Is Texas getting ready to kill an innocent man?
November 17, 2014 10:18 AM Subscribe
Eleven years before he raped and threatened to kill Lear, Fennell’s own fiancee, 19-year-old Stacy Stites, was found brutally murdered along a country road in Bastrop, Texas. That crime eventually sent a man to death row. His name is Rodney Reed—and he is scheduled to die in January. Lear, like many people who have followed the case in Texas —believe that Reed is innocent. And they believe that the real killer is Jimmy Fennell.
Is Texas about to execute an African-American man for a crime seemingly committed by a white rapist police officer? The Intercept (previously on MeFi) reports.
Is Texas about to execute an African-American man for a crime seemingly committed by a white rapist police officer? The Intercept (previously on MeFi) reports.
(FYI, there's a photo of the dead body in the link, in case that's problematic for anyone.)
posted by jbickers at 10:33 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by jbickers at 10:33 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Texas: executing the guilty is for wimps.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:33 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:33 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
A map of capital punishment laws, by country.
posted by anemone of the state at 10:34 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by anemone of the state at 10:34 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah, the question should be "How many innocent people does Texas have to put to death before the Supreme Court cares?"
Fun fact: Texas executes approximately the same percentage of its population, on a people-executed-per-year averaged over years-system-active basis, as the Spanish Inquisition.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:42 AM on November 17, 2014 [35 favorites]
Fun fact: Texas executes approximately the same percentage of its population, on a people-executed-per-year averaged over years-system-active basis, as the Spanish Inquisition.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:42 AM on November 17, 2014 [35 favorites]
But you expect Texas...
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:45 AM on November 17, 2014 [19 favorites]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:45 AM on November 17, 2014 [19 favorites]
“They want to kill him,” she added. “Be done with it, and bury it in the ground.”Couldn't be better stated.
posted by muddgirl at 10:47 AM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
This could not possibly be more in character for Texas. :(
posted by edheil at 10:48 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by edheil at 10:48 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
The Texas justice system is really just an especially extreme version of what we have across the country. My state of origin, Illinois, is one of the many that thankfully placed a moratorium on the death penalty, but I've little doubt that it justly hands longer and harsher sentences to people of color and convicts more than a few innocent people as well. Death penalty cases are infinitely less remediable, of course, but there is a deeper, virulent rot in American justice as a whole.
posted by kewb at 10:53 AM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by kewb at 10:53 AM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
kewrb, you're right, but at this moment, it's Texas that is still executing people (many of them demonstrably or arguably innocent) on a regular basis.
posted by crush-onastick at 10:57 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by crush-onastick at 10:57 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Eyebrows McGee: Fun fact: Texas executes approximately the same percentage of its population, on a people-executed-per-year averaged over years-system-active basis, as the Spanish Inquisition.
That's an extraordinary statistic! Do you have a source for that? I'd love to share that elsewhere.
posted by fremen at 10:57 AM on November 17, 2014
That's an extraordinary statistic! Do you have a source for that? I'd love to share that elsewhere.
posted by fremen at 10:57 AM on November 17, 2014
Yeah, the question should be "How many innocent people does Texas have to put to death before the Supreme Court cares?"
Your actual innocence doesn't matter shit to these people. Just that you've had due process before the state murders you.
posted by Talez at 10:59 AM on November 17, 2014 [22 favorites]
“This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged ‘actual innocence’ is constitutionally cognizable.”-- Antonin Scalia, Troy Anthony Davis v. Georgia
Your actual innocence doesn't matter shit to these people. Just that you've had due process before the state murders you.
posted by Talez at 10:59 AM on November 17, 2014 [22 favorites]
Your actual innocence doesn't matter shit to these people. Just that you've had due process before the state murders you.
