Author Topic: Four men coerced into false confessions - convicted - now exonerated!  (Read 823 times)

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Offline yellowtail3

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When I read about police who force confessions and lie to get them, it is... distressing. When I read about prosecutors who try to keep innocent people in jail and resist investigations aimed at exonerating the wrongly convicted... justice be damned... it is more so.

What is an appropriate punishment for such prosecutors? Most of the time, ,they keep drawing a paycheck, and are never held to account. I have a couple ideas, but I'll keep them to myself for the time being.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Chicago_Judge_Overturns_Murder_Convictions_of_Four_Men_Based_on_New_DNA_Evidence_Linking_the_Crime_to_a_Convicted_Murderer.php

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Rather than take steps to review the many other cases involving false confessions in which innocent people could be serving time, the State’s Attorney has stubbornly fought for months to keep these man behind bars.

“The State’s Attorney’s Office is no different than the police and prosecutors who were responsible for this miscarriage 17 years ago,” said Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. “There was not a shred of physical evidence connecting these teenagers to the crime despite the allegation that they all had sex with the victim. On the contrary, the DNA matched a serial murder who was at the scene when the police arrived and whose MO was strangling sex workers. It is the worst case of tunnel vision I have ever seen.”

The case was adjourned until November 28, 2011, for the State’s Attorney’s Office to decide how it wants to proceed. It could concede that based on the evidence the men are innocent and dismiss the indictment, it could appeal the court’s decision, or it could retry the men for the murder.

“Chicago has the unfortunate distinction of leading the nation in false confessions. Hiding behind the problem is a disservice to all Chicagoans. This is not a Burge case, but the same culture that allowed that to occur is responsible for all of these false confessions. This has got to stop,” said Stuart Chanen a former prosecutor who now works on exoneration cases at the Valorem Law Group.


Jesus said we should treat other as we'd want to be treated... and he didn't qualify that by their party affiliation, race, or even if they're of diff religion.

Offline BBF

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Re: Four men coerced into false confessions - convicted - now exonerated!
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2012, 10:00:20 AM »
Chicago !! What else do you need to know?
It isn't the only place, sad !
What is the point of Life if you can't have fun.

Offline yellowtail3

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Re: Four men coerced into false confessions - convicted - now exonerated!
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2012, 02:51:15 PM »
It would be an improvement if such horrors took place only in Chicago... but it happens across the country. Lots of LEO and prosecutors who could care less about justice, but they like a win.
Jesus said we should treat other as we'd want to be treated... and he didn't qualify that by their party affiliation, race, or even if they're of diff religion.

Offline demented

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Re: Four men coerced into false confessions - convicted - now exonerated!
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2012, 11:25:14 PM »
While I agree that locking someone up for something they did not do is bad, I can't help but wonder what other crimes these people ARE guilty of committing?   Its not like the pillars of society are being sent down the river.  We had a guy convicted of a rape he did not do, got out of prison years later, cleared by DNA, promptly moved to Missouri where he murdered someone.  Some thing, some lifestyle, puts these people in the police radar in the first place.

Offline yellowtail3

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Re: Four men coerced into false confessions - convicted - now exonerated!
« Reply #4 on: January 21, 2012, 02:24:32 AM »
While I agree that locking someone up for something they did not do is bad, I can't help but wonder what other crimes these people ARE guilty of committing? Some thing, some lifestyle, puts these people in the police radar in the first place.
Sometimes, being black puts a citizen on the police radar.

We're not supposed lock people up because we think they must have done  something to deserve it, somehow sometime somewhere along the way. Pure evil, that is.

I believe that LEO and prosecutors who do this - especially when hiding exculpatory evidence, nailing someone because they can? - should be held to account.
At a minimum, they should serve the sentence they (meaning prosecutor) asked for; otherwise, being beaten to death in public might be about right. Something needs to be done to discourage such heinous professional behavior, because right now they usually get away without penalty.
Jesus said we should treat other as we'd want to be treated... and he didn't qualify that by their party affiliation, race, or even if they're of diff religion.

