4 ms·

The full quote from the article in justia.com states the following: "In November of 1999, University City police approached Asaro to speak with her about the mu

The full quote from the article in justia.com states the following: "In November of 1999, University City police approached Asaro to speak with her about the murder. Asaro told the police that Williams admitted to her that he had killed Gayle. The next day, the police searched the Buick LeSabre and found the Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator belonging to Gayle. The police also recovered the laptop computer from Glenn Roberts. The laptop was identified as the one stolen from Gayle's residence." The only thing linking the laptop to Williams was the testimony of a witness. Even if the witness is telling the truth, he has no way of knowing how Williams obtained the laptop. By any reasonable standard, all this is extremely flimsy evidence: More than a year after the murder, the police found a "Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator" in the suspect's car that belonged to the victim? And someone testified that Williams had the victim's laptop. And it is on the basis of this pitifully weak evidence that you would justify the execution of Williams, the suspect? Even though, as the Innocence Project correctly observes, there is no direct physical evidence linking Williams to the crime scene, and the DNA recovered from the crime scene does not match Williams? https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/2003/sc-83934-1.html https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/2003/sc-...

MikeAmelung 2y ago
I was just helping everyone understand that your important clarification, was in fact, wrong. Since I wasn't on the jury, I can't say whether or not I would have been ok with the death penalty in this case, although the murder was particularly heinous.
- diogenes_atx 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - lolinder 2y ago
    If the ruler and calculator in fact belonged to the victim that is an important clarification of your "the police did not find the victim's property in Williams' car", and your reaction is unnecessarily dismissive. Just acknowledge the error and move on, no need for sarcastic defensiveness.
    - diogenes_atx 2y ago
      Even if the police were able to establish that the ruler and calculator belonged to the victim, it is merely circumstantial evidence. It does not prove Williams was the killer. Here is a quick summary of the main issues: (1) There is no reliable evidence that Williams is guilty of the crime; (2) The DNA evidence from the crime scene does not match Williams; (3) Numerous legal experts, including St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, argued convincingly that Williams' death sentence should have been commuted to life in prison, at a minimum; (4) A Republican governor ignored the facts and legal opinions and simply murdered Williams.
      - lolinder 2y ago
        > Even if the police were able to establish that the ruler and calculator belonged to the victim, it is merely circumstantial evidence. It does not prove Williams was the killer. I agree. You were still wrong in ways that do matter. Acknowledging it gracefully makes your case stronger, not weaker.
      - qingcharles 2y ago
        What percentage of trials rely on circumstantial evidence? It has to be a high percentage.
      - xapata 2y ago
        Isn't the jury responsible for determining what's reliable evidence?
        komali2 2y ago
        Kind of, They can also be instructed to ignore certain evidence, or certain evidence can be barred from being shown to them.
        ekidd 2y ago
        Juries absolutely do make errors, including ones which result in innocent people being put to death. In a number of cases, the Innocence Project has certainly managed to find hard DNA evidence that linked the actual murderer to the crime, resulting in saving people from death row. One of my friends worked on some of these cases. As former law enforcement, he was very much aware of the various ways the system can fail. Police officers commit perjury on the stand, "expert" witnesses use pseudoscience with zero factual evidence (there are processes to prevent this which have gotten slightly better), and there are shockingly terrible public defenders.
