The Ramseys are lucky they were rich enough to deter the DA from going to trial. Had they been poor, they likely would have spent the last several years in jail and the clothing never tested.

The fault here lies not with the science, but with juries. They don't seem to take seriously both the assumption of innocence, reasonable doubt, and the concept that they don't have to know who did it to find someone not guilty. Just because some as-yet-unknown party isn't named doesn't mean the accused did it. How can so many people have been convicted of crimes they could not possibly have committed if they were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? They were just the likely party, the one on trial.

Scott Peterson is my favorite example. He was found guilty of murdering his wife despite her cause of death never having been shown. There simply does not exist one shred of evidence as to how she died. For all we know, she could have died of natural causes, such as a stoke or heart attack. The startling lack of physical evidence at Scott's house and his car is also problematic. Killing someone is typically messy and the mess is hard to clean up. Forensic science is very good at finding even the slightest trace. Yet, the best that can be found to convict Peterson is a single hair from his wife that could be from transference than any other cause. He was, however, an unlikable man and acted guilty. A wounded mistress out for publicity didn't help him either.

Take the case of Dorothy Puente here in my hometown of Sacramento. She was convicted of killing three people, none of whom had anything more than their own prescription medications in them. They could have been killed by overdoses of those medications, but the bodies were too far gone to obtain levels. We don't know if they were killed or died naturally. Puente isn't a good person and I would hate to have her as a roommate (read her in entry in the Wikipedia for a good overview), but the case of murder was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The guilt was just reasonable, not beyond reasonable doubt.

Jury instructions are often worded to help them find people guilty. A witness that is proven to lie and repeatedly so can still judged to be truth worthy in part. Prosecution witnesses can be legally bribed (if you don't think having charges dropped or sentences reduced isn't an incentive to say things the prosecutor wants, then you don't understand the value of not being in prison). Jail house snitches can be proffered without any substantiation. Few defendants are given the resources for anything close to a reasonable defense, either in terms of lawyers or supporting authorities. Often, the police and labs destroy evidence long before the defense can analyze it by releasing crime scenes. I've seen men convicted of spousal abuse whose faces were a bloody mess, but that wasn't captured on film, while the small bruise on the wife's arm was photographed in vivid detail worthy of Annie Liebowitz.

Two young black men spent over a year in jail awaiting trial in a home invasion. The witnesses swore repeatedly they saw the young men enter their home, pistol whip them, tie them up, and rob them. Others were later to have been found to have done it and the fellows were completely innocent. Had they gone to trail sooner, they'd have been convicted on eye-witness testimony.

We just finished the case of Roberto P. Vellanoweth yesterday. The jury found him guilty of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated despite several unrefuted witnesses testifying the drink he had just prior to his driving was a virgin kamikaze, a non-alcoholic drink they all thought (he also had three martini's much earlier at lunch). It wasn't. The question of if he knew he had consumed too much alcohol was very much in doubt, yet he was found guilty in less than three hours. Let's also ignore the evidence from several studies that show people are not capable of accurately recognizing the feeling of being at .08 blood alcohol, so don't have a reasonable way to tell if they are drunk. One can drive with a blood alcohol of .05, but not .09, and not have anyway to tell. Hardly fair. (on an aside in this case, the four people killed were not wearing seat belts, including the small child who was climbing around in the car. Had they been properly strapped in, they likely would have survived. They KNEW they weren't strapped in, but Vellanoweth may well have not known he was drunk. I don't see their culpability being taken into account).

As for the death penalty, it is inexcusable. There are people who should die for what they've done, but we are not the ones to judge that. Just as their are some things that shouldn't be said, yet the government can't be allowed to decide what should and shouldn't be said, it can't be allowed to decide who may live or die. It is made up of human far-too fallible human beings.

"We just finished the case of Roberto P. Vellanoweth yesterday. The jury found him guilty of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated despite several unrefuted witnesses testifying the drink he had just prior to his driving was a virgin kamikaze, a non-alcoholic drink they all thought (he also had three martini's much earlier at lunch). It wasn't. The question of if he knew he had consumed too much alcohol was very much in doubt, yet he was found guilty in less than three hours. Let's also ignore the evidence from several studies that show people are not capable of accurately recognizing the feeling of being at .08 blood alcohol, so don't have a reasonable way to tell if they are drunk. One can drive with a blood alcohol of .05, but not .09, and not have anyway to tell. Hardly fair. (on an aside in this case, the four people killed were not wearing seat belts, including the small child who was climbing around in the car. Had they been properly strapped in, they likely would have survived. They KNEW they weren't strapped in, but Vellanoweth may well have not known he was drunk. I don't see their culpability being taken into account)"

You sound like a defense lawyer to me. What is your reasonable doubt there? He had no capable way of knowing he was drunk so he is not culpable? If the passengers of the other vehicle were wearing their seatbelts they wouldn't have died (though there is no proof of that) and would only have been injured so he is not culpable for their deaths? Typical, blame the victim not the perpetrator. Juries decide by the way a witness acts on the stand who they believe and who they do not believe. Just because the witnesses were unrefuted and may have believed that his last drink was non-alcoholic does not mean that the jury believed their testimony especially if the defendant had a high blood alcohol level. Your idea of reasonable doubt is not necessarily the same as someone elses.