Offline Cuts Crooked

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Re: Four men coerced into false confessions - convicted - now exonerated!
« Reply #5 on: January 24, 2012, 09:54:31 AM »
Kinda strange! FOUR men all confessed to something they "didn't do"? I donno about y'all but I am NOT gonna confess to a crime I didn't commit! When FOUR men do it in relation to the same crime I gotta wonder just exactly what's really going on. Did the prosecution use thumbscrews? Or is it possible that they really did have some measure of involvement?
Smokeless is only a passing fad!

"The liar who charms and disarms and wreaths himself in artifice is too agreeable to be called a demon. So we adopt the word "candidate"." Brooke McEldowney

"When a dog has bitten ten kids I have trouble believing he would make a good childs companion just because he now claims he is a good dog and doesn't bite. How's that for a "parable"?"....ME

Offline yellowtail3

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Re: Four men coerced into false confessions - convicted - now exonerated!
« Reply #6 on: January 24, 2012, 04:15:46 PM »
Kinda strange! FOUR men all confessed to something they "didn't do"? I donno about y'all but I am NOT gonna confess to a crime I didn't commit! When FOUR men do it in relation to the same crime I gotta wonder just exactly what's really going on. Did the prosecution use thumbscrews? Or is it possible that they really did have some measure of involvement?
Cuts, you ask. Do you really want to learn how it's done? Lots of place.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_confession


http://www.innocenceproject.org/news/Blog-Search.php?check=true&tag=48




Read this one:
http://truthinjustice.org/ochoa.htm
NPR had an excellent piece on this, and how Ochoa was pressured by police - absolutely harrowing.  Can't find it just now, will look a little later if you're really interested. You should be, if you care about justice.







Jesus said we should treat other as we'd want to be treated... and he didn't qualify that by their party affiliation, race, or even if they're of diff religion.

Offline Cuts Crooked

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Re: Four men coerced into false confessions - convicted - now exonerated!
« Reply #7 on: January 25, 2012, 06:02:08 PM »
Kinda strange! FOUR men all confessed to something they "didn't do"? I donno about y'all but I am NOT gonna confess to a crime I didn't commit! When FOUR men do it in relation to the same crime I gotta wonder just exactly what's really going on. Did the prosecution use thumbscrews? Or is it possible that they really did have some measure of involvement?
Cuts, you ask. Do you really want to learn how it's done? Lots of place.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_confession


http://www.innocenceproject.org/news/Blog-Search.php?check=true&tag=48




Read this one:
http://truthinjustice.org/ochoa.htm
NPR had an excellent piece on this, and how Ochoa was pressured by police - absolutely harrowing.  Can't find it just now, will look a little later if you're really interested. You should be, if you care about justice.

First up......I work in law enforcement, I know the drills. Second, you expect me to beleave that ALL FOUR of them fell into one of the above? I don' think so!!!!! Odds of that being the case are astronomical...they were involved somehow!
 
You wanna know how to get away with a crime......KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!!!
THAT is the best way to get away with ANY crime. Eye witnesses will probably not be able to help convict you if you keep your mouth shut!
Smokeless is only a passing fad!

"The liar who charms and disarms and wreaths himself in artifice is too agreeable to be called a demon. So we adopt the word "candidate"." Brooke McEldowney

"When a dog has bitten ten kids I have trouble believing he would make a good childs companion just because he now claims he is a good dog and doesn't bite. How's that for a "parable"?"....ME

Offline yellowtail3

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Re: Four men coerced into false confessions - convicted - now exonerated!
« Reply #8 on: January 25, 2012, 06:42:26 PM »
First up......I work in law enforcement...
If that is the case, you well know how false confessions are obtained.
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I know the drills.
What drills do you refer to, and what point do you mean to make by referring them?
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/ Second, you expect me to beleave that ALL FOUR of them fell into one of the above? /

Well, since you ask... Now that I know you work in law enforcement?  No, I don't; I expect you to adopt defensive attitude on the subject of wrongful convictions, and half expect it to be manifest by a surly "I've been there/done that/ know more than you" attitude.


