The so-called "Innocence Project" is the brainchild of that asshole OJ Simpson Dream Team lawyer, Barry Scheck.

It may be recalled that Scheck helped OJ scoot away from justice by claiming that all of the numerous pieces of DNA evidence gathered on various occasions by the LAPD were contaminated, and thus worthless.

But of course, naturally, all the DNA evidence used by Scheck's "Innocence Project" to defend his pet killers are all pristine and uncontaminated, and thus great evidence.

I wouldn't trust that asshole to give out the correct time of day. No wonder lawyers rank near the bottom of people Americans trust in opinion polls.

If we can't give the death penalty to scumbags like Phillip Garrido <link>

then we are morally worthless as a nation.

You are morally worthless.

Garrido should have been better monitored by the penal system, and likely should never have been paroled. You think his case invalidates other cases in which the innocent were wrongly convicted?

Of course you do, because you're an asshole and without moral value.

Lets see if I get this straight:

If we can't kill those we abhor - the way the PRC, Russia, Iran, and the Taliban do

Then we are morally worthless the same way Canada, Japan, The UK, Germany, and France are.

Hmmm. wonder which crowd does a better job with liberty as well?

And there are other consequences to having a death penalty. Countries that do not have death penalties must by law prevent extradition of any criminals they have in custody if there is a possibility the country that is extraditing them might put them to death.

If we plan on having a justice system that can become a universal justice system we have to agree on certain tenants and the world wide dissolution of the death penalty is a first step.

The "right," of course, fears this universal justice system.

-j

Garrido could not possibly get the death penalty, because he did not commit either murder or treason.

oxboggle:

You are morally worthless. Garrido should have been better monitored by the penal system, and likely should never have been paroled. You think his case invalidates other cases in which the innocent were wrongly convicted? Of course you do, because you're an asshole and without moral value.

You are an asshole. You should be sharing a cell with Garrido.

Trebuchet:

And there are other consequences to having a death penalty. Countries that do not have death penalties must by law prevent extradition of any criminals they have in custody if there is a possibility the country that is extraditing them might put them to death.

If we plan on having a justice system that can become a universal justice system we have to agree on certain tenants and the world wide dissolution of the death penalty is a first step.

Luckily for America, most Americans are too intelligent to want to surrender US sovereignty to the sewer pit of a moral vacuum which is the United Nations and similar corrupt, useless international organizations.

cassandra:

Garrido could not possibly get the death penalty, because he did not commit either murder or treason.

And this is supposed to be a useful or insightful observation?

If we plan on having a justice system that can become a universal justice system we have to agree on certain tenants and the world wide dissolution of the death penalty is a first step.

It would be tricky, i remember seeing a poll by gallup which found 52% of the planets population support the death penalty

I thought it was useful, MP, because so many posters thought Garrido deserved the death penalty. However, I think there is a very good reason for not imposing it on kidnappers and pedophiles: It gives them no incentive for leaving the victim alive.

Come on MisterPerson

You can't have it both ways. Either nations like the PRC, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria - which have a predominant and disproportionate voice in the UN are moral paragons since they are very quick with their Death Penalty

OR

They are the ones that have the moral vaccum

But you can't switch between holding them up as paragons because of the DP support and denigrating them because of their DP and other barbarism.

Which is it?

Misterperson:

1. This discussion is NOT about the death penalty. It's about whether it is legitimate for government to execute a proven innocent person. This has nothing to do with politics, just blind incompetence and the system whereby prosecutors get elected and re-elected in many states on the basis of the number of convictions they can amass.

2. Proponents and opponents of the death penalty are NOT divideded along political lines, or at least they weren't till recently before the extreme right wing the-earth-has-been-around-10,0­00-years fringe took over the Republican party. I wouldn't call those people "conservatives"!

3. As for OJ's trial, the police blew it, as did the members of the prosecution who seemed less interested in getting a conviction as they were in getting on TV. The issue was not allegedly tainted DNA, the issue was that the cops went over the walls of OJ's estate without a search warrant. This is what is meant by "tainted evidence," that is, a piece of evidence that cannot be shown to the jury because it was obtained illegally. This happened in spite of the fact that the search warrant could have been obtained on the spot by phone and it would have only taken a minute or two. I was screaming to the TV when this came out because I realized that yet another domestic abuser and murderer was probably going to get off, in this case through sheer police incompetence. And then, years later we find out that a special unit of the LAPD was planting evidence mostly in African American homes to make its arrest record look good and justify its costly existence as a special unit. Of course lots of people knew about this and tried to report it long before it came to official light, so, on top of the mistakes made by the police, the LAPD as a whole had simply no credibility in the eyes of the jury.

I have to add that Nicole had called the police on several occasions because her husband had beaten and threatened her. In spite of her bruises and black eyes the police didn't do anything about it, even asked for OJ's authograph on one occasion! Nicole put the photos of her battered face in a safe deposit box along with a letter stating she was pretty sure OJ was going to kill her and was going to get away with it because he seemed immune to the evidence of domestic abuse. Members of the jury who saw these photos after the trial were aghast and stated that they would have come to a different verdict if they had been aware of these. A good prosecution team would have gotten hold of them and a good judge would have made them available to the jury because it would/should have been argued they were of utmost relevance to a murder case involving previously documented domestic abuse.

3. In the case of Garrido the issue is not whether he should have gotten the death penalty --which he wouldn't have anyway. The issue is that the govt of California and/or the feds aren't allowing enough funds to hirer more parole officers and lighten their load so they can do a better job.

But ultimately I don't think this was the problem. The house was inspected by a parole officer but that person didn't bother to look in the back yard. Why? Because Garrido gave the impression of innocence, his wife by his side and spouting about his Christian faith: so he was assumed innocent, evidence be damned! Just as Willingham gave the impression of guilt: he had a tatoo --duly noted in the transcript as a significant clue. So he was assumed guilty, evidence be damned!

4. The OJ case is totally irrelevant to the DNA cases the innocence project has focused on. These aren't cases of alleged tainted DNA, these are cases of DNA not being tested at all in addition to some other suspicious factors involving prison witnesses and real witnesses that came forward but were ignored or intimitaded. Again these are not political issues.

However, your mention of the OJ case brings up another issue that seems to have become politicized, that of domestic abuse. Are you one of the extreme right wing authoritarian type who believes that a man has a right to beat up (you know "slap around a bit") a woman? Are you one of those extreme anti-choice people who believe you can rape a woman and force her to carry your child? Do you realize that if Garrido had been caught years previously and that poor child had been freed while she was first pregnant, the extreme anti-choice people, if they could have, would have forced her to carry that pregnancy to full term even though her body would have been demolished for life (as I believed is now the actual case for Garrido's victim whom he forced to carry two pregnancies --he had found Jesus! --I believe that as a result she will never be able chose to have another child and she probably also suffer from those horrible ailments that women forced into early marriage and childbirth suffer in some third world countries). I could think of quite a few other ghools who should share Garrido's cell!

5, So MisterPerson, do you think from the previous paragraph that I assume you are guilty of domestic abuse, or at least that you are a proponent of it? Do you think I think of you as rabidly anti-choice and as wanting to force immature children to carry a pregnancy resulting from rape/incest full term? You are not????? Are my assumptions totally unfair? I would agree with you. I have absolutely no right to make those assumptions about you. If I gave that impression, it was only to show you how easy it is to assume somebody's guilt on the basis of preconceived notions. So hopefully you can now get just just a tiny tiny tiny glimpse of what an innocent person accused of a crime feels, let alone an innocent person convicted of one? So please think about it. It would only take a roll of the dice for you or me to be the next victim of a judicial error that would land us on death row.

MrPerson, Trebuchet wasn't talking about the UN or any international organization. He was giving the example of other countries who do not have the death penalty yet have lower crime rates than we do. Have you ever googled Google Earth? It's fascinating! So many different entirely independant countries on our little earth! Or do you think Americans shouldn't look at maps? Maps should be banned from school libraries! Geography is morally dangerous! The world should be limited to the US map and all other territories around it should be left blank.... etc etc. Please, try to educate yourself, and if you can, at least get in your car and go explore Canada, and it you can afford it, get on a plane and go explore Europe... Haven't you the least the desire to visit Sweden? Norway? Italy, Hungary, etc etc

Garrido could not possibly get the death penalty, because he did not commit either murder or treason.

Murder and treason are not the only capital offenses.