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Comment by CapitalistCartr | Hacker News Reader

In the United States, innocence has never been grounds for an appeal, a stay, overturning, or clemency. Here in Florida, I could write an accurate algorithm for calculating the application of the Death Penalty. Skin darkness (literally, not race), IQ, wealth, sex are the relevant factors. The elements of the case are not.

I'm not against the Death Penalty on general principle grounds; I'm against it because we clearly aren't to be trusted with it.

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Actual innocence is a grounds for vacating a conviction.

In the USA, innocence isn't grounds for an appeal. Actual, post-conviction DNA tests aren't a basis. Errors at trial are. So good lawyers find one. Jury instructions, evidentiary errors, procedural, etc., which is why money buys justice.

What are you smoking? I'd ask for sources but this is an absurd idea. You don't even need innocence in the US. You need to show there is reasonable doubt that the individual is guilty. At least that's how it works during trial. I'm not going to claim this works flawlessly, nor that it justifies a death penalty, but let's be real here.

You are completely misinformed. Reasonable doubt applies at trial, not on appeals. Also, the ad hominem adds nothing to your point.

Edit: look at Herrera v. Collins (SCOTUS): "Petitioner's claim of actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence is not ground for federal habeas relief. United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed."

Two questions were presented for the Supreme Court's review:

Do the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments permit a state to execute an individual who is innocent of the crime for which he or she was convicted and sentenced to death? What post-conviction procedures are necessary to protect against the execution of an innocent person?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrera_v._Collins

Is the critical distinction in "federal habeas relief"? Does that mean that state appellate courts can/do consider evidence of innocence in order to vacate a conviction?

No it doesn't. It just means that this particular case doesn't speak to states doing that or not. It has no applicability outside of federal habeas relief.

I see all that Terraria playing didn't interfere with your bar review! ;)

>>At least that's how it works during trial.

That is for the first trial, and the first trial only

After that you are guilty, the only thing that matters to the legal system then is their arbitrary rules. The other commenter is 100% correct that actual innocents is irreverent for any appeal.

The US Legal System is completely off the rails of any common sense, justice, or rational thought at this point.

"The law perverted! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!" -- Frédéric Bastiat

The intention behind debating guilt only at the first trial is to prevent endless retrials for the same thing. Imagine if you were cleared of a charge but someone kept re-accusing you over and over, dragging you back to trial again and again. Or similarly, if someone was found guilty of the murder of someone you loved, but kept being re-tried again and again, and you had to keep giving testimony as a witness each time.

What is "perverted" about the system is that people have found ways around it to essentially get retrials for the same crime. Because there are so many laws, and so confusingly worded, the prosecutor can often just keep throwing things at you until something sticks (especially for white-collar crimes.) And appeals, which ought to be rare, somehow have become routine for many cases.

>> Imagine if you were cleared of a charge but someone kept re-accusing you over and over, dragging you back to trial again and again.

Well that is turning the double jeopardy rule on its head, using that to defend not considering innocence on appeal is something only a lawyer wishing to pervert the law would consider...

The purpose of double jeopardy is to limit state power to put people in a cage, not to increase state power to keep them there...

>And appeals, which ought to be rare, somehow have become routine for many cases.

I dont think so, I think any sentence over 5 years should come with an automatic appeal to a 3 judge panel and any sentence of Life or more, should come with a automatic retrial with a whole new jury.

I have zero faith in the Jury system and police state, and I think the wrongful conviction rate is vastly under reported. That is with out even getting started in the immoral extortion racket called "plea bargain"

Just going to jump in here and point out rayiner is an appellate lawyer.

Indeed he may be, but the case of Herrera v. Collins is pretty clear - laws are about procedures, not facts. If someone has been found guilty in a trial, and there were no flaws in the prodecures followed, then it is not unconstitutional to follow through with the punishment, even if later evidence shows the person is innocent.

