Four years after a US execution, a different man’s DNA is found on the murder weapon

[editor]

American justice in action:

Lawyers’ request to conduct additional DNA testing before Ledell Lee was executed had been denied.

According to the Innocence Project, no physical evidence was ever produced that connected Mr. Lee to Ms. Reese’s murder. In a summary of the case, the group also outlined obstacles that Mr. Lee had faced over the years, including a lawyer who was drunk and unprepared at court hearings, unreliable neighborhood eyewitnesses and conflicts of interest for key players...

Along with providing new DNA results, Ms. Young’s petition pushed the city of Jacksonville to compare fingerprints from the crime scene to a state and national fingerprint database for the first time. It has long been established that Mr. Lee’s fingerprints did not match any of those at the scene.

And this twat still defends the execution.

4 Years After an Execution, a Different Man’s DNA Is Found on the Murder Weapon (Published 2021)

Lawyers’ request to conduct additional DNA testing before Ledell Lee was executed had been denied.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Sasaferrato]

 

[weltweit]

Grim

 

[skyscraper101]

Notwithstanding the evident miscarriages of justice over the years which should be enough even if you didn’t object on moral grounds l, but what I will never understand about the death penalty is how anybody can justify it on the grounds of it be king some sort of deterrent to committing murder.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Notwithstanding the evident miscarriages of justice over the years which should be enough even if you didn’t object on moral grounds l, but what I will never understand about the death penalty is how anybody can justify it on the grounds of it be king some sort of deterrent to committing murder.

It does deter the person given the sentence pretty effectively to be fair.

(To be clear I'm not in favour of the death penalty unless we're talking about Jamie Oliver)

 

[Pickman's model]

Notwithstanding the evident miscarriages of justice over the years which should be enough even if you didn’t object on moral grounds l, but what I will never understand about the death penalty is how anybody can justify it on the grounds of it be king some sort of deterrent to committing murder.

It's a deterrent to the executed person committing it again - or indeed as in this case at all.

 

[skyscraper101]

So, kind of like a full life sentence then.

 

[Pickman's model]

It does deter the person given the sentence pretty effectively to be fair.

(To be clear I'm not in favour of the death penalty unless we're talking about Jamie Oliver)

I'll see your Jamie Oliver and raise you Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer

 

[Pickman's model]

So, kind of like a full life sentence then.

Only the opportunity is withdrawn from the executed

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

So, kind of like a full life sentence then.

Life without parole is favoured in the US, but that is just a death sentence, execution method being old age. But at least that does offer some chance to rectify a mistake.

 

[MrSki]

Notwithstanding the evident miscarriages of justice over the years which should be enough even if you didn’t object on moral grounds l, but what I will never understand about the death penalty is how anybody can justify it on the grounds of it be king some sort of deterrent to committing murder.

It is more likely to make a murderer kill anyone who gets in his/her way trying to escape.

 

[skyscraper101]

“Because, why leave a living witness”

 

[Duncan2]

DNA "finger-printing" has been in use since the 1960s. Its not clear from the case summary upthread that any such tests were conducted during the investigation of this case either by the prosecution or by the defence?

 

[Espresso]

DNA "finger-printing" has been in use since the 1960s. Its not clear from the case summary upthread that any such tests were conducted during the investigation of this case either by the prosecution or by the defence?

The use of DNA as a tool for identifying people isn't as old as that. The first case that used DNA to convict was Colin Pitchfork in the late eighties.

 

[existentialist]

So, kind of like a full life sentence then.

Ah, but then the convicted is a "criminal", and arguments about "why should we pay for criminals to live?" arise. Especially amongst those already rubbing their thighs at the prospect of another person they've othered dying a premature and likely painful death.

 

[Duncan2]

The use of DNA as a tool for identifying people isn't as old as that. The first case that used DNA to convict was Colin Pitchfork in the late eighties.

you are quite right Espresso my bad-tested the whole of Enderby and it was indeed the eighties not the sixties.By the late nineties however the science was tried and tested was it not and identifications being made on the strength of microscopic crime scene samples.

 

[Cid]

you are quite right Espresso my bad-tested the whole of Enderby and it was indeed the eighties not the sixties.By the late nineties however the science was tried and tested was it not and identifications being made on the strength of microscopic crime scene samples.

There have been significant advances in what you can get viable DNA from. It’s not a static science.

 

[Idris2002]

Notwithstanding the evident miscarriages of justice over the years which should be enough even if you didn’t object on moral grounds l, but what I will never understand about the death penalty is how anybody can justify it on the grounds of it be king some sort of deterrent to committing murder.

