NEWS: Man Executed Protesting His Innocence

As a Buddhist I find this execution despicable, but if there is a god and an intentional bad call was made for whatever reason, I wouldn't want to be their souls facing the hereafter. Bearing false witness for sake of murder on Earth would seemingly carry the most taxing of otherworldly tolls, beyond forgiveness.

Curiously the United States is in a club of capital punishment that has members such as Iran, Syria, Lybia, Red China, and other dictatorships. Most of the civilized world abandoned capital punishment after the excesses of WW II. There were simply too many innocent people executed in WW II. This problem is the same problem that serial killers have, a lack of conscience. While "victims," are paraded in prominence in the media, the capital punishment regime gets support in hysterical impact statements. Not one word is transmitted from many victims who reason, "we cannot bring back the dead with another death."

At the same time, God save us all, the current stranglehold of so called leadership wants a 100 year religious war, masking itself as "liberation, and democratization." Face it already, cases like this are only a canary that dropped dead in the noxious coal mine of brain dead government.

[edit on 17-3-2005 by SkipShipman]

Actually, WW2 was not the turning point for Capital Punishment.

Take Australia for instance, it was only revoked in the 80's when the Victorian state seemingly executed an innocent man.

Originally posted by National Security Agency
your rationale is an enigma to me.

I merely suggest that an unproven new techonology that 'scans peoples brains' isn't enough to overturn multiple failed appeals and a conviction by trial. I also only suggest that merely because a person does not admit guilt does not mean that they are innocent. And, again, can you clarify the Freud statement?

If it was me I would not be wishing for god to have mercy on thier souls.

Capital punishment is just a way to scare others from doing the same crime...it doesn't change anything else. The victims are still dead and the grieving relatives still grieve for their loss.

Society is no better served other than by that message "an eye for an eye" going out.

There's a local man here who spent decades in jail for a crime he never committed; murdering a young girl back almost 50 years ago.
If the death penalty still had effect here, he would have hung for certain (as a teenager).

His name is Steven Truscott...ring a bell for anyone?

The case of State v. Harrington

In this case, a retired Council Bluffs, Iowa, police officer was killed while working as a security guard for a car dealership. Captain John Schweer was killed by a shotgun on the morning of July 22, 1977. The key witness, Kevin Hughes, testified that Terry Harrington and another man were going to steal a car, and killed Schweer in the process.

Harrington has declared his innocence ever since he was convicted over 20 years ago. Harrington claimed that he was at a concert that night and after the concert, he went out driving with friends. Witnesses testified to his alibi, but the jury believed Hughes. Harrington was convicted to life without parole and has sat in the Iowa State Penitentiary making appeals ever since, but with no success.

To make matters more complex, the prosecution's witnesses are starting to say that they lied. Hughes came forward and said that he had lied at Harrington's trial because he did not want to be charged with murder and because he thought he was going to get reward money. Another witness, Candace Pride, stated that she agreed with Hughes because she was Hughes's girlfriend at the time. Also, Clyde Jacobs stated that he agreed to testify against Harrington to stay out of trouble. On March 12, 2001, Harrington's motion for a new trial was rejected.
www.forensic-evidence.com...



Is Brain Fingerprinting valid??? How does it work???

Iowa-based neuroscientist Lawrence Farwell, however, is eager to see his "brain fingerprinting" work get into more courtrooms, convinced as he is that it has a near-perfect accuracy rate.

His method focuses on a specific electrical brain wave, called a P300, which activates when a person sees a familiar object. The subject wears a headband of electrodes and faces a computer screen, which flashes photos.

This technique provides a potential window into someone's past visual experience. If a person looks at random pictures of weapons, without activating a P300 wave, these objects are presumably unknown to him. But if the murder weapon is shown, and a P300 wave activates, then the person clearly has some experience with that weapon.

His "brain fingerprinting" helmet of electrodes is currently available within the CIA, Farwell said, though he doesn't know if or how often it's used.
news.nationalgeographic.com...

The CIA, scandalized by discoveries of double-crossers within its ranks, is funding much of the lab work, along with science foundations.

The FBI and other law-enforcement groups are hiring some of these scientists as consultants, and asking them to train staff in new techniques.

Unlike the polygraph or lie detector to which it is often compared, the accuracy of this technology lies in its ability to pick up the electrical signal, known as a p300 wave, before the suspect has time to affect the output.

"It is highly scientific, brain fingerprinting doesn't have anything to do with the emotions, whether a person is sweating or not; it simply detects scientifically if that information is stored in the brain," says Dr Farwell.

"It doesn't depend upon the subjective interpretation of the person conducting the test. The computer monitors the information and comes up with information present or information absent."

"In research with the FBI, we presented words and phrases that only an FBI agent would know and we could tell by the brain responses who was an FBI agent and who was not; we could do that with 100% accuracy," says Dr Farwell.

The crimes for which Jimmy Ray Slaughter is sentenced to death took place in a house that he is very familiar with. The results were revealing.

"Jimmy Ray Slaughter did not know where in the house the murder took place; he didn't know where the mother's body was lying or what was on her clothing at the time of death - a salient fact in the case," says Dr Farwell.
news.bbc.co.uk...

Good God, mojom (and good palindrome)
I was having a good day and you had to go and depress me. Ok, so he was wrongfully convicted. Is it better to let 10 or 100 guilty men go free than to let 1 innocent man be incarcerated? Does that mean that this man died so that Robert Blake could walk? Check out www.kfiam640.com and try to find John Ziggler's take on jury selection. He's a right wing bastard but he has a point that prosecuters generally want duller people who lack critical thinking skills in their juries.

This court system is all wrong... you can try murder one suspects with circumstantial evidence! Ok, to be fair, by definition murder one is supposed to be thought out and planned... but still. And strangely, I don't think more (black) people commit planned, thought out murders in Texas. (reference The Life of David Gale*)
-S