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Re: Researchers: More than 2,000 false convictions in past 23 years 

By: Decomposed in FFFT | Recommend this post (3)
Mon, 21 May 12 8:05 PM | 61 view(s)
Boardmark this board | Food For Further Thought 		Msg. 42321 of 65535
(This msg. is a reply to 42314 by clo)
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re: "Smith's case illustrates the fallout from false convictions. He lost roughly 20 years of his life to prison"

And the solution is . . . what?

I don't see liberals (or anyone else, really) clamoring for solutions to wrongful lawsuits and prosecutions. There are some changes that really might change things.

o The loser in a civil suit has to pay the winner. If I sue you for a million dollars and lose, I owe YOU a million dollars. This would end lawsuits that don't have a REALLY strong case.

o Set fees for what lawyers can charge. Forget about giving them a cut of the pie. There are too many cases of lawyers willing to take weak cases 'for free' in the hope that the jury will go crazy and award millions of dollars.

o Treat perjury seriously. Give perjurers ten year sentences, MINIMUM. If their false testimony results in someone else receiving a severe penalty, give the perjurer DOUBLE the penalty . . . all the way up to the death penalty.

Perjurers commit their crime intentionally. There's no reason to feel any sympathy for them.

All that said . . . bad convictions will occur. That's sad, but I don't think there is any way to stop it from happening.




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The above is a reply to the following message:
Researchers: More than 2,000 false convictions in past 23 years
By: clo in FFFT
Mon, 21 May 12 7:10 PM 		Msg. 42314 of 65535

If their grandmother is alive, SHE should be held accountable! What a horrible injustice she is responsible for. Maybe if the real criminal was jailed, the person he murdered would be alive...

Researchers: More than 2,000 false convictions in past 23 years

Sylvester Smith, center, smiles after he was granted a new trial after two witnesses recanted their testimony in a Brunswick County courtroom in Bolivia, N.C., Nov. 5, 2004. He had wrongfully served 20 years on a sexual assault charge.

By Elizabeth Chuck, msnbc.com

In 1984, two North Carolina girls, age 4 and 6, were molested. They told police their abuser was Sylvester Smith, who was dating the mother of one of the girls, and he went to prison for the crime.

Twenty years later, the victims recanted, saying their grandmother told them to blame Smith, and his conviction was overturned.
But the person they say who really molested them -- their cousin, who was nine at the time -- could not be prosecuted because he was under age at the time of the alleged crime. He is, however, serving a life sentence for another crime he committed in the meantime: murder. 

Smith's case illustrates the fallout from false convictions: He lost roughly 20 years of his life to prison, while the alleged perpetrator was free to commit other crimes.

Smith's discarded conviction is one of nearly 900 such cases filed in the National Registry of Exonerations, a database of prisoners exonerated in the U.S. of serious crimes since 1989, that was made public on Monday. To qualify as an "exoneree," an individual must have been convicted and later relieved of all the legal consequences.

In compiling the database, researchers became aware of more than 1,100 other cases in which convictions were overturned due to 13 separate police corruption scandals, most of which involved the planting of drugs or guns on innocent defendants. Those exonerations are not included in the registry. 

Much more:
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/21/11756575-researchers-more-than-2000-false-convictions-in-past-23-years?lite

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