Pierrepoint concluded from his own work as hangman that it had no deterrent effect. He ran a pub you see, and one of his customers there, who knew about his sideline, ended up as another sort of customer. . .

 

[pseudonarcissus]

Notwithstanding the evident miscarriages of justice over the years which should be enough even if you didn’t object on moral grounds l, but what I will never understand about the death penalty is how anybody can justify it on the grounds of it be king some sort of deterrent to committing murder.

It's not the deterrent value...it's the votes for right wing politicians that's important...just ask Priti Patel

 

[Cid]

Ah, but then the convicted is a "criminal", and arguments about "why should we pay for criminals to live?" arise. Especially amongst those already rubbing their thighs at the prospect of another person they've othered dying a premature and likely painful death.

Because it’s more expensive to kill them. Though I suppose the same people would just say ‘get rid of the appeals, take them out back and shoot them’. But yeah, death row is actually really expensive.

Also shit for victim’s family/survivors. 15 years of appeals, testimony etc.

 

[josef1878 2.0]

It does deter the person given the sentence pretty effectively to be fair.

(To be clear I'm not in favour of the death penalty unless we're talking about Jamie Oliver)

It didn't stop the real murderer though. Like the beardies cutting off thieves hands and all that. Their secret services would be chopping folk up for fun in other countries if it didn't work.

 

[SpineyNorman]

It didn't stop the real murderer though. Like the beardies cutting off thieves hands and all that. Their secret services would be chopping folk up for fun in other countries if it didn't work.

I agree with the first sentence but the rest doesn't make any sense to me, unless the second to last word should be did?

 

[SpineyNorman]

Pierrepoint concluded from his own work as hangman that it had no deterrent effect. He ran a pub you see, and one of his customers there, who knew about his sideline, ended up as another sort of customer. . .

This is probably of no interest to anyone except me but my dad met Pierrepoint when he was really little and he gave him the creeps. Was a friend of the family via a copper uncle who drank in his pub.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

His pub was oddly called Help the Poor Struggler. And the customer he hanged was James Corbitt who called Pierrepoint Tosh and he called him Tish, on the morning of the hanging Pierrepoint walked in to the condemned cell to hear, "Hello Tosh" to which he replied "Hello Tish" and 30 seconds later was dead.

 

[Pickman's model]

It didn't stop the real murderer though. Like the beardies cutting off thieves hands and all that. Their secret services would be chopping folk up for fun in other countries if it didn't work.

The threat of the death penalty never deterred a single cop from killing anyone.

 

[Pickman's model]

Because it’s more expensive to kill them. Though I suppose the same people would just say ‘get rid of the appeals, take them out back and shoot them’. But yeah, death row is actually really expensive.

Also shit for victim’s family/survivors. 15 years of appeals, testimony etc.

Death row America, it's not something common to all countries with the death penalty. Don't think anyone waited around in British prisons for years to be hanged

 

[existentialist]

Death row America, it's not something common to all countries with the death penalty. Don't think anyone waited around in British prisons for years to be hanged

I think the situation in the UK was that any death sentence was automatically referred (to the Attorney General?), but that was a bit of a rubber stamp process.

 

[Idris2002]

My Da had a story he'd heard once (at least I have it in my head that he told me this, but I don't actually remember him telling me this. . . ) about the time Pierrepoint was brought over to hang somebody by the Dublin government.

Pierrepoint had - or so the story went - gone into a pub in Dublin and was getting on famously with the regulars. . . at least until someone knocked over his bag, and the rope spilled out of it.

Thing is, though, Pierrepoint didn't travel with a rope, when he came to Dublin a rope was provided for him. I suppose Slavoj Zizek would have a psychoanalytic explanation for this one, all about the obscene nature of the spectacle and so forth.

existentialist - there are a few Commonwealth countries (only in the Caribbean?) where the last court of appeal for death row prisoners is still the Privy council in London.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Idris2002, dunno if he took a rope to Dublin, he didn’t in the U.K., what he did take to Ireland though was a revolver in case the natives took umbrage at the English hangman come to off a Paddy...

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Death row America, it's not something common to all countries with the death penalty. Don't think anyone waited around in British prisons for years to be hanged

Three Sundays had to pass between sentence and execution in the U.K.

With an appeal and then a beg for clemency thrown in it was often around six weeks from trial to unmarked grave within the prison grounds.