Exactly. As long as the system "works," then the actual guilt or innocence of the convicted person doesn't matter - the system is what is important, and a horrifying number of people (judges, lawyers, regular citizens) are perfectly happy to accept an error rate as long as the system is - to their minds - performing efficiently and without too much overt corruption.
posted by rtha at 11:06 AM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Exactly. As long as the system "works," then the actual guilt or innocence of the convicted person doesn't matter - the system is what is important, and a horrifying number of people (judges, lawyers, regular citizens) are perfectly happy to accept an error rate as long as the system is - to their minds - performing efficiently and without too much overt corruption.
posted by rtha at 11:06 AM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
I hope Scalia rots in hell just for having written those words.
posted by spitbull at 11:10 AM on November 17, 2014 [15 favorites]
posted by spitbull at 11:10 AM on November 17, 2014 [15 favorites]
“This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged ‘actual innocence’ is constitutionally cognizable.”I have to believe that I'm missing a term of art or something in there, because the only interpretation I can come up with is nothing short of overt, deliberate evil. What's the most charitable reading, that a supporter would go for if pressed?
posted by metaBugs at 11:10 AM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
"You had your day in court?"
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:13 AM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:13 AM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
What's the most charitable reading, that a supporter would go for if pressed?
You can't make a justice omelet without breaking a few kittens which you suspected weren't eggs but which a group of people reasonably thought were eggs based on what the legal system told them.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:33 AM on November 17, 2014 [9 favorites]
You can't make a justice omelet without breaking a few kittens which you suspected weren't eggs but which a group of people reasonably thought were eggs based on what the legal system told them.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:33 AM on November 17, 2014 [9 favorites]
It's definitely a term of art, albeit a misleading one. "A finding of actual innocence, as that term has come to be used in federal habeas corpus jurisprudence, is not the equivalent of a finding of not guilty by a jury or by a court in a bench trial.” Lambert v. Blackwell, 134 F.3d 506, 509 (3d Cir. 1997).
There's a difference between your state criminal trial and your federal constitutional post-conviction challenges to that state trial process by which you were convicted. See here.
The issues Scalia's talking about are profound questions of federalism and the federal courts' constitutional powers in reviewing state convictions. To borrow another term of art, his philosophy's not facially evil, though perhaps one might consider the results of his decision-making to be evil as-applied. :)
posted by resurrexit at 11:34 AM on November 17, 2014 [8 favorites]
There's a difference between your state criminal trial and your federal constitutional post-conviction challenges to that state trial process by which you were convicted. See here.
The issues Scalia's talking about are profound questions of federalism and the federal courts' constitutional powers in reviewing state convictions. To borrow another term of art, his philosophy's not facially evil, though perhaps one might consider the results of his decision-making to be evil as-applied. :)
posted by resurrexit at 11:34 AM on November 17, 2014 [8 favorites]
You are charitable indeed, if you do not suspect Scalia of "overt, deliberate evil."
posted by rikschell at 11:37 AM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 11:37 AM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
"That's an extraordinary statistic! Do you have a source for that? I'd love to share that elsewhere."
You'll have to re-source the actual numbers because I didn't note down my source for the Inquisition (wikipedia more or less agrees with the range of my numbers; the Texas numbers came from the state of Texas official stats -- I was making a quick-and-dirty point at a student several years back who kept insisting ridiculous things about the Inquisition), but the math worked out like this:
The Spanish Inquisition was active for 140 years (it existed longer but wasn't powerful or doing much, so I chose the 140 active years, I think 1540 to 1680). The population of Spain in 1500 was about 7 million (there are some plague and war issues throughout the 1500s), so I worked with that number. Approximately 49,000 trials over those 140 years are recorded in official trial records, which works out to about 350 trials per year. There were around 900 actual executions recorded (there are more recorded, but some are executions in effigy of people who are already fled or dead), which works out to 6 per year, which works out to just under 1 execution per million people per year.
In Texas, between the resumption of the death penalty in Texas in 1982 and 2007 (the year I had the most recent data for at the time), they had averaged 16.2 executions per year (ranging from a low of 0 in 1983 to a high of 40 in 2000); Texas's population in 1990 (to pick a point in the middle of the time period) was just a hair under 17 million, giving us just under 1 execution per million people per year.
