Serious Lingering Doubt

[VisionofMilotic]

'Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer' -William Blackstone

Has there ever been a case where someone was sent to jail or worse executed for a crime, but you had doubt over their guilt? You can discuss recents examples in news, and historical persons if you choose

The justice system is not perfect, and innocent people unfortunately have fallen through it's cracks. Last year in the United States alone 139 innocent men and women were exonerated of crimes they were convicted of for reasons such as misconduct by police or the prosecution, newly available DNA evidence, recanted witness testimony and more. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/us/convict-exonerations-2017.html

Is there is a person that comes to your mind who was found guilty of something, but you did not feel confident in the sentence passed against them, and questioned whether they might even be innocent of the crime they were convicted of? They do not need to be officially cleared of guilt or involvement, the creation of doubt in your mind is enough.

Troy Davis is someone that I thought was probably innocent. He was convicted of shooting a police officer, and executed in Georgia seven years ago. Below are some facts that gave me pause with regard to his guilt.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/21/troy-davis-10-reasons

 

[Her]

The case close to my heart is one of New Zealand's greatest miscarriages of justice, the Peter Ellis case. It was a complete and utter travesty - as a creche worker in the early 1990s, he was accused of molesting various young kids, but it became increasingly obvious that it was a cruel accusation created by homophobia. Ellis was a gay man working with young children, and a) the 'gays are paedophiles' myth was far more powerful a force than it is today, and b) there was talk and 'links' of Satanism, as driven by high-profile child abuse cases here in the late '80s that manufactured a moral panic around 'Satanists touching our young children!!!'. The parents of these children misrepresented their children's comments and eventually outright created lies in order to punish him for his sexuality - prosecution painted him as sexually deviant, and the jury ultimately gave way to moral hysteria over homosexuality instead of seeing the accusations as completely without merit.

Tragically, he was only months away this year from getting his name cleared before he died - much of New Zealand has come to see the tragedy for what it is, and it was almost a certain fact that he would have died with his name restored to its former standing if he had been able to live just a bit longer. The impact of this case on education has been almost immeasurable - nearly 30 years later, there are almost no men involved with early childcare or early child education as a result of this, and there are very few teachers in any sector of education that are willing to publicly admit to being LGBT, for fear of reprisal by the sort of people that created this horrible trial to begin with. It is representative of the sickness of New Zealand at the time - it took us until 19 fucking 86 to legalise homosexuality, and this case was only four to five years removed from that. It was unconscionable then, and I sincerely hope that proceedings next year find it unconscionable now.

 

[VisionofMilotic]

I really appreciate being educated the about the tragedy of what happened to Peter Ellis. It reminds me a little of the McMartin daycare teacher Ray Buckey who also had dozens of those types of allegations against him, which were almost certainly false accusations. Back in the 80s he was accused by a paranoid schizophrenic woman of molesting her son who was enrolled in the preschool. This snowballed into a mass hysteria, where school administrators, parents, police and social workers questioned every child in the school about being abused in a way that was leading and coercive, resulting in fantastical allegations against Buckey and his family of not only molestation, but running a satanic cult, sacrificing babies and animals, flushing people down the drain, flying through the air with witches, keeping kids in refrigerators, secret tunnel passageways underneath the school. It should go without saying that none of this was corroborated by any physical evidence. No corpses, no secret chambers, no DNA, no wounds or signs of assault.

The man was tried over and over again, but each time the jury kept deadlocking, with some jurors voting to convict him and insisting he was guilty, and others voting not guilty, resulting in a mistrial. He was eventually found not guilty of the most outlandish of charges, but he wasn't cleared of everything, including child molestation and conspiracy charges, and the state finally just gave up and dropped the other 13 charges since they had already spent 15 million dollars on these huge publicity trials. But their were voices still crying out that he was a criminal with no proof. He lost his career and business, had to change his name and move away for his safety, and his whole family was destroyed-- they were all dragged through the courts and the mud, tried as murderers, sorcerers and rapists and everything you can think of in this side show circus, even his mother and poor grandmother. Public opinion is generally on the side of everyone who worked in the daycare as innocent now, and the McMartin accusations are usually referenced as a cautionary tale of quackery and controversial investigative techniques not to use, and some children have come forward admitting they got pressured and confused, and gave false testimony.

