should be treated no differently than if their victim had been older. What does it have to do with hypnosis?
    - beerandt 3y ago
      It's all about labels. To discredit and manipulate. Because 4th/5th amendment issues aside, if an interrogation or testimony via hypnosis is verifiable, who cares if hypnosis is 'real' or 'junk science'? If a man shakes a baby and that baby dies, who cares if 'SBS' is 'junk science'? It's still murder. The label shouldn't automatically validate (or invalidate/discredit) the underlying information/ action/ admission.
- rossant 3y ago
  Shaking and child abuse are obviously real things. However, the way to diagnose shaken baby syndrome has been the subject of an ongoing scientific controversy for decades. With several colleagues, we have just published a textbook about this sensitive issue [1]. I've also written about how I, as a neuroscience researcher and software engineer, came into this diagnosis [2]. Finally, an introduction to this fascinating scientific topic can be found here, with many references for those interested [3]. [1] https://shakenbaby.science https://shakenbaby.science [2] https://www.cambridgeblog.org/2023/05/a-journey-into-the-shaken-baby-syndrome-abusive-head-trauma-controversy/ https://www.cambridgeblog.org/2023/05/a-journey-into-the-sha... [3] https://cyrille.rossant.net/introduction-shaken-baby-syndrome-controversy/ https://cyrille.rossant.net/introduction-shaken-baby-syndrom...
  - YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    Hey, can you please post your cambridgeblog.com article on HN? As you say in your article, there must be hundreds, if not thousands of people in jail for having shaken their babies to death. I can't imagine any harm more horrible that our society can perpetrate than punishing someone for the death of their loved ones when they had nothing to do with it. To think that this is done systematically is inconsolable, insufferable to contemplate.
    - rossant 3y ago
      Sure, done: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402 I totally agree. This is insufferable. This is not just a virtual, academic subject to me. I've cofounded an association of French families [1] that has been contacted by 1300+ people in the past 8 years or so. I see parents losing their baby to foster care for 6, 12, 24 months or more. To say they are broken for life is an understatement. I see fathers, mothers, nannies maintain their innocence for years until they are convicted to 5 to 15 years of jail, because medical experts have certified that no other explanation than shaking could have ever caused the child's findings. Three more people I know have been convicted in the past couple of weeks. I feel so absolutely desperate and hopeless seeing people going to jail one after the other, week after week, while I can't do anything about it. All cases are not illegitimate, of course, but there are serious reasons to be doubtful when there is no external evidence of trauma, strong and sustained denials, and no antecedent of abuse. For sure, we have tried to alert medical authorities, doctors, politicians, institutions, judges, celebrities, scientists, journalists for years, and almost no one actually cares, while those who do will do everything in their power to cancel and suppress us (Waney Squier is one among many other examples, Chapter 1 of our Cambridge book provides more examples). I see no other example in our modern history of an active, systematic endeavor that has been so destructive to so many people for so long. [1] https://adikia.fr/ https://adikia.fr/

Spivak 3y ago

It's so frustrating because in the twisted universe where Thomas lives the ruling makes sense. To him justice is an algorithm that produces an outcome and only needs some minimum threshold of "overall the justice system locks up roughly the people we think it ought to" and all the appeals and after-the-fact proving your innocence gets in the way of the efficiency and to him, the effectiveness, of that algorithm. And the thing is in a different context we celebrate this logic. When we do elections we don't really care about choosing the best candidate. We just go through the process, fight to protect the sanctity of the process because what's actually important is that people accept the outcome even if it makes so sense. Peaceful transfer of power and finality.

rdedev 3y ago
But those two are not the same right ? In elections everyone involved (candidates and voters) have agreed to the system. If they feel the system is not working as such they could always check the results. Sometimes something may pop up and we update the results. This is not the case in the justice system you mentioned above where it's not possible to correct any mistakes after the fact
- Spivak 3y ago
  You are saying pretty much the opposite of reality. For elections there is an emphasis on finality and we would never overturn an election years later because of something like I had "an incompetent campaign manager." You can do things like recounts but the process ends shortly after the election and then that's it. But for criminal trials the appeals process is effectively endless, in most cases if there's new evidence that that proves your innocence you can get a new trail or if it's definitive enough just be let out of jail with an "our bad." I think this is good but Thomas wants it to be more like elections where once it's decided it's decided, you go through your punishment and we just accept that sometimes mistakes will be made.
lozenge 3y ago
It's called "just"ice, not "systemish". Getting the right outcome is meant to be a core goal of the system. Besides, there are many legal reasonings that would allow the process to give the right answer - that innocent people should not be killed. Thomas chose to find a different reasoning instead.

beerandt 3y ago

>you can prove you have evidence that proves your innocence, No. This isn't a case of OJ finding the Real Killers(tm). It wasn't even "new" evidence. >Ramirez appealed to federal court where his federal public defenders uncovered evidence of intellectual disability and extensive childhood abuse that hadn't been presented at his initial trial. The ruling only overturned (the 9th circuit precedent) whether the 'default' position of the appeals court should be to accept/consider new arguments not made at trial. It was not suddenly discovered that the convicted might be intellectually disabled. Which is itself is still quite the leap from suddenly discovering 'exonerating evidence'.