Texas has slowed down since the late 90s/early 2000s, so their average will have fallen (while their population has risen), and you can slice and dice the Inquisition numbers a lot of different ways. But yeah, the point stands, you have a 1 in a million chance of being executed by the State of Texas or the Spanish Inquisition. I always asked my students if they thought that made Texas seem more violent or the Inquisition less so.
Just hope your mother was wrong and you are not, actually, one in a million.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:51 AM on November 17, 2014 [48 favorites]
You'll have to re-source the actual numbers because I didn't note down my source for the Inquisition (wikipedia more or less agrees with the range of my numbers; the Texas numbers came from the state of Texas official stats -- I was making a quick-and-dirty point at a student several years back who kept insisting ridiculous things about the Inquisition), but the math worked out like this:
The Spanish Inquisition was active for 140 years (it existed longer but wasn't powerful or doing much, so I chose the 140 active years, I think 1540 to 1680). The population of Spain in 1500 was about 7 million (there are some plague and war issues throughout the 1500s), so I worked with that number. Approximately 49,000 trials over those 140 years are recorded in official trial records, which works out to about 350 trials per year. There were around 900 actual executions recorded (there are more recorded, but some are executions in effigy of people who are already fled or dead), which works out to 6 per year, which works out to just under 1 execution per million people per year.
In Texas, between the resumption of the death penalty in Texas in 1982 and 2007 (the year I had the most recent data for at the time), they had averaged 16.2 executions per year (ranging from a low of 0 in 1983 to a high of 40 in 2000); Texas's population in 1990 (to pick a point in the middle of the time period) was just a hair under 17 million, giving us just under 1 execution per million people per year.
Texas has slowed down since the late 90s/early 2000s, so their average will have fallen (while their population has risen), and you can slice and dice the Inquisition numbers a lot of different ways. But yeah, the point stands, you have a 1 in a million chance of being executed by the State of Texas or the Spanish Inquisition. I always asked my students if they thought that made Texas seem more violent or the Inquisition less so.
Just hope your mother was wrong and you are not, actually, one in a million.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:51 AM on November 17, 2014 [48 favorites]
For the record, that's a dissent by Scalia, and the majority voted to give Davis a hearing (not that it did him any good); as Stevens wrote in his concurring opinion, "The Court correctly refuses to endorse such reasoning. "
Scalia's basic premise here is that the Constitution guarantees Due Process, not a correct outcome. As long as the defendant had a fair trial, the correctness of the outcome is irrelevant. I suppose his supporters would say that that's what the law says, and as a nation of laws we should enforce the law as written, not as we'd like it to be. Don't like it? There's a process for amending the constitution.
While "actual innocence" isn't the same thing as "not guilty"--it's a higher standard--it still means pretty much what it sounds like. The appeal is based on the convicted defendant not having committed the crime, rather than some kind of procedural defect. While that does involve a big Federalism question as the states have the inherent power to punish crime, it seems like the Eight Amendment's prohibition of cruel & unusual punishment should apply to executing someone who's "actually" innocent.
posted by fogovonslack at 11:54 AM on November 17, 2014 [8 favorites]
Scalia's basic premise here is that the Constitution guarantees Due Process, not a correct outcome. As long as the defendant had a fair trial, the correctness of the outcome is irrelevant. I suppose his supporters would say that that's what the law says, and as a nation of laws we should enforce the law as written, not as we'd like it to be. Don't like it? There's a process for amending the constitution.
While "actual innocence" isn't the same thing as "not guilty"--it's a higher standard--it still means pretty much what it sounds like. The appeal is based on the convicted defendant not having committed the crime, rather than some kind of procedural defect. While that does involve a big Federalism question as the states have the inherent power to punish crime, it seems like the Eight Amendment's prohibition of cruel & unusual punishment should apply to executing someone who's "actually" innocent.
posted by fogovonslack at 11:54 AM on November 17, 2014 [8 favorites]
A very brief round of googling on the question of Texas vs. Spanish Inquisition brings up the following:
The Spanish Inquisition: Debunking the Legends
TL;DR: Reports of the Inquisition's violence have been greatly overstated, with the number of victims executed being about 3000-5000 over a period of 350 years, or around 0.7 - 1.2 people per month.
