> Furthermore it is highly suspect that he was caught selling the laptop stolen from her house and the story about how he came into it is implausible.

Things like “the State destroyed or corrupted the evidence that could conclusively prove his innocence and the available DNA and other forensic crime-scene evidence does not match him” should at the very least make everyone pause and reconsider the course of action. I am not familiar with the case so I don’t have an opinion on whether he is guilty or not, but this is not a way of running a justice system.

In any case, yes, the death penalty is a barbaric anachronism in a liberal society.

I'm not entrenched in my position, but I would argue that there are cases where the death penalty makes sense. It seems more cruel to lock someone up for the rest of their life with no chance of parole AND denying them the ability to commit suicide. Maybe avoidance of cruelty isn't the point of getting rid of the death penalty, though.

I'm against the death penalty - I do believe there's times it makes sense, and I certainly believe there's crimes worthy of it. But I don't trust the state to make this determination with 100% accuracy - and anything less than 100% means we have to make the choice between not giving the death penalty to those who do deserve it, or executing those who don't deserve it.

It's not unusual to hear stories of people being found innocent after decades in prison - and every single time it hammers home to me that they could have been pardoning a grave.

> It seems more cruel to lock someone up for the rest of their life with no chance of parole AND denying them the ability to commit suicide.

It does, but at least it is reversible. I think when the worst case (an innocent being killed) is so wrong, it makes sense to design the system to avoid it, even if this has side effects such as making it worse for the actual criminals.

I would support leaving the opportunity to commit suicide in good conditions rather than strangling themselves with their bedsheets, but doing that properly would be tricky.

> Maybe avoidance of cruelty isn't the point of getting rid of the death penalty, though.

That’s a tricky one. It is hard to want to avoid cruelty in the case of gruesome murders. Nobody wants to say that they want to make the life of jailed terrorists better.

But among the opponents to the death penalty, I don’t think that cruelty is the main point. By keeping them alive, we don’t lower ourselves to their level, we leave them an opportunity to become better, and we avoid the moral cost of killing innocents.

Besides, life in prison is as good or bad as we collectively want it to be. There is a spectrum between Swedish jails and a hole in a dungeon.

If it were up to me it would be in the constitution that everyone has the right to euthanasia and suicide with no conditions. At first i thought it seems like a completely unrelated issue to the death penalty. After thinking about it more maybe you have a point. Society will likely never get over the taboo of enabling suicide so i suppose it can be seen as a lesser moral evil to kill someone rather than subject them to life imprisonment under suicide watch. Interesting moral questions

This was all considered by the state Supreme Court. Due process was invoked and after numerous reviews at every level no court found anything to retry or reverse the case.

My personal take - of course he was guilty as unrelated people recounted confessions he made to them that included details that were never made public. And the property findings.

Saying that I’m not sure killing people is the greatest thing.

> unrelated people recounted confessions he made to them that included details that were never made public

Do you have a source?

"The case against Mr. Williams turned on the testimony of two unreliable witnesses who were incentivized by promises of leniency in their own pending criminal cases and reward money. The investigation had gone cold until a jail inmate named Henry Cole, a man with a lengthy record, claimed that Mr. Williams confessed to him that he committed the murder while they were both locked up in jail. Cole directed police to Laura Asaro, a woman who had briefly dated Mr. Williams and had an extensive record of her own.

Both of these individuals were known fabricators; neither revealed any information that was not either included in media accounts about the case or already known to the police. "

Literally the Missouri Supreme Court decision and US Supreme Court decision that supports it.

I get your point and I am not arguing for his innocence, but both courts are highly suspect these days.

Everything is fallable, sure. But consider this: the guy had millions of dollars of pro bono legal machinery behind him and even still could not produce an argument or counter evidence to support his claim. Our system is amazingly transparent and corruption or outright denial of evidence would be clearly apparent. And it’s not there.

The system works almost always but does get it wrong sometimes. I doubt that this was that time. Justice was served.

> and corruption or outright denial of evidence would be clearly apparent

Not really - the legal discovery rules require full disclosure of all evidence, yet you regularly hear about how prosecutors don't disclose evidence. Sometimes the appeals process will grant a new trial, sometimes they overturn, but often the judges will just say "we're not going to bother worrying about the lack of a fair trial". It happens often enough that prosecutors are willing to take the gamble on it, otherwise it wouldn't continue to be a common news story.

In this case though the defense never even challenged the evidence or if it was sufficient. You “regularly” hear about it because it’s so rare that it’s news if it happens. It’s a very rare event.

