[b]CONVICTING THE INNOCENT: WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN ALL THE TIME?

Because the system itself is corrupt from the beginning its built on corruption its a faulty post Roman system which always fails the innocent and protects the guilty.

That is not right.

How can we reform the justice system so that this does not happen all the time?

Q. According to a guest on the News radio show NPR there is ample evidence that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 in Lockerbie Scotland was not in fact the actual bomber. Is this in fact the case? If this is in fact the case why was he the one indicted for this crime?

A. Correct. This fact will shock those reading it, but there are more innocent people in prison than guilty. Police like to wrap up a case, and pick on someone who cannot defend themselves, forcing a confession for a lesser sentence. Even when the guilty party is known, if they are expected to put up a fight, cause the prosecutors a lot of money and effort with a likely loss in court, this is done. Then there is outright collusion between someone wanting to commit a crime like robbery or the murder of a spouse, bribing the police to look the other way. Despite the media, which portrays investigators as being ethical, this varies by district to such a great degree that in one district no justice is performed while in others, an impeccable adherence to justice is held.

[link to www.zetatalk.com]

reward the corrupted, penalize the innocent.

What a backwards system.

LOL ok shill happy shillin

Does that mean you enjoy this corruption or do you enjoy laughing at somebody else's expense.

personally, I'd feel more comfortable if people like yourseldf were in prison and gentlemen like Scott were free men.
now I'm laughing ! LOL

Boy do I know that for a fact...Michigan has the lamest judicial system I have ever seen...I have continual problems with my ex husband, and they protect his criminal felony ass every chance they get...to hell with me...

Well try this on for size.

The word "SYSTEM" is a latin word for "SEWER".

So...technically the Judicial "SYSTEM", or our Political "SYSTEMS" are actually "SEWERS" or Cesspools by grand design.

So in the literal sense, its full of SHIT

Just thought I'd throw that into the fray.

Last Edited by XHIBIT on 09/05/2009 05:01 PM

Because the American public is pretty dumb when put into groups of 12.

They should have 13 jurors then -all female and all nude.

because the justice system doesn't care about truth, it cares about a conviction. Jurers with even the slightest amount of independent minded thinking are screened out and only the sheep left in place.

Case in point: I've never been called for jury duty.

This is the same reason that they don't allow people who are "too intelligent" to become a police officer. Gotta fit the profile.. ESTJ with an IQ around 90-100... the perfect officer of the law.

Exactly.

I knew you'd approve.

Kind of makes you want to go out and rob the candy store, doesn't it?

Are you a lawyer or a graphic artist?

There are probably a lot more who never saw a trial that are innocent and serving/served time.

The Plea Bargain is an interesting albeit efficient way to process a huge case load. Most (95 to 97 percent) of cases never go to trial, instead they end in a plea bargain.

The DA offers a deal one can not refuse. When most of us think of a crime we think that there is only one possible charge, however there are many, many more criminal laws that a simple single crime can generate. Among those are "thought crimes" crimes where "conspiracy to commit __________" (fill in the blanks) and "Intent to _________" (again fill in the blank) are levied.

EXAMPLE: A guy is picked up using someone's credit card, he can face the following charges:

1. Possession of stolen credit card.
2. Posession of stolen property (the credit card is stolen property).
3. Intend to defraud - here the list can include potential store keepers (if the man was arrested in a store), the bank, the owner of the credit card.

If the man is carrying a screwdriver, or even a Swiss army pocket knife the DA can through "Possession of Burglary Tools" add to that conspiracy to commit burglary (he has the tools, has a credit card that is obviously stolen property).

Say each charge carries 5 to 10 years, the DA offers that he will reduce all of these charges to jut one with a term of 2 years. However if the person (innocent or not) refuses the DA will seek the full 10 years on each crime to run consecutively this can mean 30 to 50 years of threatened prison time.

Even if the guy is innocent; lets say he was holding the card for a friend and the friend forgot he gave it to his friend to prevent him from buying stuff reported it stolen. Even though he friend is not pressing charges the State it (DA).

Faced with the easy 2 years (time served and probation is offered to a "first time offender") or faced with 40 years of hard time, the innocent man is going to want to get this all over with.

