"The next day, the police searched the Buick LeSabre and found the Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator belonging to Gayle. The police also recovered the laptop computer from Glenn Roberts. The laptop was identified as the one stolen from Gayle's residence."
The full quote from the article in justia.com states the following: "In November of 1999, University City police approached Asaro to speak with her about the murder. Asaro told the police that Williams admitted to her that he had killed Gayle. The next day, the police searched the Buick LeSabre and found the Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator belonging to Gayle. The police also recovered the laptop computer from Glenn Roberts. The laptop was identified as the one stolen from Gayle's residence."
The only thing linking the laptop to Williams was the testimony of a witness. Even if the witness is telling the truth, he has no way of knowing how Williams obtained the laptop.
By any reasonable standard, all this is extremely flimsy evidence: More than a year after the murder, the police found a "Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator" in the suspect's car that belonged to the victim? And someone testified that Williams had the victim's laptop. And it is on the basis of this pitifully weak evidence that you would justify the execution of Williams, the suspect? Even though, as the Innocence Project correctly observes, there is no direct physical evidence linking Williams to the crime scene, and the DNA recovered from the crime scene does not match Williams?
I was just helping everyone understand that your important clarification, was in fact, wrong.
Since I wasn't on the jury, I can't say whether or not I would have been ok with the death penalty in this case, although the murder was particularly heinous.
This is the second time in as many days I've seen some one use the argument that the severity of the crime meant the standards for conviction should somehow be less stringent. Sadly, I don't get the impression is an uncommon way of thinking.
This line of thinking peeks through all the time from otherwise intelligent people. Merely mentioning how heinous a crime was when we're talking about the guilt or innocence of a suspect should immediately kill your credibility. Too bad the criminal justice system doesn't care about that.
Horribly, you regularly see this in supreme court cases. Some case has the conservatives denying a significant right to a criminal suspect and the decision will start with a lurid depiction of the crime they were convicted of through the denial of some right.
its not a deterrent for multiple other reasons too:
1. most murderers do not expect to get caught if they are acting at all rationally, and do not care if they do not, and,
2. unless you execute a high proportion of people committing a particular crime any one criminal knows they are unlikely to be executed.
I think the Tutu quote at the end of the video.
Most of the rest of the work world has abolished capital punishment, and most of the rest uses it very sparingly. The big exceptions are China and the Middle East. Good company to keep?
This in and of itself very likely creates a bias against the defendant. For me, there is overwhelming evidence that many innocent people have been executed. To support the death penalty, you seem likely to either not believe in systemic injustice (which means you are also probably more likely to believe flimsy testimony) or accept that innocent lives are a tolerable tradeoff to ensure that some people are executed for their crimes. Both groups seem more likely to convict to me than a random sample.
Personally, I also feel that it is morally wrong to give jurors life and death decision making power. The jurors themselves can be deeply harmed by this if they later learn that they convicted a defendant on the basis of false evidence.
I think the bigger problem though is that the death penalty is too abstract. There are many people who believe that certain crimes are worthy of execution. I don't personally agree, but I accept other's beliefs on that point. But even if I grant the righteousness of execution in certain cases, it seems nearly impossible to implement justly and without heavy costs to society. This includes the costs to the people who must carry out the execution as well as the exceedingly high financial costs relative to other forms of punishment.
Indeed, it starts with the judge deciding (without trial or jury) whether capital charges can be brought. Then a capital jury is chosen.
In practical terms, it also requires an incompetent lawyer. Ruth Bader Ginsberg said "No well defended person receives the death penalty." I read that in an article about the one isolated case where she was wrong.
I also suspect that the death penalty corrupts the societies that use it.
If the ruler and calculator in fact belonged to the victim that is an important clarification of your "the police did not find the victim's property in Williams' car", and your reaction is unnecessarily dismissive. Just acknowledge the error and move on, no need for sarcastic defensiveness.
Even if the police were able to establish that the ruler and calculator belonged to the victim, it is merely circumstantial evidence. It does not prove Williams was the killer.