luminouslow 3y ago
You missed the second part: >"Jones also appealed to federal court, where federal investigators found evidence suggesting he was innocent. In both cases, ..."
- vGPU 3y ago
  He was already on parole for a previous violent felony. The police literally arrested him at the scene of the murder where he was half naked and covered in the blood of the victims. He also admitted to having committed statutory rape on the 15 year old that he murdered. Just about every single person on death row will suddenly claim to have found yet another round of evidence proving innocence when their previous appeal doesn’t work out. It’s a classic delaying tactic, and in this case I agree with the Supreme Court.
  - Retric 3y ago
    The Supreme Court decides what types of arguments can be made, they remand the specifics of individual cases to lower courts. It would have been perfectly fine to say your guilty as hell, but feel free to argue your case indefinitely as there aren’t enough death row inmates to matter.
    - beerandt 3y ago

qingcharles 3y ago

Yes, it's often very, very, very hard to introduce new evidence of your innocence after trial. Trial is the point that you show all available evidence to the jury. In Illinois you can attempt to present your evidence only after you have exhausted all of your regular appeal routes (appellate court, state supreme court, SCOTUS, state habeas corpus, fed habeas -- there are 11 levels here first) which can take a decade. Then you have to petition the court. But you have to do it yourself, you don't get a lawyer to help you at the first stage. So if you have no idea what you're doing (and certainly a prison is going to do whatever they can to impede you in this by restricting your access to any instructions or legal materials), then you just have to suck it up and take the needle. In fact, I don't think enough emphasis is put on the fact that these people are generally fighting their cases from prison and it is 1000X harder to do from inside than outside. They have no access to a phone directory to try to call anyone. They might not have any money to make calls. The prison might only give them one free letter a week. And then you need an address to write to - where do you get that? A phone call is probably limited to 20 mins, and if you call and the other person misses it, you can't call back to a prison. And don't get me started on legal materials in prison. If you are lucky enough where you can actually get to a library (all prison law libraries shut during COVID and many have never reopened) you'll rarely see a computer. Often it is just piles of moldy books. And of course the previous person didn't want to risk the chance they would ever get back to the library, so at the very least they have torn out all the pages they need from the book you wanted to read, or worse, have straight up stolen the book. And we're not taking into account how much energy is required to fight the system and how exhausting it is for an inmate. It is mentally unbelievable to do all this work locked up. You have to do everything on paper with a pencil too at most places. Copying out huge citations and writing huge motions. Then you have to perhaps write them out another 19 times because that's how many copies the court requires by law and you don't have access to a photocopier. Plus everyone around you at the prison is just running buck wild, screaming, shouting, fighting, gambling. It's no fun. And these lawyers fighting for death row inmates are awesome, amazing, unbelievable people, but there are very, very few of them. And only death row cases get any real traction. The innocent people who are convicted and get life without parole don't get noticed. The innocent people who get 80 years without parole are way down the list, even though it is a de facto life sentence. I'm helping a guy now who is inside on a life-without-parole case. No lawyer has stepped up to help him out. I'm trying to help him find a lawyer. I've just been helping a guy reconnect to modern life after getting out from a 40 year sentence for a crime he didn't do.

spamizbad 3y ago

That's because the purpose of the death penalty is to function as a sort of secular human sacrifice, to ward off evil-doers possibly doing bad things, due to a belief that deep down bad guys are rational actors and will choose not to do commit capital murder based on punishment.

Filligree 3y ago
Um, no? It’s to achieve vengeance. This doesn’t seem that complicated.
- j_maffe 3y ago
  Yes that's usually the motive behind its supporters but not the used argument when it is criticized.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    Yeah. People (particularly politicians, in public) are afraid to say that mostly what they want is vengeance. So they frame it as "deterring others in the future" which sounds sort of noble. It's like they know the vengeance thing is f--ed up. Why else would they lie? Perhaps even worse is that the politicians themselves might not even crave vengeance. A lot of the time, they're just pandering to voters who want it.
dsego 3y ago
It's retributive justice, it's not a deterrent. To quote a post I recently found resonating with me: "Look, we don’t necessarily hang murderers to deter other people from committing the same offence. We kill them simply because the punishment has to carry the same weight as the offence. The family of the murderer must go through the same anguish and pain that the murder victim’s family went through. The killer has to be stopped from enjoying all the things that come with being alive. When you kill another person, you deprive them of worldly enjoyments like food, sex, conversations, bathing, laughing, crying and therefore it is only befitting that you too get deprived of same and the only way to do so is through the death sentence. If we are going to shy away from punishing wrong-doers on the basis that the punishment won’t stop other people from committing the same offence then we might as well not send anyone to jail because sending people to jail has never stopped other people from committing the same offences." https://www.sundaystandard.info/iocom-a-retributionist-i-support-the-death-penalty-2/ https://www.sundaystandard.info/iocom-a-retributionist-i-sup...

awinter-py 3y ago

scotus doctrine on capital appeals rapidly converging to 'the sign says abandon hope all ye who enter here and it would violate due process if we didn't tap the sign'

Racing0461 3y ago

This is the kind of bullshit that makes me against government death penality. If the supreme court can't throw out "administrative procedure" in favor of a "correct ruling", then where does one go next? Is the only way to get the "correct outcome" a BLM george floyd type protest? It seems like the court system is becoming like getting support from tech companies these days where the only way to get a "normal" level of service/outcome is to start a shitstorm on twitter as the normal support systems doesn't have the approval to make a profit affecting decision.

kbelder 3y ago
But following proper administrative procedure is a key component of a fair justice system. It's not all that's necessary, but it is necessary, otherwise you have rules being bent on whims of justices, prosecutors, or public sentiment.
- Racing0461 3y ago
  Yeah, i guess a governor's pardon is the systematic solution for a case like this (if he is indeed innocent).

slashdev 3y ago

It would make for a good Monty Python sketch. That’s really a sad state of affairs.