Read the background here and tell me you really support this man who stabbed that woman - mother and wife - 43 times.

https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/2003/sc-...

The same justices that put a pro-abortion amendment on the ballot.

> " [...] neither revealed any information that was not either included in media accounts about the case or already known to the police. "

My brain is short-circuiting over the two parts of this snippet from The Innocence Project. Presumably both are intended to suggest unreliable individuals and an unjust guilty verdict, but I find a mismatch between the two. It's one thing to suppose the individuals revealed some details that were featured in media accounts. But it's quite a different thing to suppose the individuals revealed some details that were known only to police. The former point is of no consequence, but the latter point, if true, supports the reliability of the individuals and the guilt of the accused.

Not that I support the death penalty anyway. But I'm leaning toward nemo44x's personal take mentioned above. And the snippet was presumably written to coax us that the man was innocent. Am I missing something? They seem like weasel words, as another poster put it. :(

Just read the background from the appeal case and urs clear as day he’s guilty. They challenged a bunch of technicalities with flimsy arguments. At no point did they challenge if the evidence was sufficient.

https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/2003/sc-...

He stabbed that women 43 times. And yet these fools support this evil monster of a man.

This is a lawyer's evasive way of hiding that these individuals revealed info that was not known to the public but was confirmed to be accurate by the police

I love how they try and paint the witnesses as unreliable because they have "records" while defending the guy who had 15 violent felonies and already serving time for armed robbery as a victim of the system. While also ignoring the testimony of the person he fenced the victim's laptop to and the victim's belongings being found in the car he used to drive to burglary turned murder.

> The prosecutor who wanted to pardon him was not the original prosecutor, but a recent progressive elected one

It's beyond stupid to elect people who are in charge of upholding laws and prosecute crimes. They have to campaign, make their views known, and to get elected, show views which of course aren't necessarily related to what their job should be about.

Get professionals that are as impartial as possible. They will still have biases, but they won't have to advertise them and be beholden to them in order to get reelection.

If prosecutors are going to be biased either way, I'd prefer a choice in those biases.

I'd prefer them to not have biases, to be criticised when they do, and not to be incentivised (reelection) to proudly show them.

Then you're also okay with me choosing the bias of a prosecutor prosecuting you?

No, that's silly and not at all the same thing as a prosecutor being accountable to the electorate as a whole. The entire point is that I don't trust one person, or a small group of people, to pick someone who is "unbiased". I don't trust the electorate as a whole either, but I trust them more than elected officials.

Only three states in the US have appointed, rather than elected, district attorneys. The United States Attorney General is an appointed position, and we've seen in recent administrations how it can be corrupted quite easily.

> No, that's silly and not at all the same thing as a prosecutor being accountable to the electorate as a whole.

In my perspective, it is exactly the same thing when you disagree with the electorate. Which is why (personnally) I don't want you, or any electorate choosing prosecutors.

If every time you voted for a prosecutor, and every time your vote was in a minority, would you still feel you had a say in the bias of the prosecutor?

I agree with respect to appointments being not good. In my view those are proxies for an election. I personally trust neither electorate nor elected officials.

> In my perspective, it is exactly the same thing when you disagree with the electorate.

In a democracy, you can argue with and convince your fellow citizens to change the law and how it is enforced. If a majority doesn't agree, you won't get your way. This is not a good system, but it is better than any other system.

If there were some other alternative that guaranteed that everyone always gets a completely unbiased prosecutor - great, I'm all for it! That system doesn't exist, though.

Would you answer:

> If every time you voted for a prosecutor, and every time your vote was in a minority, would you still feel you had a say in the bias of the prosecutor?

You said previously at least by voting you had a say in the bias. Is your answer to the above a genuine "yes" because you feel there was opportunity to lobby other citizens?

I don't agree that there is necessarily even that possibility. Thus my position is that elected or appointed by an elected official are equally broken.

Who, exactly, gets to choose how unbiased the prosecutor is? You won't get that from a democratic election and you won't get that from elected officials choosing them.

My question is sincere. If the upstream comment wants to choose bias, then a "yes" answer to my question would be a consistent position and interesting if sincerely answered that way.

To your question, a priori bias would be hard to evaluate. Post facto there would be some data and perhaps some metrics that could be used. It would less be "who", but "how."

Prosecutor bias is a bit nebulous though. Prosecutors should be honest and present the best case possible, met with the best defense possible. The best defense being a function of wealth rather than a consistent standard is damning. But I quickly digress...

I would be interested to have my original question answered.

> If the upstream comment wants to choose bias, then a "yes" answer to my question would be a consistent position and interesting if sincerely answered that way.

