Hacker News Reader

Comment by rossant | Hacker News Reader

Texas may well execute soon an innocent man on the false premise of "shaken baby syndrome". [1] He would be the first in US history.

This article was written by the police officer who helped send Robert Roberson to the death row in 2003. He changed his mind since then.

John Grisham has also written about this case. [2]

Please spread the word. As the retired police officer wrote:

> It would be a terrible legacy for all of us to be associated with executing an innocent man based on a rush to judgment and bad science. We must prevent Texas from making a tragic, irreversible mistake.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402

[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-may-execute-a-man-based-o...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/24/texas-death-ro...

[4] https://eu.statesman.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2024/05...

View on HN

I always find the phrasing of these posts weird, as if we have to pretend that Texas has not executed innocent people before and this would be a first.

on edit: not just the post, but the articles, we must pretend that of course this would be a first time event that would otherwise sully the fine nature of the criminal justice system with accidentally murdering someone.

It would be the first execution of someone accused of SBS, not the first execution of an innocent individual.

The phrasing takes pains to make it sound like the latter rather than the former, unless you're paying attention.

How would you phrase it better. Sorry if it sounds confrontational to ask this question, but I can’t think of spot anything out of sorts with this phrasing.

Maybe a semicolon? Not sure any of us know where those are on the keyboard.

>Texas may well execute soon an innocent man on the false premise of "shaken baby syndrome". [1] He would be the first in US history.

This is pretty clear to me. If you wanted to make it sound like you're claiming, you'd phrase it something like "Texas may well execute soon an innocent man, the first in US history, on the false premise of "shaken baby syndrome.""

As it is, the first sentence very specifically scopes down this case to "shaken baby syndrome."

I disagree if you wanted the first to be clear:

The disproven ‘shaken baby syndrome’ may for the first time result in a man’s execution in Texas. His innocence …

The odd wording is specifically there to mislead someone.

I don't think it's there to mislead someone on purpose, I just think people feel uncomfortable pointing out Texas is killing people that are innocent and thus end up not pointing it out or accidentally making things sound like "oh no, Texas is going to make a mistake they don't normally make!"

It is clear that it is meant the shaken baby syndrome is what is the first here, but still it could be taken the other way, and it ends up downplaying how contemptible the State's actions are, even though the poster really wants to highlight that.

I guess I would prefer something like -

"Texas, continuing its tradition of executing innocent people, will for the first time use the dubious science of Shaken Baby Syndrome as its cause."

It's not just the post, everybody does it whenever they say "Texas might execute an innocent person" they ignore that Texas has executed people that were extremely likely to be innocent (so likely that it is reasonable just to describe them that way - in case anyone has problems with my phrasing here)

That's also clear but I don't think the original is odd wording at all... Like I said, two separate sentences. If you read the first one, not sure how you misread the second one as applying to only a portion of the first one.

What is odd about the original wording? If anything, the one you present feels more formal/awkward compared to normal conversational English.

Personally I think it's absolutely ludicrous to believe that anyone would be trying to suggest that only now, in the year 2024, has a possibly-innocent person been executed in either Texas or the US. Like, you'd need crazy strong evidence to make that claim, while the post in question seems very specific to shaken baby syndrome.

It feels like an intentionally un-charitable, adversarial reading.

> I don’t think the original wording is odd

This may be a regional thing but the second just sounds better to me:

  Texas may well execute soon an innocent man
  Texas may soon execute an innocent man

“on the false premise” is also strange. I don’t think it’s really a logical argument so much emotional manipulation around an images of a dead and bruised body that was compelling. Kids are tough, the idea of shaking hard enough to damage a neck is plausible but to cause serious bruises is difficult to believe. Add in evidence of a serious medical condition and you get a different picture than just a false premise.

> It feels like an intentionally un-charitable, adversarial reading.