To make matters worse, the system is designed to where the attorney of the defense will say "while I can not tell you what to do, I can tell you that convictions are 99% on these types of crimes." He isn't lying, most of the charges do end up in convictions.

Jailing a person is a form of torture. Food is poor, hard beds, lots of noise, leads to stress, lack of sleep and of course all of the "not knowing" what will happen will have a huge impact on the mental facilities of the charged person.

Most innocent people will, under these stressors break down and confess to a crime they did not even do.

Things like violent crimes, rape, murder, etc have had their share of documented innocent people pleading guilty simply because they were scared of what the DA was offering if they took it to trial.

Usually you are not hit with all the potential charges at the arraignment. The DA holds back potential charges until you say "no, I'm innocent" then he comes back with more charges - scaring you more, and the new deal is always slightly worse. Thus the person is looking at what is evidently more and more time the longer he refuses to buckle under and just 'confess' to the crime.

The link below explores this further.

[link to www.slate.com]

"DNA evidence unavailable at the time has now proven conclusively that five teenage boys sent to prison 12 years ago for raping and almost killing a young woman jogger in New York's Central Park were not guilty of that crime (whatever else they may have been up to that evening). What's most shocking is that the boys' convictions were not the result of perjured testimony by racist cops, or manufactured evidence, or jurors addled by some prosecutor's demagogic brilliance. The convictions were based almost entirely on the boys' own confessions. Why would anyone confess to a crime he didn't commit?"

How do you figure? "System" comes from the Latin, "Systema", meaning ratio, and from the Greek word "systema".

1619, "the whole creation, the universe," from L.L. systema "an arrangement, system," from Gk. systema "organized whole, body," from syn- "together" + root of histanai "cause to stand" from PIE base *sta- "to stand" (see stet). Meaning "set of correlated principles, facts, ideas, etc." first recorded 1638. Meaning "animal body as an organized whole, sum of the vital processes in an organism" is recorded from 1683; hence fig. phrase to get (something) out of one's system (1900). Computer sense of "group of related programs" is recorded from 1963.

Results for query "systema":

ratio : system, manner, method, procedure, manner

Baloney. Just because DNA was not at the scene does not mean they were not involved. They may not have all raped her, but they were all involved in the attack that nearly killed her.

The 2 cops who first responded and arrested one of the teens told what this dear boy said in the police car.

At the time, the cops did not even know about the attack on the woman, they were responding to calls of a pack of "youths" attacking and robbing people in the park.

The "youth" in the police car told the cops that "Raymond killed the woman, not me"! (Meaning Raymond Santana, one of the other "youths" involved.)

The cops then realized they had a whole different situation on their hands.

They got the right people, every one of those bastards were involved.

If 90-95% of cases don't go to trial, that probably explains the high number of false convictions.

The cases that do go to trial are the controversial ones -most of the time.

Correct, those that are in the media's sphere of attention (Petersen/Lacy) or where the defendant is wealthy enough to hire a team of lawyers.

We are a nation of laws. This is a good thing in moderation, however I have seen how the law has grown very pervasive, turning small things like TPing into crimes, to where it is getting harder and harder to not break the law simply because the burden of laws is to great for any many to know them all.

If we are all criminalized, we all lose our constitutional rights.

The Constitution will not be taken away, what will happen is that more and more of us will become an ex-felon and have no rights.

You are absolutely right, the law needs to be reformed as much as health care needs it.

Think about it... the people in the jury wasn't smart enough to avoid it....

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We are not a nation of laws. If we were, the Supreme Court would always rule 9 to 0. We are a nation of powerm corruption and opinion, with no regard for justice.

this is awesome !

Sharp law professor !

Innocent people rarely get convicted. When someone gets acquitted, it does not mean they are innocent, but rather that the evidence failed to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that they were guilty. Basically you could think of this as 99% guilty and 1% not guilty. Someone that is viewed as 98% guilty while 2% not guilty would fail the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. Just because some tree-hugging judge decides the evidence raises a small doubt as to guilt does not mean innocent.

dream on

BULLSHIT, I'm sure you will find out the hard way.
Got money for a lawyer = go free
Public defender = Plea bargain 80% of the time.
Take a plea or take a felony rap.
You will find out how the cop's and judges make there paycheck one day.
Crime is FAR more rampant amongst government employees than it is in the general population.