When the State gets it wrong, innocent people die – I was almost one of them | Hacker News Reader

When the State gets it wrong, innocent people die – I was almost one of them

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51 pointsdsr1215 comments

It is a very human trait to stick with a choice once made, even if the information that led to that decision turns out to be faulty and the decision itself no longer makes sense. Loss of face, stubbornness, a refusal (subconscious or not) to admit our own fallibility, for any one person there can be plenty of reasons to stick with a faulty decision.

But what always puzzles me in these horrific accounts of abuse by a system is how all the people that are part of it somehow allow for this human trait to seep into the system itself. What goes on in their minds? Is it something to do with a fear of unjustly triggering a series of (costly) events that might exonerate an innocent man? A fear of personal consequences in case they proved guilty after all? Or is it simply always someone else's problem — even if you were the governor himself?

politics and media play huge roles.

in this particular case though, the author provides zero evidence that the crime wasnt committee. he hints that the guy was mentally not all there or "insane".

The author himself (not the other guy who was executed in a rush) was offered the Alford Plea, which if I understand correctly means that the justice system does in fact believe he is innocent and doesn't want an innocent death on their hands, but also doesn't want to be held accountable for eighteen years of unjust incarceration — i.e., admit that a grave mistake was made.

(Please capitalize your sentences, it makes your contributions easer to read.)

Though that is kind of how it was used in Echol's case, in general the prosecutors think the person is guilty but don't want to spend money on the proof. Avoiding huge lawsuits was probably why it was used in this situation.

This is why people still support animal agriculture.

> "An Alford Plea is a paradox — it means you get to maintain your innocence, even as you accept a guilty plea. It makes no sense to anyone capable of logical thinking, and the only reason it exists is so the state can’t be held accountable for sentencing an innocent person to death. Part of this plea deal was that I could never sue the state of Arkansas for what they had done to me. Why would I take such a deal? Because I knew that if I didn’t, I’d ... [be killed], despite having evidence that would have gained us exoneration in a less corrupt forum."

As a European I never stop being amazed how crazy corrupt the US legal system is and how ignorant the US citizens are.

please don't equate Arkansas to the whole country

47 states allow Alford pleas, as does the Department of Justice.

As an American, I never stop being amazed at the bigitory of the supposedly progressive europeans.

Even though Europe mostly did away with the death penalty, these kind of system failures exist here as well — it is a global phenomenon. Plenty of stories of innocent people jailed for crimes because they fit the profile and aren't that high up on socio-economical ladder.

This is a horrifying story and, I fear, part of a trend in the USA towards devaluing human rights.

Since '99, executions have declined by 3x https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions-year

If that means that more people is spending more time in death row, I think he's right.

Maybe so, but the devaluation of rights goes far beyond executions. There are ways to oppress people that are almost as bad as wrongful execution, such as wrongful and malicious prosecution, wrongful imprisonment, profit-based prison systems, and predatory plea-bargaining, and that's just the justice system.

In a broader sense, the willful dismantling of laws and programs meant to prevent human suffering, and reduce vulnerability to robber barons is also part of the trend: the denial of climate science, the attacks on net neutrality, the attempts to dismantle healthcare assistance, the defunding of scientific programs - the list goes on and on, and it is to the detriment of all but the mega-wealthy.

> A judge ruled that the DNA, which could exonerate him, should never be tested.

This resonates will with the other HN submission today about the climate denialist whose mind was changed by data.

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