 

[Maedar]

Amanda Knox.

The sad part about her case was, she and her boyfriend were only the latest victims of an insane prosecutor who had done the same to many other innocent folk in his attempt to catch a serial killer who has, to date, not been caught.

The true killer was Rudy Guede, and the evidence against him was overwhelming: his bloody footprint on the wall, his DNA found inside the victim's body (proving it was murder and rape) and his fecal matter in the victim's toilet, which he neglected to flush.

Despite this, Knox was a target simply due to anti-American sentiment, and hate sites run by "guilters" as they were called, wrote so much misinformation that if put together in one volume, it would be longer than the Bible, the Talmund, and the Qaran combined. I remember how at least one British online news agency pre-wrote a story giving a false result of her appeal, claiming she and Raphael had been given eventual prison time and were suicide watch as a result; it stayed up 30 minutes before someone told them the real result, long enough for enough readers to notice.

Worst troll I ever knew was "Harry Rag", a guilter whose hate bordered on obsessive. The man seemed to want to make ruining this poor girl's life his life's work.

The worst part (to me, anyway) is that I myself was a guilter until about three months after her first conviction. That's when I started realizing nothing made sense in the whole case. I wrote a rather long apology letter to her parents after the aforementioned appeal.

And while she was eventually acquitted, some of those guilters are still around. Check the comments section of any news story regarding her. The Seattle newspaper who publishes her column has to screen replies before posting them.

It's amazing the depths people will sink in cases like this.

 

[Neil Peart]

I still have no clue why these cases become media spectacles, chiefly, in the US. Doesn't anyone think about the families of the people involved who get bombarded with worthless paparazzi gnats and have cameras shoved in their faces right after they use the toilet? Living abroad away from the US circus for two years has brought me a new-found appreciation for the art of minding one's own business. It was another case that made a lot of news networks richer and paid for another year of Nancy Grace's awful haircuts

 

[Maedar]

I still have no clue why these cases become media spectacles, chiefly, in the US.

Neil, many historians believe that the first criminal case to be tainted by media coverage was Lizzie Borden's.

This is NOT a new phenomenon, and it's not likely to go away any time soon.

 

[Neil Peart]

It doesn't change the fact that it should probably stop. People already look at the US as a circus where nobody has any privacy. Leave these people alone. I sure hope people who take keen interests in these cases and become armchair judges never have a similar situation, and end up with reporters and would-be "journalists" banging on their door and hiding in their bushes. Might change their perspective a bit if they open their bedroom window and see a dork wearing a backwards hat with a camera pointed at their face.

 

[Maedar]

Well, see, Neil, that's the problem.

On one hand, the 1st Amendment promises Freedom of the Press. On the other hand, too much of it can infringe on a person's right to privacy.

Benjamin Franklin himself (who founded his own newspaper and knew how powerful the press could be) stated famously, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

 

[Neil Peart]

Forgive me for being someone who doesn't take the founding fathers as seriously as most Americans, as I plan on revoking my US citizenship. Also -- and most importantly -- a lot has changed since... the 18th friggin' century.

 

[Maedar]

Believe me, Neil, if I didn't have a lease to pay for and a family to support here in the States, I'd ask if you knew about anyone near you who needed a roommate. I'm sick of what this country has become, and for the first time in my life, I'm ashamed to call myself American.

In fact, I'm planning to go to Italy in a few months, and intend to tell anyone there who asks that I'm from Canada. I have a friend in Britain who says fewer Europeans are believing that excuse from tourists, but more and more who understand when they use it.