More importantly, it would be procedurally problematic if convicted criminals could appeal on the basis of a claim of innocence, even if it's due to new evidence. Following procedures is more important than getting at the truth. (I conjecture it's because getting at the truth is unreasonably difficult. For example, there's no guarantee that a subsequent trial will be more reliable than the original.)

But that challenges the whole foundations of a civilized society, does it not? I suspect if prominent people are being caught on the wrong side of such procedural issues, ways would be found to tweak the law in a hurry.

Convictions get vacated when an alternate perpetrator is identified or confesses.

Still, that alternate confession must be credible. For high-profile crimes, there often seem to be dozens of alternate confessions, and they are usually obviously untrue so they should not be grounds for appeal of the convicted.

The hard part is how to establish that alternate confessions or new evidence are really significant (as they indeed sometimes are).

Hererra v. Collins must be considered in the (unfortunately complicated) context of post-conviction review law. There are state and federal post-conviction review procedures for dealing with new evidence. In addition, while Herrera and later cases reserve the question of whether "actual innocence" is by itself a basis for habeas relief, in practice there is a "bootstrap" Constitutional violation (usually ineffective assistance of counsel) that in conjunction with the actual innocence claim will provide a basis for habeas review. And in McQuiggin v. Perkins, the Supreme Court cleared pretty much any procedural hurdle to such claims when "actual innocence" is shown.

Here is an article that discusses the context surrounding Herrera v. Collins: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl....

Many (and, I hope, all) jurisdictions will reopen a trial when significant new evidence appears, but not just for any new evidence. For example, "I suddenly remember that, the morning of the crime, I woke up five minutes earlier than usual" or "it turns out there are not 20, but 21 HD videos of the crime" may be new, but is very unlikely to be deemed reason to reopen a trial.

Problem is to determine what is both significant and new.

Even somebody else confessing or new evidence showing up that the convicted has an alibi to the crime may not be deemed significant, as somebody must judge whether the new information is true.

For example, blindly trusting confessors to speak the truth would open the door for groups of people to keep each other unconvicted (A gets indicted and, a few months later, convicted, B suddenly shows up claiming he was with A, giving A an alibi, a year later A gets convicted again because that alibi didn't turn out to be watertight, C (who may already be in jail for something else) confesses, C gets convicted, D, who's dying, confesses, etc.)

So, some judge must determine whether new evidence warrants reopening a case. If that judge is (consciously or unconsciously) biased, this easily can lead to injustice. From what I read, that seems to have been the case quite a few times in the US.

Speaking of pretty clear, later evidence is pretty clear grounds for a new trial according to U.S. law, at least up to 3 years after they're found guilty. Beyond that I'd leave it to the lawyers to figure out.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_33

Death sentenced are always granted an appeal, however.

"Innocence" is an unknowable state of fact. Insufficiency of evidence to prove guilt is a basis for direct appeal. And new evidence showing actual innocence is a basis for federal habeas review after appeal. See McQuiggin v. Perkins. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...

Clarification: McQuiggin continues to leave open the question of whether "actual innocence" can be the basis for habeas review standing alone. In practice, there is something else that can be alleged to "bootstrap" the "actual innocence" claim.

Ok then, what happens if new evidence comes up. For example, lets say you were accused of murder, and later on a video is found on some security camera that wasn't noticed before of someone else killing the person in question, so that you are 100% proven to NOT be the murderer?

Would that be grounds for an appeal? I'm pretty sure it would be...

New evidence and errors in previous trials are the only reasons for a new trial.

“There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction.”

One could argue that the 10th Amendment counts here. Of course it's such a "catch all" that it's basically always ignored...

OTOH, the govt. chooses to acknowledge the vague and fuzzy parts of the Constitution (eg, the "necessary and reasonable clause") when it's convenient for the State. But if a vague and fuzzy part of the Constitution could be seen as establishing more of a check on the power of the State, well...