- analog31 2y ago
  As I understand it, you have to be OK with the death penalty, to be on a capital jury.
  - atoav 2y ago
    Of all the situations within which it would be morally okay to lie..
    - encoderer 2y ago
      false.
      - partitioned 2y ago
        you mean, true?
  - norir 2y ago
    This in and of itself very likely creates a bias against the defendant. For me, there is overwhelming evidence that many innocent people have been executed. To support the death penalty, you seem likely to either not believe in systemic injustice (which means you are also probably more likely to believe flimsy testimony) or accept that innocent lives are a tolerable tradeoff to ensure that some people are executed for their crimes. Both groups seem more likely to convict to me than a random sample. Personally, I also feel that it is morally wrong to give jurors life and death decision making power. The jurors themselves can be deeply harmed by this if they later learn that they convicted a defendant on the basis of false evidence. I think the bigger problem though is that the death penalty is too abstract. There are many people who believe that certain crimes are worthy of execution. I don't personally agree, but I accept other's beliefs on that point. But even if I grant the righteousness of execution in certain cases, it seems nearly impossible to implement justly and without heavy costs to society. This includes the costs to the people who must carry out the execution as well as the exceedingly high financial costs relative to other forms of punishment.
    - analog31 2y ago
- amiga386 2y ago
  It doesn't matter how heinous the murder was if you have the wrong suspect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DrsVhzbLzU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DrsVhzbLzU > Priti Patel: this is about having deterrents... > Ian Hislop: It's not a deterrent killing the wrong people!
  - graemep 2y ago
    its not a deterrent for multiple other reasons too: 1. most murderers do not expect to get caught if they are acting at all rationally, and do not care if they do not, and, 2. unless you execute a high proportion of people committing a particular crime any one criminal knows they are unlikely to be executed. I think the Tutu quote at the end of the video. Most of the rest of the work world has abolished capital punishment, and most of the rest uses it very sparingly. The big exceptions are China and the Middle East. Good company to keep?
  - reginald78 2y ago
    This is the second time in as many days I've seen some one use the argument that the severity of the crime meant the standards for conviction should somehow be less stringent. Sadly, I don't get the impression is an uncommon way of thinking.
    - UncleMeat 2y ago
      Horribly, you regularly see this in supreme court cases. Some case has the conservatives denying a significant right to a criminal suspect and the decision will start with a lurid depiction of the crime they were convicted of through the denial of some right.
      - BobaFloutist 2y ago
        Sometimes the crime in case isn't actually that bad, so they have to dig for a lurid description of a different crime entirely.
    - kbos87 2y ago
      This line of thinking peeks through all the time from otherwise intelligent people. Merely mentioning how heinous a crime was when we're talking about the guilt or innocence of a suspect should immediately kill your credibility. Too bad the criminal justice system doesn't care about that.
dialup_sounds 2y ago
In your prior comment you say that Asaro was incentivized by a reward offered in May 1999, but that doesn't agree with waiting for the police to approach her in November.
- mrgoldenbrown 2y ago
  The "approach" by the police was essentially an offer to either testify and get the reward money and have police drop some charges against her, or not testify and face the charges herself.