Saying this might be the first isn’t strictly speaking wrong as far as I can tell. I don’t know of anyone proven to be innocent that’s been executed. Sure, it’s likely happened several times, but I can’t exactly put a firm number so it may well be zero.

Sorry if my phrasing was unclear. I'm not a native English speaker. It seemed pretty clear in my head ha!

I believe that this statement is making specific reference to this particular case. (I miss-read this next part, but will leave my mistake here with this comment. See below conversation. Sorry for the confusion) Earlier in the article it is made very clear that this has not been the only execution of an innocent person wrongly accused of shaken baby syndrome:

> According to the National Registry of Exonerations, there have been at least 32 exonerations of those wrongfully convicted under the shaken baby hypothesis.

Were any of those 32 people executed?

Oh, I completly miss-read the word "Exonerations" as executions. Thank you for correcting me.

From what I understand, Texas executes possibly/probably/definitely innocent people with regularity.

That seems likes a pretty bold statement to make without backing it up further. To say a state with the death penalty could sometimes get it wrong is one thing, but your phrasing makes it sound more like the state regularly commits murder.

Abbot just pardoned an open white supremacist, who publicly expressed his desire to kill BLM protesters, before actually going out and doing it, so your shock at the questioning of how criminal justice is pursued in Texas seems a bit naive.

This is such an ad hoc argument.

I wasn't questioning criminal justice in Texas broadly, the topic was innocent people being put to death.

> From what I understand, Texas executes possibly/probably/definitely innocent people with regularity.

The GP comment seems to imply that Texas is intentionally putting innocent people to death regularly. That had nothing to do with the governor or pardons.

it is pretty difficult to make statements about innocence once someone is dead and everyone involved with the case has moved on, however there are a number of cases in which it is obvious that the standard of beyond the shadow of a doubt was not meant, not even beyond a reasonable doubt - these cases are extremely doubtful and in that case it is reasonable just to describe them as "innocent"

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence/execute...

A lot of these possibly innocent should just be described as innocent, because the "possibly" adds insult to execution.

Unfortunately we all agree to live under this rule of law though. "Innocent" legally only means you weren't convicted, and whether standards like beyond a shadow of a doubt was met is up to the jury and later the appeals court.

I agree the system is terrible, if even one innocent person can be found guilty and punished or even killed then the system is broken in my opinion. We can't fix that one-off though, and targeting one state's use of the death penalty is only going after a more obvious symptom while ignoring the root cause.

While I will always support seeing a person wrongfully convicted go free, I'd much prefer a fundamental revisit of our legal system so we don't have to catch mistakes like that after the fact.

I suggest taking a look at Radley Balko's writings, for starters.

I think the point is in this case, it can indeed be stopped since executions, once done, can't be undone. It's not an academic topic, it's a life and death topic, a basic morality issue. The current Texas government is quite corrupt, particularly Ken Paxton, the attorney general, but I'm not sure that matters here other than as a tangential point of data.

And then you go to Supreme Court, and SCOTUS says:

> The Constitution, Scalia wrote, does not prevent the government from executing a person who new evidence indicates might be “actually innocent” — that is, someone with the potential to legally demonstrate they did not commit the crime for which they were convicted.

And have locked in on this:

> In Shinn v. Ramirez, the court voted 6 to 3 to overrule two lower courts and disregard the innocence claims of Barry Lee Jones, a prisoner on Arizona’s death row. Importantly, the majority did not rule that it found Jones’s innocence claims unpersuasive. Instead, it ruled that the federal courts are barred from even considering them. Thomas wrote the opinion.

https://capitalpunishmentincontext.org/resources/casesummari...

> A proper remedy for claim of actual innocence based on new evidence, which is discovered too late to file a new trial motion, would be not federal habeas relief, but rather to file for executive clemency with the state.

https://www.pullanyoung.com/blog/dont-panic-over-shinn-v-ram...