Texas has executed 518 people since 1982 (src 1, src 2, src 3), or 1.4 person per month (although the rate of executions and the population of Death Row has been decreasing in recent years).
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:57 AM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]
The Spanish Inquisition: Debunking the Legends
TL;DR: Reports of the Inquisition's violence have been greatly overstated, with the number of victims executed being about 3000-5000 over a period of 350 years, or around 0.7 - 1.2 people per month.
Texas has executed 518 people since 1982 (src 1, src 2, src 3), or 1.4 person per month (although the rate of executions and the population of Death Row has been decreasing in recent years).
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:57 AM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]
Scalia also concurred in the majority (conservative) opinion in DA's Office v. Osborne that said that there was no due process requirement for states to turn over DNA evidence to be tested, even at the defendant's own expense. And he, along, with Thomas, dissented from the majority decision in Schlup v. Delo, a case that broadened appeals rights in cases where critical evidence had been omitted from or come to light since the original trial.
While that may be some kind of important federal vs. state powers distinction, Scalia does indeed seem to dislike the idea that new technologies should ever reopen old cases, or that actual innocence -- not just as a term of art -- should interfere with the results of even obsolete evidentiary standards. His argument has pretty consistently been that the verdict in an error-free trial at the original time of trial can never be called erroneous after the fact. If this is not an evil position, it is at least a stupid and destructive one.
There are times when a state visibly fucks up or is visibly recalcitrant to challenge past prosecutions despite subsequent revelations. And there are states that have extremely strict "actual innocence statutes," often adopted right around the time DNA testing started reversing some high-profile convictions; Virginia, for one, and Texas for another. And since there is little political will to address these matters among the electorate, not to mention little popular legal knowledge, it falls to the courts by default to fix matters. If that's not how the system is meant to work, then the hell with the way it's supposed to work. We need one that gives a damn about innocence and guilt ands not merely about CYA.
If Scalia is right about the law in this matter, then the law is indeed "a ass -- a idiot." Or, as many have come to feel, it is a technical game whose claim to arrive at morality through argument and methods is decreasingly credible in the face of mounting evidence of systemic abuses and corruption.
On preview, what fogovonslack said.
posted by kewb at 11:58 AM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
While that may be some kind of important federal vs. state powers distinction, Scalia does indeed seem to dislike the idea that new technologies should ever reopen old cases, or that actual innocence -- not just as a term of art -- should interfere with the results of even obsolete evidentiary standards. His argument has pretty consistently been that the verdict in an error-free trial at the original time of trial can never be called erroneous after the fact. If this is not an evil position, it is at least a stupid and destructive one.
There are times when a state visibly fucks up or is visibly recalcitrant to challenge past prosecutions despite subsequent revelations. And there are states that have extremely strict "actual innocence statutes," often adopted right around the time DNA testing started reversing some high-profile convictions; Virginia, for one, and Texas for another. And since there is little political will to address these matters among the electorate, not to mention little popular legal knowledge, it falls to the courts by default to fix matters. If that's not how the system is meant to work, then the hell with the way it's supposed to work. We need one that gives a damn about innocence and guilt ands not merely about CYA.
If Scalia is right about the law in this matter, then the law is indeed "a ass -- a idiot." Or, as many have come to feel, it is a technical game whose claim to arrive at morality through argument and methods is decreasingly credible in the face of mounting evidence of systemic abuses and corruption.
On preview, what fogovonslack said.
posted by kewb at 11:58 AM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
His argument has pretty consistently been that the verdict in an error-free trial at the original time of trial can never be called erroneous after the fact. If this is not an evil position, it is at least a stupid and destructive one.
It also seems fairly consistent with his "strict constitutionalism," which to me is rooted in a kind of bizarre textual fetishism, as though the mere fact that something is written down fixes it forever as (singular) truth, without regards to context, historical change, etc. I know he's a pre-Vatican II Catholic with a belief in a dogmatic devotion to Church doctrine, and it seems like there's a pretty strong sympathy with biblical literalism in his thinking.