Not in Texas. There's a Frontline for that: "Cameron Todd Willingham – Innocent and Executed"

( and I am a Texican my own self, but Ron White wasn't kidding... "we have the death penalty, and we USE it" ).

Exists in Texas too: http://www.johntfloyd.com/actual-innocence

> It was against this muddled constitutional backdrop that the Texas Supreme Court significantly changed the “actual innocence” debate this past May in In Re Billy Fredrick Allen. Allen was arrested for two murders in 1983 by Dallas County authorities. He was subsequently convicted and was sentenced to two concurrent 99-year terms. His convictions were upheld on direct appeal. Over the next quarter century Allen filed several writs of habeas corpus in state courts alleging constitutional violations and claims of actual innocence—the latter claim having been recognized as cognizable in post-conviction habeas corpus proceedings in 1996 in Ex parte Elizondo. In 2009 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) found that Allen’s “newly discovered evidence” demonstrated a sufficient showing of “actual innocence” under Schlup v. Delo to warrant the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus and a release from custody.

Wow, thanks for that. Perhaps progress is possible on this front.

I've never completely understood the tendency towards severity in Texas, other than the long period in which it was simply very violent, but that would depend on a questionable reading of the effects of institutional memory.

>>>I'm not against the Death Penalty on general principle grounds

You should be...

When you kill someone outside the conditions of self defense that is murder and is immoral. I do not care if the government doing it as some kind of "punishment" or a person doing it for another reason, murder is murder, "capital punishment" is murder.

If we want a peaceful, just and free society, it can not include capital punishment. A free and civilized society does not have Capital Punishment.

History will not judge us by how we treat the acceptable people, the people that follow the rules, the nice people... No history will judge our society by how it treats the worst of us, the evil people that given the opportunity would slice your throat open and laugh as you bleed out...

It is likely that in 100 years, this time will be viewed by people living then like we view the barbarism of Early American history. People will be asking "how could anyone support that kind of treatment of others". This of course is not just about capital punishment but the entire prison system.

It's very easy for me to have a preferred moral code that is almost like yours except that I do not axiomatically declare that capital punishment is equivalent to murder.

Why? Because it is "legal". Do you base your morality on what is legal and what is illegal?

How do you define murder?

Sincere question. Why are you allowed to murder someone in self-defense, but not as a punishment for crimes? What moral code do you rely on that draws the line there? Why is that moral code more correct than one that draws the line between punishment and capricious violence?

FWIW, I'm somewhere between you and OP in my thoughts. Definitely against the death penalty in practice, and somewhat ambivalent in theory. But it's interesting to really think about the axioms we construct our morals and ethics from, and why they're the way they are.

>>Why are you allowed to murder someone in self-defense, but not as a punishment for crimes?

The principle of Self Ownership, which is the basis of the philosophy of liberty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ

It would not be murder to protect your own life from the aggression of others. However any use of violence must be in proportion to the threat to your life. I.e I do not believe you have the right to kill someone for trespassing, but only in those circumstance where there is a reasonable believe your life to be direct and immediate danger.

If capital punishment is murder, then taxation is theft.

Correct

Is paying for services theft?

I dunno, I'm not a libertarian :)

Why don't you rephrase that with the appropriate level of detail and not leaving out important facts: Is not wanting to pay for something that you were given and didn't explicitly request theft? And yes, I'm an anarcho-capitalist and jumping in here.

There are a slew of assumptions that are being made when arguing for a pro-state stance. Eventually, you'll stumble on this thing called the "social contract", and then magically all questions of validity are somehow answered. It's a convenient answer devoid of any first-principles, that many are content with using as a basis to defend the status-quo of the existence of a state.

There's no such thing as no state. For any conflict, whoever wins is the de facto state.

I think you'd get disagreements from both sides of the fence on that definition of a state.

All of the theories of who is a state or not fail as soon as real geopolitics is involved.

Taiwan is not a state in the eyes of the US simply because China wouldn't play nicely if we said otherwise.

Saudi Arabia during its formation in the early 1900s would have been indistinguishable from the ISIS of today.