> Shinn does not affect “new factual predicate” claims. If a witness changes their story 5 years after trial, you can still validly raise that claim both as a subsequent state writ and as a 2254 federal petition. Same goes for new scientific evidence, Brady violations, etc. None of those things can be characterized as the defendant's fault for not raising them earlier.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/01/arizona-d...

> federal courts should show enormous deference to the states, even when federal judges believe a state court is wrong.

These decisions seems more about federalism? I mean, if you want to blame someone, blame the involved state for not considering the exculpatory evidence. For example Barry Lee Jones is out now - but it is because of an Arizona judge, not a federal one.

The Supreme Court is extremely selective about what cases should be deferred to states and which should be the realm of the federal courts. They needed to federally abolish affirmative action in college admissions, but when a person is being put to death unjustly that's a state issue. If a website designer hypothetically refuses to design a website for a gay couple that's a federal issue.

Eight amendment should trump any states right rigamarole.

Of course Ianal, but come on. States rights is really just wrangling about accounting and tons of grandstanding between opposing sides of our two party system.

> I mean, if you want to blame someone, blame the involved state for not considering the exculpatory evidence.

I do. But I also wonder about the role of the "highest court in the land", when other courts, state or federal, "decline" to hear appeals with factual evidence of innocence.

I don't think "Too bad, that's the law, just lobby to have it changed" is an acceptable response to someone facing capital punishment.

The federalist system is more complicated than that. To justify taking a case to the federal court system, it has to affect relations between US states, relations between any US entity and a foreign entity, events and actions that take place across state lines, federal laws, or Constitutional amendments. IANAL so the specifics aren't perfectly accurate, but that's roughly where the line is.

If the Supreme Court routinely interferes in matters purely inside of a US state where it has no jurisdiction because no national-level question exists, it could well provoke a constitutional crisis.

The Interstate Commerce clause seems to be available to SCOTUS whenever they want it.

An innocent person put to death despite evidence that would exonerate them is an issue of national-level concern on many levels.

14A says that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".

I think it's reasonable to argue that "due process of law" should not, broadly speaking, involve executing people who are known to be innocent.

Well that's where Scalia's statement comes in - he argues that the state has no duty to avoid executing innocent people, only that all relevant procedures were followed. To use an example from history, if witchcraft was a crime, and the townspeople found someone guilty of witchcraft, they have no duty to accept a time traveller's defense that witchcraft is scientifically impossible and the person is therefore innocent. The "due process" was the trial and witch tests, not a modern scientific consideration of the facts. I don't know Scalia's actual opinion, but I would be surprised if he did not find these witch executions judicially justifiable. Presumably he would argue that the proper way to avoid burning witches at the stake would be to change the laws supporting such activities.

> These decisions seems more about federalism?

They are in part about federalism and in part about the absence of a right to have a verdict reviewed if it was arrived at properly, irrespective of new evidence discovered later.

Were such a right to exist under the Constitutiom, federalism would no longer require the federal courts to stay out of state cases involving such claims, since there would br a justiciable question of federal law.

If that was his real stance, and someone who does believe in up and down, I think he is burning in hell for being in position of power to stop, but went on to kill innocent people.

Also in subject of death row, recently watched rather good movie based on true events: Trial by Fire. Interesting how that case was based on pseudo-science and even thought the governor knew he still let Cameron to be executed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_Fire_(2018_film)

I think he (and others) have a strong belief that is how the judicial system should work -- that appeals courts do not re-examine evidence.

The executive system can grant clemency, etc.

Worth noting that this was a party-line vote in the 2022 court, so it doesn’t really tell us much about what the law is suppose to mean.

But the judges are just interpreting the law /s

> someone with the potential to legally demonstrate they did not commit the crime for which they were convicted

that includes everyone convicted of a crime, all of the time.

unless you think due process requires endless appeals, you probably agree with Scalia

Shinn v. Ramirez overturns Martinez v. Ryan, use the state court instead. where in the constitution does it say there is federal jurisdiction for that kind of claim?

