Annoying stuff

[zotz]

Actually, the first bit is more amusing than annoying, even though it is a little sinister :

Dubya's found another nation to get annoyed with for impeding the War Against Terror® (and if you can't be bothered going for the whole article -the clue's in the link).



Okay. I got a little angry yesterday while reading the daily paper. There were a couple of articles concerning miscarriages of justice in the US, particularly in capital cases. Now, I fully accept that we have and have had at least our share of such things here, and that it's easy to get annoyed about Things That Happen Abroad in a mote/beam kind of way, but still . . .

First, there was a story (which you can see at http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,949146,00.html) about a man, Ryan Matthews, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Forensic tests - DNA profiling - hadn't been done on some samples (nature unspecified) in spite of the fact that this could potentially exonerate him. In a capital case. They have now been done, but only because they were paid for privately. And not even by an American - by Martha Lane Fox of lastminute.com fame, as his family couldn't afford it themselves. I know it has become a cliché to state that you can get as much justice as you can afford, but occasionally it seems to be true, and I've never seen as literal an example of it as this.

And so on to another related article, which is both infuriating and inspiring. For the first time, Scheck and Neufeld used science to exonerate an innocent man, and they liked the feeling it gave them. 'It is the highest calling for a lawyer,' Scheck says today. 'It is a very thrilling and wonderful experience.'

The article mainly concerns the Innocence Project at Cardozo law school, which consists of law students who take cases like this as projects which count towards their degree - the impact has been such that the outgoing Governor of Illinois this year commuted the sentences of all the State's Death Row prisoners, as he had totally lost faith in the system's ability to correctly assign guilt. I could quote most of this article for you - to paraphrase Hunter Thomson, it reads like a primer on legal incompetence and bigotry. One point, though :

Incredibly, to this day, in many states of America it is not automatic to release a prisoner where there is proof that the outcome of a trial was wrong: faulty procedure is grounds for reversal, but not a faulty verdict. As the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, William Rehnquist, wrote: 'Innocence is not itself a constitutional claim.'

Ever wonder why these appeals always rest on technicalities? They're the only grounds you can appeal on. Innocence is no excuse.

Anyway, here's the link: http://www.observer.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,948805,00.html

Comments

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

"faulty procedure is grounds for reversal, but not a faulty verdict"

Good lord.

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

I'd like to say I'm surprised, but after living through 30+ years of this insanity, I hardly notice it anymore.

I think it was xiphias who neatly summed up the American justice system (a misnomer if ever there was one) as a modern gladiatorial bout designed to be as entertaining for the lawyers as possible while they show off their clever-dick semantic parsing skills, but wholly unconcerned with the poor schmucks who are getting fed to the lions in the process.

[zotz]

I think Kurt Vonnegut recently said something quite similar.

double jeopardy

[hbergeronx.livejournal.com]

The reason that innocence is not considered to be a grounds for retrial is because anyone can claim to be innocent, but you must prove this during your first trial, by introducing doubt into the minds of the jury. For instance, if you succeed in creating that doubt on the first trial, you cannot be tried again (the double jeopardy rule), even if there is subsequent hard evidence or even a confession proving guilt. Likewise, you cannot simply keep asking to be retried on the basis that the first trial didn't decide you are innocent, otherwise the cost of continually retrying the cases over and over would become cost prohibitive and there could easily be created new grounds to call what amounts to be a "do-over" until you find a jury that will acquit you. In essence, double jeopardy works both ways. However, there *is* an appeals process, namely, the governor or president can overturn a decision by pardon, which allows innocent men to be freed on the basis of new evidence.

It may not be perfect, but it hardly rises to the level of a miscarriage of justice.

[zotz]

I understand the rationale for it, but in fact it ignores the possibility that information, evidence or techniques may become available after the trial which could exonerate the defendant, or that a blatantly unsafe conviction may arise for other reasons. In these cases there was no way, even in principle, that this evidence could have been introduced into the original trial, but it's most certainly relevant. This is certainly acceptable grounds for appeal in British law - the High Court regularly overturns convictions on the grounds that they are not safe, whether or not there has been an identifiable procedural anomaly.

a matter of taste

[hbergeronx.livejournal.com]

Obviously, if someone's innocent, no one on this planet believes that they should be held in jail. However, it's impossible to say (without really, reaslly good video evidence) what really happens based purely on people's testimony. That's why there are laws, to set rules for the "process" of innocent or guilty. The way British law says the "process" should be played is not a universal standard for how other countries should decide how to rule.

Furthermore, the US government does not have the right, except on constitutional grounds, to make decisions for how states should choose to govern within their borders. In some states, good evidence of innocence is grounds for appeal, and in others, it isn't. That's the american "process", and the quote you use taken out of that context may seem stupid or nonsensical, but that's the very meat of American Federal Process.

That said, you're entitled to feel that the British process is better.

[zotz]

The way British law says the "process" should be played is not a universal standard for how other countries should decide how to rule.

Indeed. For a start, it's had many well-known disasters of its own.

That said, you're entitled to feel that the British process is better.

I wouldn't say that our system is (to the best of my limited knowledge) better in any general sense, I just find this one particular aspect quite remarkable.

Furthermore, the US government does not have the right, except on constitutional grounds, to make decisions for how states should choose to govern within their borders. In some states, good evidence of innocence is grounds for appeal, and in others, it isn't.

Yes - but what the constitution allows (or is held to allow) the federal government to mandate is mutable. If the current constitution does not allow for innocence to be grounds, then an amendment could almost certainly make it allowable - if the issue were deemed important enough. I guess that the Rehnquist quote comes from the 1993 Herrera v. Collins case, which seems to be generally described as "controversial" and which which three justices dissented - I would guess that there's therefore nothing automatic about this interpretation of the constitution.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

It's better in one general sense; when we screw it up, we don't put people to death.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

"another nation" - however, the recent Canadian decision to decriminalise dope is a direct result of the fact that US/Canada relations can't get much worse...