> Still, we end up with cases like Brock Turner where he does get convicted not with the victim's testimony but a mountain of corroborating evidence and national media scrutiny.
How can we know what specific pieces of evidence led to his conviction? I would assume the jury took into account the victim's testimony and the testimony of the onlookers who stopped him. What makes you say he was "convicted not with the victim's testimony but a mountain of corroborating evidence and national media scrutiny"?
Testimony of lived experiences is evidence. It's enough to convict.
When you serve jury duty and the case involves domestic violence, you are explicitly reminded of this because most people will assume it is not.
Still, we end up with cases like Brock Turner where he does get convicted not with the victim's testimony but a mountain of corroborating evidence and national media scrutiny. And then receives what is essentially a non-punishment.
Where's the part in that article where it was proven he did not? There was certainly a miscarriage of justice, but it sounds like everything still ended in a he-said-she-said. From your description, I was expecting an eventual proof of innocence and didn't see it. There's even a quote from the jury foreman insisting that the verdict shouldn't be interpreted the way you're interpreting it.
> They presented three possible crimes to the jury, but didn't even require them to declare that he had committed any of those crimes
The crime he was convicted of requires proof he falsified documents to attempt to commit those other crimes, not that he succeeded. He doesn't have to be guilty of another crime to be guilty of felony record falsification in attempt to commit another crime.
And the statute doesn't require the jury to agree on what crime was attempted. That's a finding of fact left to the jury, but each juror may choose which scenario is most likely; you can't play the scenarios off each other as reasonable doubt if at least one of them is what happened in each juror's individual best judgment.
There is context here the article doesn't disclose. The prosecutor didn't "know" Morton was innocent. He failed to disclose exculpatory evidence, namely the fact that Morton's three year old son was at the scene and said his father wasn't home at the time of the murder.[1] It was undoubtedly unethical to withhold that. If there were doubts about the reliability of the child's testimony, that was the jury's call to make, not his. But not disclosing that statement is a far cry from prosecuting someone despite "knowing his innocence."
[1] http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/pre... ("Anderson did not turn over a transcript of the victim’s mother telling an investigator that Morton’s 3-year-old son Eric had told her that Morton was not the attacker and other evidence pointing to a third party assailant.")
> there was no crime, everything pointing to a tragic accident
From just reading the Wiki article (key caveat), I would say the case is not "beyond reasonable doubt" thus a conviction is unwarranted. But that doesn't mean everything points to a tragic incident. This is a pretty murky case.
> In any criminal trial, said suspect would get a guilty verdict from the jury in minutes.
No, since in a criminal trial the standard is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That hasn't been met here.
This article certainly makes a prima facie case which would be enough to trigger discovery in a civil case. A reasonable person could also think that it has provided proof on the balance of probabilities, which would be enough for civil but not criminal liability.
Again, I wasn't commenting on _the case_, but on the topic of this particular thread, which was about news coverage of _the event_ (not the continuing news coverage, but the initial "here are the immediate facts we know"). And that the information I received from that lead me to reach some opinions on Kyle's overall wisdom and that a bad outcome of some sort is not surprising (which has nothing to do with "guilt"). And I still think you're conflating the "claims" I've made with claims/opinions about the court case. It's not impossible to separate the two, but I think this isn't the medium for it.
I know that my opinion of the actual case does not matter, but for the sake of clarification I'll say that I have a decent amount of trust in the system and I hope/expect a fair outcome based on the evidence. And I also trust you, as someone who has followed the case and taken the time to respond to me in a clear manner.
You're citing a case where the defendant was found not guilty of 2nd degree murder. How are you so sure it proves anything? Do you have a better handle on the situation than the jury did?
> He was found guilty because multiple people in his life testified he had a history of violently shaking and screaming at a child for crying.
IANAL, but wouldn't that be against the rule that character evidence cannot be used by the prosecution (unless in countering character evidence from the defence)?
> (1) Prohibited Uses. Evidence of a person’s character or character trait is not admissible to prove that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character or trait.
> [...]
> b) Other Crimes, Wrongs, or Acts.
> (1) Prohibited Uses. Evidence of any other crime, wrong, or act is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character.
