DNA evidence overturns 30-year convictions in US case

[hawker9000]

Ridiculous. You think you've hit on some new panacea for solving crime and preventing miscarriages of justice. You're just giving killers a card to play that they can count on to keep them out of the death house, and even creating a method for framing someone. And setting up yet more new hoops for investigators to have to jump through. Killers get enough breaks from the judicial system as it is. Again, you're trying to make it about the evidence; it's about the crime.

Go try and argue with somebody who cares.

A very enlightened response. Thanks.

[Traveler19491]

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Ridiculous. You think you've hit on some new panacea for solving crime and preventing miscarriages of justice. You're just giving killers a card to play that they can count on to keep them out of the death house, and even creating a method for framing someone. And setting up yet more new hoops for investigators to have to jump through. Killers get enough breaks from the judicial system as it is. Again, you're trying to make it about the evidence; it's about the crime.

Go try and argue with somebody who cares. alt=rolleyes.gif>

A very enlightened response. Thanks.

hawker, I'm sorry, but you've got it bass ackwards. Yes, crime solving is about the crime, however, without evidence there is NO crime solving. But, the next, and most crucial, part of the justice system is just that...justice. And justice is NEVER about the crime, but about the evidence. I don't know where you're from, but in the US, our system says that you are innocent until proven guilty (at least that's how it's supposed to work. Not so sure it's working that way now, though), and that the burden of proof resides with the state, and that you must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In our system, you must be found guilty by a unanimous vote of twelve of your peers, and if even one of those twelve harbors what they feel to be a reasonable doubt, you can not be convicted. As I noted in a previous post, the presence of DNA alone is never enough to prove guilt, it only points an incriminating finger. There has to be substantial corroborating evidence. However, the absence of DNA can, and often is, enough to raise "reasonable doubt". No one is trying to give any guilty person a "card to play". The police have, with DNA, a very valuable tool to use to convict the guilty. But as coma pointed out, it is also an invaluable tool to either rule out the innocent, or overturn an erroneous conviction. I'm not quite sure what your objection is, unless you feel that the police should just be able to say, "Yup, you look guilty", and execute you on the spot? Living in a civilized and enlightened society brings with it what are sometimes onerous responsibilities; responsibilities the often require doing the uncomfortable, the difficult, the objectionable, and, occasionally, the thing that is personally offensive. The purpose, however, of those responsibilities is to insure that the same civilized, enlightened society remains that way, and, in fact, improves upon itself.

[coma]

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Ridiculous. You think you've hit on some new panacea for solving crime and preventing miscarriages of justice. You're just giving killers a card to play that they can count on to keep them out of the death house, and even creating a method for framing someone. And setting up yet more new hoops for investigators to have to jump through. Killers get enough breaks from the judicial system as it is. Again, you're trying to make it about the evidence; it's about the crime.

Go try and argue with somebody who cares. alt=rolleyes.gif>

A very enlightened response. Thanks.

hawker, I'm sorry, but you've got it bass ackwards. Yes, crime solving is about the crime, however, without evidence there is NO crime solving. But, the next, and most crucial, part of the justice system is just that...justice. And justice is NEVER about the crime, but about the evidence. I don't know where you're from, but in the US, our system says that you are innocent until proven guilty (at least that's how it's supposed to work. Not so sure it's working that way now, though), and that the burden of proof resides with the state, and that you must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In our system, you must be found guilty by a unanimous vote of twelve of your peers, and if even one of those twelve harbors what they feel to be a reasonable doubt, you can not be convicted. As I noted in a previous post, the presence of DNA alone is never enough to prove guilt, it only points an incriminating finger. There has to be substantial corroborating evidence. However, the absence of DNA can, and often is, enough to raise "reasonable doubt". No one is trying to give any guilty person a "card to play". The police have, with DNA, a very valuable tool to use to convict the guilty. But as coma pointed out, it is also an invaluable tool to either rule out the innocent, or overturn an erroneous conviction. I'm not quite sure what your objection is, unless you feel that the police should just be able to say, "Yup, you look guilty", and execute you on the spot? Living in a civilized and enlightened society brings with it what are sometimes onerous responsibilities; responsibilities the often require doing the uncomfortable, the difficult, the objectionable, and, occasionally, the thing that is personally offensive. The purpose, however, of those responsibilities is to insure that the same civilized, enlightened society remains that way, and, in fact, improves upon itself.

