201
But moooom I wanted to kill that man because I like the feeling of power it gives me, it's not faiiiiir
-The prosecutors, probably
Basically they're terrified that this might open doors. That's almost always what it is. They're scared that someone might start asking questions about OTHER cases and saying "hey, what if those were wrongfully decided as well?". A lot of states love executing people who are problematic - poor people, people of color, mentally disabled people - because it's easier for police to pin literally whatever on them in order to clear up a backlog or to make themselves look competent.
Well there goes MY re-election!
"Look, sure, he's 'innocent' in the eyes of the law, but we got the murder machine all set up and ready to go, tho"
In 1998 Marcellus Williams was convicted of murder. During the appeals processes it was found that he was not a match for any of the copious forensic evidence at the crime scene. He was convicted entirely on the testimony of two people with long records of lying to authorities and who stood to gain leniency in prosecutions for unrelated matters in exchange for their testimony. The prosecutor and the victims family spoke out against the push to execute him, in light of the exculpatory evidence.
It was ultimately determined that being innocent wasn’t a good enough reason not to execute, and he was killed in September of last year. 22 years in prison and then executed despite no evidence he committed the crime and strong evidence that he didn’t.
If being provably innocent isn’t enough to stop an execution, then what possibly could be?
If I was him I would gtfo out of the entire united states.
This is the kind of thing underground railroads are for.
I'll bring the machine guns to guard the perimeter.
The two justifiable cases for the death penalty
All Violent crimes committed by members of the military.
Prosecutors where an executed individual has been subsequently vindicated.
Both mandatory minimum sentences. That is all.
So, you would give the death penalty to a prosecutor who has sought justice but condemned an innocent man to death?
That seems somewhat reasonable, actually.
...But not someone who raped and drowned a 23-month-old girl in his care? Assuming he actually did that, of course.
I've always believed in death penalty for sex abuse of minors (and especially preteen/younger kids). I won't debate it because I understand the arguments that capital punishment has no place in civilised society and all that.
Assuming he actually did that, of course.
This is one of the main points. Whenever the death penalty comes up, proponents like to use what I call the "ultimate evil". They propose some criminal that's guilty of all the worst things they can throw at it (rape, child rape, murder, torture, etc). Then ask rhetorically if that person should be put to death. It's easy to defeat that argument by asking, "After that person is dead, it's uncovered that they were innocent (like actually innocent, not some technicality or only guilty of a lesser crime like manslaughter) and the victim of some elaborate framing by a massively corrupt system. Are you still happy with the outcome?" I'll be one of the first to say there are people in the world that deserve to die. I can name the certain acts too that I'm sure many would agree with and maybe some that less agree with. But then who carries out the act? And are you willing to put 100% trust in them that they get it right every single time?
You reminded me of this wisdom from Gandalf:
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
Pretty much why I'm anti-death-penalty in all cases. The state shouldn't be allowed to deal death as a punishment, because there's too much at stake. You can't un-kill someone if you get things wrong, and prosecutors have a vested interest in, at the very least, not being wrong. Being right doesn't matter, but being wrong can cost you your position or your credibility within the legal field. Killing the defendant wraps things up nicely because a corpse can't defend itself, and it can't say "I wasn't there" or "I had nothing to do with this", it can't plead its own innocence - so you can put whatever words you like into their mouths and it plays perfectly with a jury.
You really dovetailed into the sex offences here.
We are talking about a man who was literally exonerated due to the primary evidence used for prosecution being absolute horseshit. The girl's mother has also flat out said "he did not do that".
Please remember that
Just going from the article.
The article said he was exonerated because the bite matching science was bunk. But she wasn't killed by biting, she was killed by drowning, so I'm not sure where the bite even came into play.
They never said he didn't rape or kill that baby. Just that he didn't bite her.
The girl's mother wasn't there. She left her baby alone with this guy. She doesn't think he'd do that because, as is commonly the situation (and thus, this becomes speculation), she lacked the self-confidence to meet a man who wasn't a child predator. That's one thing child predators do. They seek out poor women with low self esteem who have children who are a burden to them. "Oh yeah I'll stay at home with your child while you go to work," they say. They don't have to work, and they have free access to the child? Win-win in their book. Of course the guy treats them well, they give him all he wants. Many of them even excuse the abuse, they'll say their child seduced their man, their child was jealous, or the abuse isn't that bad, or whatever. Happens all the time. Again, speculation here but it is pretty common.
Treason.
That's the one. If you fight your own country from within, that's treason. Death by hanging.
not to get in the way of ur patriotic fervor, but what constitutes fighting here
In the broad sense.
so like voting for the other guy?
Look I am all about armed revolution, allegedly, so.
I see this as the same allowing prisoners to vote, it protects against governments passing rules to unfairly criminalise something.
He was exonerated and still had to pay bail to get out?
He wasn't exonerated. A conviction being vacated is basically like a mistrial after the fact, and the state can charge and prosecute you again.
Exonerated might not be the correct term. His murder conviction was vacated and death sentence set aside, which is different from saying he is exonerated.
Death penalty aside, leaving a toddler alone in a bathtub is really bad. And if it were my child, I'd just kill the guy myself.
And if I were on a jury I'd put you in prison for however long it takes for a team of therapists to agree you felt remorse and could be rehabilitated.
If you left your child with him it could be argued you share in the blame. If you had any inkling that he wasn't capable.
We waste so much money punishing people and so little on helping people heal and grow. Vengeance is no salve despite what Hollywood would have you believe.
this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2025
201 points (100.0% liked)
News
35471 readers
4043 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS