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From what I understand, Texas executes possibly/probably/definitely innocent people with regularity.

• _heimdall 2y ago
  That seems likes a pretty bold statement to make without backing it up further. To say a state with the death penalty could sometimes get it wrong is one thing, but your phrasing makes it sound more like the state regularly commits murder.
  • int_19h 2y ago
    I suggest taking a look at Radley Balko's writings, for starters.
  • bugglebeetle 2y ago
    Abbot just pardoned an open white supremacist, who publicly expressed his desire to kill BLM protesters, before actually going out and doing it, so your shock at the questioning of how criminal justice is pursued in Texas seems a bit naive.
    • Hnrobert42 2y ago
      This is such an ad hoc argument.
    • _heimdall 2y ago
      I wasn't questioning criminal justice in Texas broadly, the topic was innocent people being put to death. > From what I understand, Texas executes possibly/probably/definitely innocent people with regularity. The GP comment seems to imply that Texas is intentionally putting innocent people to death regularly. That had nothing to do with the governor or pardons.
      • bugglebeetle 2y ago
        [flagged]
        • _heimdall 2y ago
          You could help explain the connection a bit more. The original topic is wrongfully execution, your example seems to be wrongful release? Is your issue with the death penalty or governor's pardon power?
          • dragonwriter 2y ago
            The example is a means of wrongful execution (sanction of private execution of those seen as politically undesirable by the leadership of the State.)
            • _heimdall 2y ago
              The example higher up the chain is of Abbot pardoning someone though. What execution are you referring to in the example?
              • dllthomas 2y ago
                IIUC what dragonwriter is saying is that by way of pardoning the murderer, Abbott is condoning the murder, making it in a sense a "private execution". I think that logic is sufficiently sound, provided we know we are not being precise. I don't know enough about the case to say whether it actually applies here.
                • _heimdall 2y ago
                  I haven't seen anything that clearly lays out Abbott's reasoning or intent, though I may very well have missed it. Pardons aren't always condoning a person for the crime they were convicted of. The legal system is fallible and writing clear laws to handle ant scenario that comes up is impossible. A pardon can be used to free an individual who seems to have been wrongfully convicted but without sufficient proof or process for an appeal. It can also be used to free individuals who have been rehabilitated, or who the executive believes has learned from their crime and is ready to return to public life. I have no idea if Abbott was motivates by anything like that or if it was more akin to jury nullification, but I wouldn't assume that a pardon can only mean that the elected official is condoning the crime itself.
    • vsuperpower2020 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • wudangmonk 2y ago
        I believe the outrage is not about how good this particular 'martyr' is but because he was found guilty by the same system that decides when a person can reasonably use deadly force in a state that has laws specifically designed to 'stand your ground' and even then he was found guilty by a jury of his peers. So with everything going for him he was still found guilty, so now someone can undo all of that just because they feel like it?. This spits in the face of the entire state and its judicial system.
        • _heimdall 2y ago
          Wouldn't that argument extend to every government? Every state has to decide what level of force or violence is allowed and in what situations, and the power given to individuals will never match the power of the state. It sounds more like an anarchist argument than an anti-Texas argument.
    • decremental 2y ago
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  • bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    it is pretty difficult to make statements about innocence once someone is dead and everyone involved with the case has moved on, however there are a number of cases in which it is obvious that the standard of beyond the shadow of a doubt was not meant, not even beyond a reasonable doubt - these cases are extremely doubtful and in that case it is reasonable just to describe them as "innocent" https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence/executed-but-possibly-innocent https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence/execute... A lot of these possibly innocent should just be described as innocent, because the "possibly" adds insult to execution.
    • _heimdall 2y ago
      Unfortunately we all agree to live under this rule of law though. "Innocent" legally only means you weren't convicted, and whether standards like beyond a shadow of a doubt was met is up to the jury and later the appeals court. I agree the system is terrible, if even one innocent person can be found guilty and punished or even killed then the system is broken in my opinion. We can't fix that one-off though, and targeting one state's use of the death penalty is only going after a more obvious symptom while ignoring the root cause. While I will always support seeing a person wrongfully convicted go free, I'd much prefer a fundamental revisit of our legal system so we don't have to catch mistakes like that after the fact.
• steve76 2y ago
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