I am not a defense attorney, though I would love to be one. I simply believe juries are skeptical of the defense and they should be skeptical of the prosecution. That is their job: to be skeptical of the prosecution.

If you drink a soda, not knowing it is in fact, full of alcohol, I think you can be excused for not knowing you are too drunk to drive. Because we don't have a sense of our blood alcohol, most of us measure how drunk we are from how much we drink and how long has past since we drank. Vellanoweth thought he'd had three martinis several hours and a lunch ago, when he been slipped something else.

I think culpability can be greatly affected by the victim's actions. The people in the Vellanoweth case died from injuries that typically kill people not wearing seat belts that are not suffered by people who wear them. One is rarely thrown from a vehicle through a windshield while wearing a seat belt, for example.

I suggest unrefuted testimony, even if not fully believable, cannot, by definition, but untrue beyond a reasonable doubt. One may believe a witness is mistaken or lying, but not SO certain as to be beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the crux of my point. Juries should be bluntly told this and act upon this criteria: unless something is certain, it must be viewed in the best light for the defendant, however unlikely or improbable.

If we were to follow the reasoning of macadvisor it is hard to see how any trial could result in a conviction. He is a prosecutor's nightmare---someone who is smarter than the all the accumulated knowledge of our law enforcement system. Such a man can be tolerable and even useful so long as he is not placed on a jury.

Something is lacking in my opinion. What does being intoxicated have to do with the punishment? It may as well be dialing on a cell phone.

I believe you are overstating your case when you state there would be no convictions. Less there would be less and people like Peterson would be found not guilty.

If I was on the jury based on what I know I would of found Peterson NOT guilty because to me there clearly was reasonable doubt. So in that specific case I agree with mac that one of the main drivers in Peterson's conviction was the fact he as an ass, cheated with a cheap blond and he was the only suspect. But based on the actual facts, there was reasonable doubt.

I don't claim to be smarter than the 'system' but when there is reasonable doubt one has to say not guilty and sometimes that doesn't occur.

Vellanoweth's blood alcohol was .16 when taken at the hospital some time after the crash. There's no way that a single drink would have intoxicated him to that extent, whether or not he didn't know it was spiked. The man was drinking heavily that afternoon, although what, where and how much was never revealed.

The testimony about the "virgin" drink was unrefuted during the trial, largely because the woman that supposedly served it was dead. Her family (except for her estranged husband) denies that she was even in the bar/restaurant that day, as reported in today's news.

Vellanoweth was driving 72 MPH when he hit the victim's car, which was going about 18 MPH. This was on a residential street. He testified that he "had" to go that fast to avoid the accident. He was accelerating until the last half second before the crash.

A bad jury? I don't think so! Whether or not the victims had on their seat belts is irrelevant. The charges were gross vehicular manslaughter and felony drunk driving. The speed alone supports the manslaughter conviction. The blood alcohol level supports the drunk driving charge. As the jury said, the facts were clear.

The drink didn't have to raise his blood alcohol from zero to .16, but only from .07, not legally drunk, to .16, something a large Kamikaze could have done.

Whether the women was there or not, the testimony to the jury, the only factors they could consider, was Vellanoweth was told the drink was a virgin version, implying it did not contain alcohol. Given the testimony at trail and that it was unrefuted, the jury must consider it an established fact, whatever is found out later, something the jury couldn't have known.

I wouldn't call South Land Park a residential street by any stretch of the definition, particularly at that point. There is a large shopping mall on one side with a grocery store, post office, and about 40 other business is in it with an office and apartment complexes on the other side of South Land Park. Even later on, when it has nothing but houses, it is a large, wide, main artery.

The speed alone simply does not support gross vehicular manslaughter, only a death does that. Merely going 72 mph in a 30 mph zone without a death would not support a manslaughter conviction. Additionally, the deaths in this case were, in part, due to the actions of the victims AS WELL AS Vellanoweth. Had they been wearing seat belts, they most likely would have survived. Certainly the toddler would have had a vastly better chance of survival had he been properly and legally strapped into a child seat than climbing about the vehicle. Thus, there wouldn't have been any deaths to warrant the manslaughter charge.

Again, the goal isn't to justify a verdict, but only find for guilty when that guilt has been established beyond a reasonable doubt. That people of good will can see solid reason why the conviction is unreasonable is sufficient to show a reasonable doubt exists. Thus, the jury didn't do its job.

"Whether the women was there or not, the testimony to the jury, the only factors they could consider, was Vellanoweth was told the drink was a virgin version, implying it did not contain alcohol. Given the testimony at trail and that it was unrefuted, the jury must consider it an established fact, whatever is found out later, something the jury couldn't have known."

The jury does not have to consider any unrefuted testimony an established fact. They are to evaluate the testimony given (refuted or not) and decide whether or not they feel that it is credible testimony. If one person claims that he was told the drink was a virgin version and the person that told him it was is not available to deny or back it up the jury has the right to decide whether or not they think the person is giving credible evidence.

In addition to the defendant's testimony, two witnesses testified he was told the drink was a virgin version. No one disputed that point during the trial. One of the standard jury instructions includes taking unrefuted testimony in the light most favorable for the defense. While the jury *could* conclude all three witnesses were not credible, they still view the information in the most favorable light to the defendant. Without conflicting testimony, I don't know how they can do that, and find a factual basis for concluding the defendant knew the drink was not virginal.