Still think Texas has never executed anyone who was innocent?

Lawyers accused of gross incompentence leading to the death of an innocent man:

"We don't see it that way."

Well, I guess that does change everything.

 

Just so you know, "crime, boy, I dunno," is when I decided to kick your ass.

 

The Cameron Todd Willingham prosecutor also strenuously objected to the assertion that Willingham was innocent. He didn't just object. He objected strenuously.

Sure, the leading scientific expert in the field of fire-starting said the whole Willingham case couldn't have possibly happened the way the prosecutor said, but when the prosecutor objected so strenuously, I was confused.

 

Dammit, now I'm no longer convinced doctorquant's article is useful at all.

 

OK, to facilitate all this critical thinkin' goin' on 'round here re: this terribly uninformative WaPo article, here's a pretty telling (to me) passage from it:

And because articles in the WaPo can be taken at face value only if they support what one already believes, there's this Houston Chronicle article that goes into a bit more detail:

http://www.chron.com/default/article/Texas-executed-wrong-man-report-claims-3557962.php#page-2

Had I been on the jury, would I have considered some of the other red flags raised by the defense enough to trigger reasonable doubt? Sure, I might have. But am I convinced a man was wrongly convicted and executed in this case? Absolutely not.

 

God bless anonymity.

Dude is an actual professor. The "doctor" is no joke.

 

When is Junction Boys on?

 

I heard Leibman on NPR this morning. Not much that we didn't know from the articles, but he fleshed out the process some. Setting aside the agenda, this is academia making a real world difference.

 

Death Penalty Information Center's list of 140 death row exonerations since 1973:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row

The National Innocence Project has exonerated almost 200 inmates (both DP and non-DP) with DNA (and a handful more w/out DNA):

http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/Browse-Profiles.php

 

Piece from 2004 about Texas' discredited "Doctor Death," James Grigson (later expelled by the APA), who helped convict both Randall Dale Adams (later exonerated and the subject of Erroll Morris' The Thin Blue Line) and Cameron Todd Willingham:

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Effect-of-Dr-Death-and-his-testimony-lingers-1960299.php#page-1

 

Check the syllabus ... I know I put it in there somewhere.

 

There are places where this thread strongly suggests what Bill O'Reilly might come up with if he were capable of operating a computer.

Just be angrier (faux or real, doesn't matter) and shout louder than anyone else, then the people on the other side of the debate eventually give up (or the thread gets locked) and you and your like-minded friends can convince yourselves that you "won" the argument. Bravo.