MikeAmelung 2y ago

I was just helping everyone understand that your important clarification, was in fact, wrong. Since I wasn't on the jury, I can't say whether or not I would have been ok with the death penalty in this case, although the murder was particularly heinous.

diogenes_atx 2y ago
[flagged]
- lolinder 2y ago
  If the ruler and calculator in fact belonged to the victim that is an important clarification of your "the police did not find the victim's property in Williams' car", and your reaction is unnecessarily dismissive. Just acknowledge the error and move on, no need for sarcastic defensiveness.
  - diogenes_atx 2y ago
    Even if the police were able to establish that the ruler and calculator belonged to the victim, it is merely circumstantial evidence. It does not prove Williams was the killer. Here is a quick summary of the main issues: (1) There is no reliable evidence that Williams is guilty of the crime; (2) The DNA evidence from the crime scene does not match Williams; (3) Numerous legal experts, including St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, argued convincingly that Williams' death sentence should have been commuted to life in prison, at a minimum; (4) A Republican governor ignored the facts and legal opinions and simply murdered Williams.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      > Even if the police were able to establish that the ruler and calculator belonged to the victim, it is merely circumstantial evidence. It does not prove Williams was the killer. I agree. You were still wrong in ways that do matter. Acknowledging it gracefully makes your case stronger, not weaker.
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      What percentage of trials rely on circumstantial evidence? It has to be a high percentage.
    - xapata 2y ago
      Isn't the jury responsible for determining what's reliable evidence?
      - komali2 2y ago
        Kind of, They can also be instructed to ignore certain evidence, or certain evidence can be barred from being shown to them.
      - ekidd 2y ago
        Juries absolutely do make errors, including ones which result in innocent people being put to death. In a number of cases, the Innocence Project has certainly managed to find hard DNA evidence that linked the actual murderer to the crime, resulting in saving people from death row. One of my friends worked on some of these cases. As former law enforcement, he was very much aware of the various ways the system can fail. Police officers commit perjury on the stand, "expert" witnesses use pseudoscience with zero factual evidence (there are processes to prevent this which have gotten slightly better), and there are shockingly terrible public defenders.
analog31 2y ago
As I understand it, you have to be OK with the death penalty, to be on a capital jury.
- atoav 2y ago
  Of all the situations within which it would be morally okay to lie..
  - encoderer 2y ago
    false.
    - partitioned 2y ago
      you mean, true?
- norir 2y ago
  This in and of itself very likely creates a bias against the defendant. For me, there is overwhelming evidence that many innocent people have been executed. To support the death penalty, you seem likely to either not believe in systemic injustice (which means you are also probably more likely to believe flimsy testimony) or accept that innocent lives are a tolerable tradeoff to ensure that some people are executed for their crimes. Both groups seem more likely to convict to me than a random sample. Personally, I also feel that it is morally wrong to give jurors life and death decision making power. The jurors themselves can be deeply harmed by this if they later learn that they convicted a defendant on the basis of false evidence. I think the bigger problem though is that the death penalty is too abstract. There are many people who believe that certain crimes are worthy of execution. I don't personally agree, but I accept other's beliefs on that point. But even if I grant the righteousness of execution in certain cases, it seems nearly impossible to implement justly and without heavy costs to society. This includes the costs to the people who must carry out the execution as well as the exceedingly high financial costs relative to other forms of punishment.
  - analog31 2y ago
amiga386 2y ago
It doesn't matter how heinous the murder was if you have the wrong suspect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DrsVhzbLzU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DrsVhzbLzU > Priti Patel: this is about having deterrents... > Ian Hislop: It's not a deterrent killing the wrong people!
- graemep 2y ago
  its not a deterrent for multiple other reasons too: 1. most murderers do not expect to get caught if they are acting at all rationally, and do not care if they do not, and, 2. unless you execute a high proportion of people committing a particular crime any one criminal knows they are unlikely to be executed. I think the Tutu quote at the end of the video. Most of the rest of the work world has abolished capital punishment, and most of the rest uses it very sparingly. The big exceptions are China and the Middle East. Good company to keep?
- reginald78 2y ago
  This is the second time in as many days I've seen some one use the argument that the severity of the crime meant the standards for conviction should somehow be less stringent. Sadly, I don't get the impression is an uncommon way of thinking.
  - UncleMeat 2y ago
    Horribly, you regularly see this in supreme court cases. Some case has the conservatives denying a significant right to a criminal suspect and the decision will start with a lurid depiction of the crime they were convicted of through the denial of some right.
    - BobaFloutist 2y ago
      Sometimes the crime in case isn't actually that bad, so they have to dig for a lurid description of a different crime entirely.
  - kbos87 2y ago
    This line of thinking peeks through all the time from otherwise intelligent people. Merely mentioning how heinous a crime was when we're talking about the guilt or innocence of a suspect should immediately kill your credibility. Too bad the criminal justice system doesn't care about that.

dialup_sounds 2y ago

In your prior comment you say that Asaro was incentivized by a reward offered in May 1999, but that doesn't agree with waiting for the police to approach her in November.

mrgoldenbrown 2y ago
The "approach" by the police was essentially an offer to either testify and get the reward money and have police drop some charges against her, or not testify and face the charges herself.