FBI announces review of 2,000 cases featuring hair samples

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/18/197069/fbi-announces-review-of-2000-cases.html

by 1337biz • 13 years ago

74 49 13 years ago

dangero• 13 years ago

How many times do things like this have to happen before we decide to stop using the death penalty in the US?

anigbrowl3• 13 years ago

Many people who support the death penalty are OK with a few false positives. Mind you, these people also think that 'it's a deterrent because you can't reoffend if you're dead' is a logical argument.

Afforess• 13 years ago

That's why we don't let people make the laws. People are myopic, panicky creatures. We elect representatives who make educated decisions for us. At least, that's how it works in the USA.

citricsquid3• 13 years ago

For anyone (hopefully everyone) against the death penalty there's a charity called Reprieve that do a lot of great work defending people on death row all around the world, they have some active cases in the US at the moment: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/. They've been a part of the release of over 60 Guantanamo Bay detainees and have represented over 300 US death row inmates.

Robin_Message• 13 years ago

I've just decided to run a Spartan Race (5K obstacle race) in aid of Reprieve in September in case anyone wants to donate: http://justgiving.com/SpartanRobin

Taylorious3• 13 years ago

Someone innocent being sentenced to death is a tragedy. However, there are innocent people who get charged with life sentences or many decades, and they end up dying in prison from natural causes, murder, suicide, etc. Even if you get rid of the death penalty there will still be some innocent people who die in prison, or they spend a good part of their life in prison before they are exonerated. Sure they get a big fat settlement, but who cares if you went into prison at 20 and came out at 70 a millionaire. Not worth it. The point is I'm not sure getting rid of the death penalty would statistically save that many innocent lives, as harsh as that sounds.

citricsquid3• 13 years ago

Statistics don't matter, even if one innocent person is saved it's worth it. There is absolutely no advantage to the death penalty. I'm sure if you told any death row survivor (eg: Damien Echols) that you don't think it's worth abolishing it because their lives were over anyway they would have a strong disagreement. An important consideration is the way death row inmates are treated too, 10 years on death row is not good for a person so if they are found innocent they will have suffered serious damage (Damien Echols again), it's a complete waste. Damien Echols did an AMA on reddit last year: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/107jib/iam_damien_echo...

deminature• 13 years ago

Sure they get a big fat settlement

Actually not that many do: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90978&page=1

glesica• 13 years ago

So because doing X would only solve x% of the problem (without significant cost, as noted by another poster) for x < 100, we shouldn't do it? That's an absolutely insane argument. Apply it to business, software development, or whatever field you work in. The real key here is that commuting every death sentence to life in prison would cost almost nothing. So if it saves even one life, there isn't even a callous cost-benefit argument in favor of the death penalty! I myself am swayed by the moral arguments, no cost-benefit needed, but that's just me.

conroy• 13 years ago

Sadly, California had a chance to ban the death penalty last election via Proposition 34. The outcome wasn't even close, with 52% voting against the proposition [1].

Compared to other states, California executes very few criminals. Over the last 10 years, only three inmates have been killed. Compared to Texas which, over the same time frame, has executed 263 inmates [2].

However, California currently has the most inmates on death row (727) of any state. Since California doesn't execute the inmates it puts on death row, they end up costing the tax payers. An inmate on death row costs the state almost four times as much as a regular inmate ($175k versus $47k)[3].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_34_%2820...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_people_executed_in_Tex...

[3] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/death-penalty-califo...

kumarski• 13 years ago

I've always wondered if the perfect murder involved pouring a large number of hair follicles on the scene.

Alex39175• 13 years ago

For a while I've thought it would be a good idea to make drug paraphernalia that had something like 'Google jury nullification' handwritten on it, and maybe also a brief explanation. The idea is that if it were ever seized then it would have to be read as evidence in the court. You could also add several other features to create reasonable doubt, e.g. an inked thumbprint of another person, someone else's name on it, etc. I think it would make a good Kickstarter project. It would be cool to make 10,000 baggies and a few vaporizers and then to wait for someone to actually get arrested to see how it would work in practice, as sort of a participative art project.

DannyBee2• 13 years ago

" The idea is that if it were ever seized then it would have to be read as evidence in the court."

What? I'm trying to follow this logic, help me out here :)

Among other things (like the fact that there is zero reason anyone would read it to a jury), judges have broad discretion to let evidence in/out. http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_403

They would just not let it be read to a jury as evidence. There are a small number of things not subject to 403's balancing rules, i don't think this would fall into any of them. (Most states have evidence codes based on the federal rules)

jorgeortiz85• 13 years ago

Someone should just make a Hollywood blockbuster about jury nullification.

rdl4• 13 years ago

If I ever had a bunch of spare advertising inventory, pro jury nullification would be the PSA I'd run. I wish someone would do a really catchy viral video about it. It wouldn't even need to run nationally; assuming jurors in many cases are drawn from the local county, you could blanket high-drug-prosecution counties with the message, information about how drug convictions don't actually solve the problems of the ghetto or drug abuse, etc., and probably be fairly effective.

lifeformed• 13 years ago

Gather a bunch of different kinds of hair from a barbershop trashcan and sprinkle it everywhere.

BHSPitMonkey• 13 years ago

Better make sure it's a barbershop you went to recently, and that it includes your hair. Plausible deniability and all.

rjvir• 13 years ago

It takes a lot of guts to admit that people may have wrongfully died in the past in an attempt to potentially save innocent people in the future. It would have been very easy to be stubborn and let even more injustice occur.

pjbrunet• 13 years ago

That's nice but you still have to worry about tampering with evidence, planted evidence, bad assumptions, bogus experts, etc. Or maybe I just watch too many movies ;-)

Like after watching the movie Gattaca, I wonder how much of our DNA is just out there floating around? If there are any good books on DNA matching that are worth reading, post some links please.

Mordor• 13 years ago

and yet not so easy to ban the death penalty

FBI announces review of 2,000 cases featuring hair samples

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