"Endless appeals" is such a blatant strawman here. If there is new evidence available (or old evidence that was wrongly excluded), then of course an appeal is justified, no matter how many appeals happened before. Anything else would be mockery of justice.

the system for evaluating whether new evidence is "new evidence" already exists and is not what is being claimed here. read more into the facts and proceedures of the legal system please.

The Constitution is supposed to guarantee us due process of law.

As a citizen, I firmly believe that a legal system that would condemn a man who is likely innocent to die is not "due process of law" in any meaningful sense. Even if you're correct and the precedent is that this is how it is, well then, too bad for the precedent.

> We must prevent Texas from making a tragic, irreversible mistake.

Another tragic, irreversible mistake. The man has already been on death row for two decades. Imagine spending 20 years in a cell waiting to be executed because people believe you murdered your own child. Nothing will undo the kind of damage that does to a person, nor will anything make up for the years lost.

I'd struggle to come up with something more cruel. Honestly I'd consider it merciful to kill someone immediately rather than putting them through decades of psychological torture. At least that would only be barbaric.

Several innocent people die from being imprisoned every day.

No one cares, because they die in the prison infirmary, but they're just as dead and they were killed because of their conviction, just like they were executed. (No, I'm not talking about folks on death row, although innocents on death row also die in the infirmary.)

Not only do we kill more innocents that way in absolute numbers, it's also greater in percentage numbers. (Death penalty cases get lots of review. We can argue about whether it's enough, but it's far more review than life without parole, not to mention lesser sentences which end up being life.)

This kind of argument is exhausting. I don't know if there's a name for it or if there's some kind of "razor" for it, like; "Moving in any direction of bettering things is always going to be confronted by someone who thinks it's not good enough and there's some far bigger problem somewhere else so let me distract from the actual good that's trying to be done here"

To the actual point - I do think there's a difference between inmates dying in prison for other reasons (and we should reduce those) vs. sentencing someone to execution for a crime they didn't commit.

I didn't say anything about doing less or that your concerns were invalid.

My point is that there's more "bang for the buck" wrt saving innocents from being dying due to wrongful "not death penalty" convictions, even if you discount "dying in the infirmary" quite a bit relative to "dying in the chair."

I'm not saying that you shouldn't care about the death penalty.

My comment is addressed to people who care about dying due to wrongful conviction.

On top of that, all the people who die in policy custody before they are even convicted of a crime. Or before even being accused of a crime, simply because of trigger happy cops.

> My point is that there's more "bang for the buck" wrt saving innocents from being dying due to wrongful "not death penalty" convictions, even if you discount "dying in the infirmary" quite a bit relative to "dying in the chair."

If the system doesn’t care when an innocent is actually sentenced to death and executed, why would it care if they die at all?

I don’t think there is any predictable “bang for the buck”.

If anything, more “bang” is achieved by shaming the system towards better justice wherever it will be most publicly noticed.

Creating a halo for more change.

The case’s dramatic factors are why people put up their own resources into fighting it, and why we are hearing about it. And why the challenge has any chance.

Whataboutism?

Part of the issue is that the United States has 25% of the world's prison population and only 6% of Total population the world. When you are the jailingest country in the world per capita by a large margin - More than Russia, Saudi Arabia, iran - You got the question how flippantly we put people in a cage.

What if all those other jurisdictions are doing it wrong? The US, in my opinion, is the only justice system with sane prison terms.

Judged by how effective they are right? At preventing crime and especially recidivism? We compare extremely well against our peer nations on these metrics, the ones who have much less "sane prison terms." Right?

There are plenty of other people wrongly convicted of shaken baby crimes too. Seems more common than most people think.

In Ohio, a man was arrested for murder 16 years after being convicted of shaking a baby (and subsequently serving another prison term) when the "baby" died from complications. The "baby" (young adult at passing) was severely disabled their whole life.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com