> (2) Permitted Uses. This evidence may be admissible for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.
This is a pretty heated subject. Could you back any of these statements up in a substantial way?
> with enough female witnesses it's usually easy to get a conviction out of a jury
> men are regularly released when DNA evidence shows they were wrongly convicted based on one woman's word.
Finally, do you know more about this situation than what's in the articles? Otherwise, I have to question your ability to judge the alleged victims, their motives, or their actions. Based only on reading what's on the Internet, I'd feel I was far overstepping my bounds by judging anyone on anything.
> The US justice system is explicitly based on not considering someone guilty of a crime until proven guilty.
For a criminal conviction, the standard is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt".
For sentencing, judges can consider evidence under a different standard, "preponderance of the evidence". As prosecutors introduced evidence of the murder-for-hire allegations in trial, the judge was permitted to consider it.
I understand the points of the case, I wasn't trying to include or omit details. My comment was about circumstantial evidence being a valid basis for conviction, I never realized it was. Has that always been the case? (no pun intended)
> Prosecutors have to prove you willfully and knowingly told a falsehood.
No, they have to make someone else believe you did. How else would this burden of proof be lifted? some form of brain scan that can just say "yeah, he willfully did it!"? no, they put fourth some motive/set of circumstances, and if a bunch of people believe the spin, its "proved"
> your assumption that his acts are felonies and that he would have been found guilty
I understand that that is debatable. I don't view these things as foregone conclusions, only as highly likely outcomes. I'm not aware of any serious observers of the case who disagree, but if they exist it would be helpful to know about them.
> On Monday, after 37 years in prison, Robert DuBoise was formally exonerated in Florida for a rape and murder from 1983 that DNA evidence now proves he did not commit. He was convicted partly due to testimony from unreliable jailhouse informants and controversial, discredited bite mark analysis. His case is a perfect example of how much our justice system is plagued by bad behavior.
But reading the story they link to for more detail, I didn't see any obvious description of misconduct or bad behavior.
Yes, bite mark analysis is considered mostly bogus now, but that is a fairly recent development. In 1983 it was widely accepted.
And yes, jailhouse informants can be unreliable. They can also be reliable. Just like any other kind of informant. Or any other person who testifies. That's why the defense gets to cross examine them, and it is left up to the jury to decide if a given one is reliable or unreliable.
BTW, don't infer from the apparent weakness of the article's example that the underlying report the article is based on, from the National Registry of Exonerations, is weak. The example from the article is not from the report.
The report does contain a few examples, so I find it odd that the article did not use one of them.
You're assuming that the person was rightfully convicted, under an article implying potentially redeeming evidence was overlooked in a case that ended up with a death sentence.
? I quoted the judge in the case, who does have the evidence . . .. She didn't presume guilt. She factored evidence of guilt into her sentencing decision.
>In other words, you think that they didn't release the video because they have something to prove.
Really what I'm saying is that if I'm going to try to extrapolate something more from the information presented that would be the direction, not "Can we be sure he hasn't faked this picture?". My point is that you're speculating that someone is guilty despite a strong piece of neutral information: the DA dropped the case and he was released from jail.
Sure, it's possible the attorney faked the picture and it's all bullshit, but there's nothing to demonstrate that as being likely besides your own biases.
Do you know more about this case than was written in the article? Because as far as I know, shaking remains a possible explanation for our observations -- what was "junk" about the science was that it jumped to conclusions too hastily.
>If you don't have evidence a crime exists its pretty meaningless to speak to someone's motivation to commit it.
This claim doesn't hold up to scrutiny. We don't know if a crime exists, because there are multiple possible explanations for our observations, but that certainly doesn't imply that a crime did not occur. Motivation is important here. (Based on other comments, the defence claimed the partner is unreliable, which is also important here, if true. But the point remains that if a credible witness made such a claim about him, that would be important in determining the likelihood that a crime took place.)
How can we know what specific pieces of evidence led to his conviction? I would assume the jury took into account the victim's testimony and the testimony of the onlookers who stopped him. What makes you say he was "convicted not with the victim's testimony but a mountain of corroborating evidence and national media scrutiny"?
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