I have no idea what you're saying here, but my comment was just saying that I want to vote for prosecutors rather than having them appointed. I prefer to decide for myself how biased the candidates are than to trust an elected official to pick someone who is unbiased, and to have my fellow citizens vote as well.

I don't have to assent to any random Dick, Joe, or Harry choosing a prosecutor for me to believe that everyone is better off if we are all prosecuted by someone elected.

> I prefer to decide for myself how biased the candidates

> have my fellow citizens vote as well.

I find those positions at odds to one another. Personally I don't want prosecutors to be neither appointed by elected officials nor elected. Though, I am more digging into that you think you might get a choice when voting.

Re-read what I wrote. I believe the grammar correct and it is clear.

Though, I'll illustrate with an example. Let's say the electorate is 10 people. You, 3 of your friends that think identical to you, and me with 5 of my friends that think identical to me. This is a 6 vs 4 situation. Now let's say we put up two prosecutors for election. One who will always try you unjustly, and one who will always try me unjustly. If there is an election, the 6 to 4 majority would not vote your way. Thus, despite there being a vote - you are not getting the choice of bias. Ergo, when saying (paraphrasing) "I want to choose the bias via vote", you are also saying: i am okay with others deciding the bias of a prosecutor against me

Your point is completely out of scope of what's being discussed. My comment was a reply to a comment saying "It's beyond stupid to elect people who are in charge of upholding laws and prosecute crimes." My argument is entirely and only an argument that prosecutors should be elected instead of appointed.

All this other stuff about language is not relevant and I don't care about your thought experiment because it's completely unlike the way elections work in the real world, and has nothing to do with me preferring that over a situation where one of the 10 people gets to pick the prosecutor!

My point is to demonstrate that a minority can be consistently oppressed by a majority. Thereby negating the vote of the minority. This is how people feel in northern California, eastern Oregon, and many other places.

My point is that appointments and elections are almost the same thing, nearly a distinction without a difference. Don't like the appointments, then vote for a different person. Bit of a distinction of representative democracy vs direct. Not necessarily that different. Almost entirely equally broken IMO.

> situation where one of the 10 people gets to pick the prosecutor!

That is not at all the simplification. We could change it that the 10 people are voting for someone to do the appointment of a prosecutor. Or we could flip it to a real world example where someone is in eastern oregon voting conservative, or someone lives in 1930s rural south as a minority.

The majority rule can lead to a bad path. Notably authoritarian regimes where the prosecutor promises to go after the minorities. Which has its examples historically throughout the world, including the US

I cannot help but wonder if his race had something do with the outcome :(

The US Supreme Court denied a stay, with 3 liberal justices saying they would have stopped the execution. Thus my comment.

I haven't read anything about the Supreme Court's decision, but did they dissent on the grounds that they believed he was innocent, or that capital punishment shouldn't be allowed (and not comment on his guilt)?

IIRC, they declined to hear the case.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/09/supreme-court-allows-marc...

Supreme Court justices don't typically explain their reasons for dissenting in emergency applications like this. They can if they choose to, but they didn't here.

The US Supreme Court's decision was that there was not grounds for them to interfere in the case, because the state courts had already provided sufficient due process. They made no official ruling about guilt or capital punishment.

>People who are willing to commit murder are often sociopaths and pathological liars

Only 27% of them apparently[0], so even murderers are still more likely to not be a psychopath.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135917891...

Thanks for posting this, the quoted text smelled like something pulled out of... the air.

Murder as part of a burglary or other monetary crime seems more likely to be linked to sociopathy than the entire range of reasons people murder.

Thats an opinion. It could easily be argued the other way around. Murders during burglary has a higher chance of have happened accidentally than other kind of murders. Stealing is more likely to happen because of poverty than psychopathy. Its kinda a useless exercise making up arguments uninformed by reality.

"People who are willing to commit murder are often sociopaths and pathological liars. It isn’t surprising he would maintain his innocence for years."

An innocent person would also maintain his innocence for years. With respect, this reminds me of some commentary at the time of the Central Park Five case. "They did it because they're evil." Well, somebody was evil, but we needed to know a little more than "we found these kids and there is evil". In the end that attitude led to a horrifying miscarriage of justice.

Somebody was a murderer, it sounds like we agree on that.

I'm ignorant about the case, but the abundance of physical evidence at the crime scene, none of it pointing to the executed man, seems much more relevant than anything you cited in your comment. Again, I say this with respect. If you care to respond, I hope I'm open to logic and reason.

Bell and the victim's family wanted a commuted sentence, not a pardon. They did not believe in his innocence.