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> the government has not shown enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted The jury only provided the unanimous guilty verdic

by awb 2y ago

> the government has not shown enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted The jury only provided the unanimous guilty verdict. After that point, the defendant has been declared guilty beyond all reasonable doubt by the state, and it's up to the judge to determine the appropriate punishment for someone guilty of the crime of 1st degree murder, robbery, etc. It's possible that some on the jury did not want the death penalty, but were not ready to acquit. > I'm against it because I don't think it's a power the state should be able to wield. To your point, the Innocence Project claims 251 exonerations, with ~9% (22) exonerations coming after the death penalty had already occured. The IP reported receiving 65,600 letters for assistance, so around ~0.4% of all requests for help were later proven to be wrongful convictions. There are currently around 2,200 prisoners on Death Row (https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row/overview/death-row-usa https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row/overview/death-row-us...). Assuming the ~0.4% wrongful conviction rate is representative for this population, that would be around 8-9 people. Some States have paused executions, and the US executes about ~20 people per year. So that would be a wrongful execution every ~12.5 years on average, again if these percentages are representative of death row convictions.

JohnBooty 2y ago
Friend, this is completely the wrong math on so many levels! I don't even know where to start... these numbers are not even remotely representative of anything about the larger prison population. The IP reported receiving 65,600 letters for assistance, so around ~0.4% of all requests for help were later proven to be wrongful convictions. [...] Assuming the ~0.4% wrongful conviction rate is representative for this population For this to be even remotely representative of the overall wrongful conviction rate, this would mean that the IP thoroughly investigated and pursued all 65,600 cases and that new and completely fair trials were conducted in all 65,600 cases. - The 251 exonerations were obtained by pursuing only a small fraction of those 65,600 cases. Presumably ones where they felt most certain of overturning the conviction. - The 65,600 letter-writers are surely not representative of the overall prison population; this is a subset of convicts who have the resources to know about the IP and get a letter to them, with some kind of self-belief in their own innocence - While apparently not true in this case the standards for death sentences tend to be higher than those for other convictions because they are so likely to be appealed, so the percentage of wrongfully convicted people on Death Row is likely to be different than that of the general convict population - etc etc etc I don't think your numbers are correct even as a back-of-the-envelope Fermi equation sort of estimate...
- awb 2y ago
  Sure, it’s a ballpark, but in the context of a conversation about how many innocent people are being executed, I think the wrongful conviction rate of the entire prison population is less relevant than a ballpark rate of those wrongfully sentenced to life/death. For example, if the wrongful conviction rate for minor offenses or white collar crimes was as high as 10%, it wouldn’t necessarily indicate that 10% of people sentenced to death were also wrongfully convicted. Its very possible that juries dealing with more serious crimes and more serious punishments are more careful in their decisions or innately require a higher burden of proof to convict. I assumed that most of the letters received by the IP are for life/death sentences or at least major crimes with multi-decade long sentences, which I think would probably have a more consistent wrongful conviction rate in the group vs. the entire prison population. And while you’re right that the IP might only have the resources to attempt to overturn the top X% cases, one could assume that they don’t win all their cases and that the next tier of cases they don’t accept would have diminishing returns. So I think it’s fair to treat this estimate as closer to a lower bound with some significant error bars, but I’d be surprised if the reality is 5x or 10x higher.
blendergeek 2y ago
> The jury only provided the unanimous guilty verdict. After that point, the defendant has been declared guilty beyond all reasonable doubt by the state, and it's up to the judge to determine the appropriate punishment for someone guilty of the crime of 1st degree murder, robbery, etc. In Missouri (as in most US States with capital punishment), the death penalty must separately be approved by the jury after the jury convicts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States#Sentencing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Un...
- awb 2y ago
  Thank you, I learned something new. And overall if you’re going to have the death penalty , probably a better process than a single judge deciding.

by awb 2y ago

JohnBooty 2y ago

Friend, this is completely the wrong math on so many levels! I don't even know where to start... these numbers are not even remotely representative of anything about the larger prison population. The IP reported receiving 65,600 letters for assistance, so around ~0.4% of all requests for help were later proven to be wrongful convictions. [...] Assuming the ~0.4% wrongful conviction rate is representative for this population For this to be even remotely representative of the overall wrongful conviction rate, this would mean that the IP thoroughly investigated and pursued all 65,600 cases and that new and completely fair trials were conducted in all 65,600 cases. - The 251 exonerations were obtained by pursuing only a small fraction of those 65,600 cases. Presumably ones where they felt most certain of overturning the conviction. - The 65,600 letter-writers are surely not representative of the overall prison population; this is a subset of convicts who have the resources to know about the IP and get a letter to them, with some kind of self-belief in their own innocence - While apparently not true in this case the standards for death sentences tend to be higher than those for other convictions because they are so likely to be appealed, so the percentage of wrongfully convicted people on Death Row is likely to be different than that of the general convict population - etc etc etc I don't think your numbers are correct even as a back-of-the-envelope Fermi equation sort of estimate...

awb 2y ago
Sure, it’s a ballpark, but in the context of a conversation about how many innocent people are being executed, I think the wrongful conviction rate of the entire prison population is less relevant than a ballpark rate of those wrongfully sentenced to life/death. For example, if the wrongful conviction rate for minor offenses or white collar crimes was as high as 10%, it wouldn’t necessarily indicate that 10% of people sentenced to death were also wrongfully convicted. Its very possible that juries dealing with more serious crimes and more serious punishments are more careful in their decisions or innately require a higher burden of proof to convict. I assumed that most of the letters received by the IP are for life/death sentences or at least major crimes with multi-decade long sentences, which I think would probably have a more consistent wrongful conviction rate in the group vs. the entire prison population. And while you’re right that the IP might only have the resources to attempt to overturn the top X% cases, one could assume that they don’t win all their cases and that the next tier of cases they don’t accept would have diminishing returns. So I think it’s fair to treat this estimate as closer to a lower bound with some significant error bars, but I’d be surprised if the reality is 5x or 10x higher.

blendergeek 2y ago

> The jury only provided the unanimous guilty verdict. After that point, the defendant has been declared guilty beyond all reasonable doubt by the state, and it's up to the judge to determine the appropriate punishment for someone guilty of the crime of 1st degree murder, robbery, etc. In Missouri (as in most US States with capital punishment), the death penalty must separately be approved by the jury after the jury convicts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States#Sentencing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Un...

awb 2y ago
Thank you, I learned something new. And overall if you’re going to have the death penalty , probably a better process than a single judge deciding.