New York man freed after 17 years in prison

[Chicog]

They review 18 cases...and 7 people were deemed wrongly convicted...what does that say about the US justice system...?

It says nothing about the justice system, except that there are numerous avenues of appeal and for review of cases.

Many cases are overturned on a technicality. Even in this case, there is a witness whose testimony that was brought into question. It does not mean that he did not commit the crime. It means that any other evidence was not seen as being substantial enough to sustain the conviction.

Innocent until proven guilty...... right?

[Kaoboi Bebobp]

Some poster remarked how he just got a prison sentence, not the death penalty. His life was ruined for probably close to 20 years, including investigatory and prosecution time. He may be freed but he will never be able to get a job or earn the trust of others the rest of his life because of the stain. So his entire life has been ruined by a fabrication of lies and injustice. Now imagine if he'd been executed. I don't know which would have been worse.

In Canada, many old famous murder convictions were overturned, in some cases, decades later, and prisoners freed because of DNA and other testing that proved absolutely the suspects were innocent. That's why farseeing legislators outlawed capital punishment in 1976. That's nationwide. Not this US patchwork of state-sanctioned death penalties.

[Basil B]

For Christ's sake, does everyone need to take a pop at the death penalty. The guy got a prison sentence. He didn't get the death penalty.

Yeah, because Christ didn't have a problem with the death penalty. LOL

Anyway he was in New York where there is no death penalty, but if he had of been in a different state it would have been a different matter. This is a case of a wrong conviction that in some places would have resulted in the death penalty and that is the point in speaking here against capital punishment.

The death penalty is not given out lightly and there is nothing to indicate that this guy would have gotten the death penalty in any other state.

I do not think much has changed since the bad old days when if someone did not tie up their horse properly and it walked off they would string up the first unfortunate out of town'er for horse stealing.