Here is a quick summary of the main issues: (1) There is no reliable evidence that Williams is guilty of the crime; (2) The DNA evidence from the crime scene does not match Williams; (3) Numerous legal experts, including St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, argued convincingly that Williams' death sentence should have been commuted to life in prison, at a minimum; (4) A Republican governor ignored the facts and legal opinions and simply murdered Williams.
Juries absolutely do make errors, including ones which result in innocent people being put to death.
In a number of cases, the Innocence Project has certainly managed to find hard DNA evidence that linked the actual murderer to the crime, resulting in saving people from death row. One of my friends worked on some of these cases. As former law enforcement, he was very much aware of the various ways the system can fail. Police officers commit perjury on the stand, "expert" witnesses use pseudoscience with zero factual evidence (there are processes to prevent this which have gotten slightly better), and there are shockingly terrible public defenders.
> Even if the police were able to establish that the ruler and calculator belonged to the victim, it is merely circumstantial evidence. It does not prove Williams was the killer.
I agree. You were still wrong in ways that do matter. Acknowledging it gracefully makes your case stronger, not weaker.
In your prior comment you say that Asaro was incentivized by a reward offered in May 1999, but that doesn't agree with waiting for the police to approach her in November.
The "approach" by the police was essentially an offer to either testify and get the reward money and have police drop some charges against her, or not testify and face the charges herself.
Circumstantial. There are a 1000 different ways he could have obtained those items without committing a murder. Prove that having them is proof positive he killed someone.
I don't think we should have capital punishment at all, anywhere, and certainly this is a textbook example of why, but circumstantial evidence is real evidence, admissible in court cases.
My understanding is that the opposite is closer to the truth: most cases are made on circumstantial evidence. Jury instructions apparently tell jurors not to weight it any differently than direct evidence.
Multiple witnesses seeing a suspect run out of a store holding a smoking gun shortly after the store clerk was shot is both circumstantial evidence and plenty for a DA to bring to trial.
"Circumstantial" evidence is often stronger than "direct" evidence. e.g. DNA is almost always "circumstantial", yet more modernly maligned eye witness evidence is "direct".
[1] Ruler is in the folded laptop, laptop gets stolen, laptop is sold, ruler inside, buyer is told he can keep the cool ruler.
[2] Murderer specifically tries to pin the murder on someone else. Someone else being prosecuted is a good way to live free after, gifts his laptop and a ruler to the suspect or leaves them somewhere where they are discovered and taken.
Is that unlikely? Is it more unlikely than a murderer keeping the laptop and ruler from a victim, tying him to the murder?
For me this alone would be absolutely insufficient evidence, to sentence someone to death. The ease with which some here would do this shocks me.
Fair, but the Innocence Project did not argue that the defendant received inadequate representation. So presumably the defense would have had to offer an explanation during the trial and the jury was apparently unconvinced.
Juries can get things wrong, but we’re also just getting the cliff notes of the trial rather than the whole story.
The humor stems from the contrast between the caption and the person’s expression. The caption “Me after being asked to ‘throw together’ more content” is juxtaposed with the person’s tired and somewhat defeated look, suggesting reluctance or exhaustion with the task, which many can relate to. It’s funny because it captures a common feeling of frustration or resignation in a relatable way.
Interestingly, when asked who that was, it couldn't tell me.
Who is the as-yet-undetermined party in the future? The "gift cards" are redeemable with Precision Track Day. A holder of the gift card can't just show up to a track and give them some gift card.
Not really, because you said they were on the East and you wanted to move them to the East. Correct answer would have been "Don't do anything". If this is how they're getting AI to "follow instructions", we're completely fucked.
I would say "Yes really". ChatGPT correctly assumed that I just made a mistake typing and answered the question how I wanted it to be answered. If you suggest that this is a trick question it reveals it understands the double East thing.
You used to be able to go up the "mountain" and stand on the wall and look out over the water. Unfortunately, when they rebuilt it, they put gates at the road right off the highway.
https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/2003/sc-...