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...they were involved somehow!
Is that how we judge guilt or innocence? Your hunch?
 
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You wanna know how to get away with a crime......KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!!!

yeah, but folks jacked up on bogus charges usually think that if they can just get their story told, just explain what happened, they'll be okay.  They don't understand that once the police start interrogating and gathering evidence (that's the biggie) and BELIEVE THEY DID IT, the police are now their enemy... and the innocent get locked up, sometimes because they don't have the proper mindset (that police/state are their enemy)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik


Jesus said we should treat other as we'd want to be treated... and he didn't qualify that by their party affiliation, race, or even if they're of diff religion.

Offline Cuts Crooked

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Re: Four men coerced into false confessions - convicted - now exonerated!
« Reply #9 on: January 25, 2012, 10:34:08 PM »
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If that is the case, you well know how false confessions are obtained.
Yes, I do, and as noted it is extremely unlikely that FOUR men would confess without some involvermnt.
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What drills do you refer to, and what point do you mean to make by referring them?

Oh come on!!!! I know how we get confessions, Surely you understood that?
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Well, since you ask... Now that I know you work in law enforcement?  No, I don't; I expect you to adopt defensive attitude on the subject of wrongful convictions, and half expect it to be manifest by a surly "I've been there/done that/ know more than you" attitude.
Not hardly, I've been doing this for almost thirty years, I've seen more than I wanted, but I haven't and I hope never "see it all" or get an attitude like you describe. Wrongful convictions happen, everyone knows they do, but this stretches the odds.
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Is that how we judge guilt or innocence? Your hunch?

You know better than that too, you were taking my reasonable conclusion and equating it to a jury's declaration....knowing perfectly well that's not what I intended, you're just trying to score a point.
 
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yeah, but folks jacked up on bogus charges usually think that if they can just get their story told, just explain what happened, they'll be okay.  They don't understand that once the police start interrogating and gathering evidence (that's the biggie) and BELIEVE THEY DID IT, the police are now their enemy... and the innocent get locked up, sometimes because they don't have the proper mindset (that police/state are their enemy)


Yup! It happens...no arguement with that......BUT FOUR MEN??????? All willing to take a fall, knowing that someone else actually did it? ( and you are NOT going to convince ALL FOUR beleaved that they were guilty of something they didn't do, the odds just aren't stacked that way) Sorry, but you are not going to convince me that they had no involvement in some form or another.
 
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"Fincher confessed to the murder, also implicating Saunders, Richardson, Swift and Thames.  Police arrested and interrogated the other four, securing confessions, which were wildly inconsistent with each other.  Despite the fact that all five supposedly admitted to having sexual intercourse with the victim, pre-trial DNA testing on semen recovered from the victim matched an unknown male and excluded all five teenagers. 

“What are the chances that five boys would have sex with a woman and not leave their trace?"

Ever hear of condoms? LOL!!!! All that aside, they obviously had SOME connection to the crime somehow....does that make them guilty of murder.....perhaps not. But in some jurisdictions being a part of a crime in which someone gets killed can get you a murder conviction even if you weren't the "triggerman". Obviously we don't know all the facts here, and probably never will. The author of that artical had an agenda to push, maybe a good one, but an agenda nevertheless, so we are unlikely to get all the information needed to judge from his writings.
 
Perhaps the single most interesting thing about this case is the lack of information regarding their trial and the competancy of their representation. Did they have a jury trial? Or did they plead before a judge and accept sentencing without a jury? Were they actually the victims of a defense attorny trying to make a quick buck by giving them lousy counsel? We can't tell from the information provided...and we are unlikely to get more information.
Smokeless is only a passing fad!

"The liar who charms and disarms and wreaths himself in artifice is too agreeable to be called a demon. So we adopt the word "candidate"." Brooke McEldowney

"When a dog has bitten ten kids I have trouble believing he would make a good childs companion just because he now claims he is a good dog and doesn't bite. How's that for a "parable"?"....ME