>>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ws/0,1246,45186,00.html
>
>Did you read the entire story? Let's take it point for point.

Yes, I read both stories, the one in the Chicago Tribune about the death penalty in Texas and the one at Boston.com about the man who died on death row from cancer.

>40 involved trials where the defense attorneys presented no evidence or only one witness during the sentencing phase.
>
>Is this a problem? They presented witnesses and a defense during the trial. Perhaps the only witnesses he had to bring were already presented during that phase. Maybe by reading the jury, they didn't like those witnesses and bringing them forth again would have no effect. On face value, this means nothing and there was no further information as to the whys in the article.

Yes, it is a problem. I would not have to be Johnie Cochran to shoot a million holes through this case, at least enough to provide reasonable doubt. I would have called the psychiatrist to the stand and asked why he labeled a man a sociopath without ever meeting him. And I would have asked why his nickname was Dr. Death. I surely would have called the Thompsons to the stand. And of course Todd.

>29 included a psychiatrist who gave testimony that the American Psychiatric Association condemned as unethical and untrustworthy.
>
>These 29 cases involved psychiatrists predicting future behavior based on past behavior without examining the defendants first hand. Even with my limited knowledge of human nature, this seems very natural. In the past, based on documented evidence, I have been seen eating at Denny's on several occasions. It is probable that I will eat there again in the future. You need not eat at Denny's with me to make the prediction after seeing it on paper.

I really can't argue with the analogy of the death penalty to Denny's. Eating there is its own form of death. < g >

>43 included defense attorneys publicly sanctioned for misconduct -- either before or after their work on these cases.
>
>It doesn't matter what an attorney does after a trial. Unlike the above which uses the past to predict the future, the same can not be used in reverse. You can not use a new event and say that the person must have also done it in the past. The new event could be something new. So you have to throw those out entirely. As for the others that were santioned or disbarred before the case in question, the article doesn't say that the defendant had multiple occurances of this (i.e. disbarred/sanctioned laywer for trial and all subsequent appeals). They had a competent attorney at some point. This is all that's required.

I agree that it does not matter what happened after the trial, but how can you assume he had a competent attorney at some point? Blind faith in our amazing legal system?

>23 included jailhouse informants, considered to be among the least credible of witnesses.
>
>The article states that the states case included jailhouse informants. It does not say (nor would I expect it to) that the states case was limited to only jailhouse informant testimony. Again, this does not invalidate the conviction, in my mind.

Agreed. But one of their witness's, Carey Tood, clearly perjured himself. As did Richard Cordell and Riley Rogers for the prosecution. And McEachern's testimony is questionable at best.

>23 included visual hair analysis, which has consistently proved unreliable.
>
>I can't comment on this one. What does "visual anlysis" mean? Microscopic visual? 20/400 eye site visual?

I agree. The article did not back up this statement.

>The fact that a person is going to be your President has little bearing in my mind on this topic. You can say you don't like him because he thinks like this or not. But as President, he doesn't have any power over capital cases. Those are state matters.

It does to me. To me, there are obvious problems with the death penalty. If I could be 100% certain a person was guilty, I would have no problem with it. And it speaks to George W. ability to govern when with a case like that comes before him, and he sees no problems with it. Here is Republican Governor who thinks otherwise:

http://chicagonorth.about.com/citiestowns/midwestus/chicagonorth/library/weekly/aa032600a.htm

>As I said, I read the article and the Tribune cites in detail a few out of the 131 cases. The biggest problem I see here is they are focusing on the process after the fact. What happened in the appeals process or what happened in the sentencing phase. However, by that time 12 people already found the defendant guilty. And while a person is innocent until proven guilty before a conviction, they are guilty until proven innocent after that. No evidence was introduced that proved the defendants innocent. While the process may have been flawed (and I grant that), it seems to have worked out in the end.

And as the OJ trial clearly proved to me, 12 jurors saying a man is innocent or guilty does not exactly restore my faith in the legal system. And if the OJ case did not convince you, I don't know what will.

>And on one last note about the original article cited. Perhaps he was found innocent using DNA but two facts still remain:
>
>1. He was a violent predicate felon who should have been executed for if not the first murder then at least the second.

Amazing that you can render judgement like that without hearing the case.

>2. He was not executed. The appeals process was still going on when he died so there is no way of telling what would have happened if everything had played out.

Yeah, lucky him.