Spot on.

[hawker9000]

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Ridiculous. You think you've hit on some new panacea for solving crime and preventing miscarriages of justice. You're just giving killers a card to play that they can count on to keep them out of the death house, and even creating a method for framing someone. And setting up yet more new hoops for investigators to have to jump through. Killers get enough breaks from the judicial system as it is. Again, you're trying to make it about the evidence; it's about the crime.

Go try and argue with somebody who cares. alt=rolleyes.gif>

A very enlightened response. Thanks.

hawker, I'm sorry, but you've got it bass ackwards. Yes, crime solving is about the crime, however, without evidence there is NO crime solving. But, the next, and most crucial, part of the justice system is just that...justice. And justice is NEVER about the crime, but about the evidence. I don't know where you're from, but in the US, our system says that you are innocent until proven guilty (at least that's how it's supposed to work. Not so sure it's working that way now, though), and that the burden of proof resides with the state, and that you must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In our system, you must be found guilty by a unanimous vote of twelve of your peers, and if even one of those twelve harbors what they feel to be a reasonable doubt, you can not be convicted. As I noted in a previous post, the presence of DNA alone is never enough to prove guilt, it only points an incriminating finger. There has to be substantial corroborating evidence. However, the absence of DNA can, and often is, enough to raise "reasonable doubt". No one is trying to give any guilty person a "card to play". The police have, with DNA, a very valuable tool to use to convict the guilty. But as coma pointed out, it is also an invaluable tool to either rule out the innocent, or overturn an erroneous conviction. I'm not quite sure what your objection is, unless you feel that the police should just be able to say, "Yup, you look guilty", and execute you on the spot? Living in a civilized and enlightened society brings with it what are sometimes onerous responsibilities; responsibilities the often require doing the uncomfortable, the difficult, the objectionable, and, occasionally, the thing that is personally offensive. The purpose, however, of those responsibilities is to insure that the same civilized, enlightened society remains that way, and, in fact, improves upon itself.

No, you're the one turned around. Evidence is the means by which one is proven guilty of a crime. One is sentenced (as in, sentenced to death where applicable) based on the crime he has already been proven to have committed. DNA is simply one manner of formulating this proof. It's not a panacea. It can be planted. And a clever enough killer can succeed in leaving none behind in the first place, particularly if he knows investigators will be looking for it. To require it's use in a criminal proceeding is to unnecessarily hobble the proceeding. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof beyond a reasonable doubt; that doesn't necessarily imply the necessity of the presence of DNA evidence. No one who wrote the Constitution would have even recognized "DNA", and yet they seemed to have a fairly solid grasp of what must be required to find a person guilty of a crime, and that such findings were in fact possible. In point of fact, NO specific type of evidence was mentioned. You're trying to say that proof behind a reasonable doubt simply isn't possible without DNA evidence. That's just knee-jerk, made-up, armchair, simple-minded, junk jurisprudence, and I suspect that your real agenda has more to do with elimination of the death penalty than with the whole DNA thing. If I walk up to a man's house, shoot him through an open window and run away, where the heck is the DNA? Is he any less dead and am I any less guilty because I didn't break into the room (using my bare hands), fall over a table and cut myself on broken glass, trim my nails, smoke a cigarette, knock back a shot of the man's liquor, pee on the floor, kiss him or rape him, and have a haircut before pulling the trigger? IF, OTOH, 3 people saw the shooting, 10 people heard me arguing with and threatening to kill this man, the bullet was matched to a gun found in my pocket, the gun was found to have been recently fired, I bragged to friends about the murder, I had absolutely no credible alibi, and finally confessed to the police that I did it - I should be spared in some way simply and only because my DNA was not found at the scene?! And I suspect that very little DNA is found at murders by arson, or bomb.

Of course DNA can be compelling evidence. Of course most if not all crime scenes should be scrubbed for it. Of course it should, if present, be used, for either incriminating or exculpatory purposes, as the case may be. No one's disputing that; certainly not me.

But it's absolutely laughable to suggest that living in a civilized society requires that its enlightened citizens will expect DNA evidence to be found at the scene of every crime.

Edited September 7, 2014 by hawker9000