If your window is broken and I replace your window but take your TV as payment, did I steal your TV?

Maybe you had a different window you wanted, or maybe you did not want to replace it at all.

"Paying for services" implies some kind of voluntary exchange. Government is not voluntary, government is violence, and any "service" provided by government is done so at gun point under the threat of violence and paid for in the same manner.

Yes, yes, you and the guy above are Americans, I get that. Me, I'm from Europe. I guess we see things differently.

Of course, none of us here has a country that would demand such ridiculous things as income taxes from expats, so I see where that may come from.

Great answer. Do you consider lifetime imprisonment to be immoral for the same reason?

That depends, in general yes.

Generally I believe the only persons that should be in "prison" are those that are a clear danger to society Serial Killers for example.

Not for punishment, but for the protection of society.

I think the legal system should be less about punishment, and more about Restitution and Protection.

Self-ownership... Then you could theoretically "cede" that ownership of your own body to someone else like a family-member / spouse (perhaps a will, or have it done prior-to-death). And thus, in that frame of reference murder becomes an extreme form of theft.

Governments are made by people out of people. The whole system is just people, telling one another what to do, with the carrot of reward and the rod of violence, as necessary. An organization isn't a shield against personal morality. Capital punishment is a bunch of people telling another person to kill yet another person. That's all it is.

(And yes, war is murder too.)

I agree with most of that, except for the "is" in "war is murder".

What do you mean by "is"? At the end of the day we have decided as a society that "Killing people is called murder and it's Very Bad", and we can also decide that "killing people who don't deserve it is murder and it's Very Bad" if we prefer.

Personally, I vacillate between thinking that capital punishment and life-imprisonment is quite immoral (and that we should fine something like 'exile' as an alternative), and a more utilitarian stance that, well, we have to find something to do with dangerous people and it doesn't really bother me if getting rid of them entirely is it.

[n.b. these stances are all in a vacuum and do not reflect my policy beliefs, which are specifically attuned to our society's pisspoor implementation of life-imprisonment and capital punishment.]

Frankly, I don't even understand what's the purpose of capital punishment?

It is not to punish someone -- they are already dead, so they can't feel the punishment It is not to set an example -- its been proven over and over again - when people are ready or commit crime, the last thing they think of is that they will get caught or get punished. That's why death penalty does not stop people from committing heinous crimes. It is not to give relief to the family of a victim. Countless examples of (mostly Christians) that publicly said they forgive the murderer and are against death penalty for him/her are always being ignored by justice.

Its very scary to think a civilized country have something as horrible as death penalty, which imho means we gave up on someone. Sure I've seen animals in human skin but what stops us from putting them in jail for the rest of their lives (not money I can tell you that).

One obvious answer is that capital punishment guarantees that the criminal will not commit another crime, which isn't true of any other sentence.

Lifetime solitary without any means of communication. This is probably worse than death.

People escape from prison.

Haha, not from supermax they don't.

If you used a time machine to bring some people from a 1600s English colony here in America to the present time, they would think our punishments are cruel and unusual. To them, prison itself was cruel and unusual punishment, so they didn't have them: they just executed people or did other harsh, but quick punishments, depending on the crime. To them, it was far more merciful to execute someone than to stick them in a prison cell for years and years. (They did have jails, though, but only for people awaiting trial.)

So any time I see someone criticizing the death penalty as "uncivilized", I think it's a bit silly because there have been whole cultures that completely disagreed.

okay so taking your logic forward, I dont get it why we need houses, forks and cars? We used to be just fine living in caves, using stones to chase and crash each other skulls for food, and we been fine riding horses too!

So you think prison really isn't all that awful then? And that everyone who tries to simply commit suicide instead of spending their life in prison must have "mental problems"?

That is so true. Very dark skin, on the border of intellectual disability, poor and male means... no matter what you are accused of or whether you actually did it or not... guaranteed death penalty if possible by law.

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