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:06 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
It also seems fairly consistent with his "strict constitutionalism," which to me is rooted in a kind of bizarre textual fetishism, as though the mere fact that something is written down fixes it forever as (singular) truth, without regards to context, historical change, etc. I know he's a pre-Vatican II Catholic with a belief in a dogmatic devotion to Church doctrine, and it seems like there's a pretty strong sympathy with biblical literalism in his thinking.
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:06 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
it seems like there's a pretty strong sympathy with biblical literalism in his thinking.
Excepting pretty much everything Jesus Christ actually said.
posted by mikelieman at 12:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [11 favorites]
Excepting pretty much everything Jesus Christ actually said.
posted by mikelieman at 12:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [11 favorites]
Well, yeah.
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:13 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:13 PM on November 17, 2014
FWIW I know this part of Texas pretty well (was born nearby) and am fond of it. It's between Houston and Austin, rural area, mostly nice folks. Kind of poor and rural. Excellent barbeque. It's also a place where the Bubba / Redneck stereotype holds strong and true. I've got absolutely no doubt that a black man accused of raping a white woman in that part of Texas would have a very hard time getting a fair trial or defense.
posted by Nelson at 12:14 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by Nelson at 12:14 PM on November 17, 2014
In possibly good news (though not for Mr Reed), for the first time ever a prosecutor will go to jail for wrongfully convicting an innocent man.
posted by mbrubeck at 12:15 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by mbrubeck at 12:15 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
I think it's worthwhile to contrast that quote from Scalia with this, from John Adams:
"It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.posted by ogooglebar at 12:28 PM on November 17, 2014 [57 favorites]
But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever."
"I hope Scalia rots in hell just for having written those words."
Yeah, one of the reasons why I feel an obligation to work against this sort of shit is because I don't believe there's a hell for these assholes to go to so we have to bring justice in this world.
"Excepting pretty much everything Jesus Christ actually said."
Oh, the beauty of the Bible is that you can take whatever just confirms your existing worldview and ignore the rest. Just like the Constitution!
posted by klangklangston at 12:33 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah, one of the reasons why I feel an obligation to work against this sort of shit is because I don't believe there's a hell for these assholes to go to so we have to bring justice in this world.
"Excepting pretty much everything Jesus Christ actually said."
Oh, the beauty of the Bible is that you can take whatever just confirms your existing worldview and ignore the rest. Just like the Constitution!
posted by klangklangston at 12:33 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
It must also be noted that a major portion of the effort and expense of the "American Justice System" goes toward protecting those employed by it, specifically cops. Getting away with murder is one of the perks of the job, as the any-day-now report of the Darren Wilson grand jury will again demonstrate. As for the inevitable reaction, I sadly predict the 'riots' to claim the lives of at least 10 black citizens, all at the hands of the police, with zero police casualties. Welcome to "Post-Racial America". I would hold out hope that Obama's nominee for Attorney General will have a positive effect, but that would require getting her confirmed before the Senate Changing of the Guard.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:49 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:49 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
There is a big philosophical divide between "process people" and "outcomes people". Scalia is, I think it's pretty clear, a process guy. He doesn't really give a shit about the outcome as long as the process is correctly followed. The fact that the outcome might be perverse to an outside observer is not relevant.
There are other people who concentrate on outcomes, not really caring how the system arrives at the desired outcome. This, on the surface, might seem more attractive, particularly if you find process-fetishists like Scalia hard to handle. Focusing strictly on outcomes seems good when you are talking about reversing bad convictions, but an over-emphasis on outcomes rather than process is also how you get 'testilying' and planted evidence and, in the limiting case, beatings-in-lieu-of-arrest.
I am personally more on the fiat justitia ruat caelum end of the spectrum, but that doesn't mean I don't have some appreciation for Scalia's process orthodoxy. In a Supreme Court justice, it's probably not wholly misplaced. (As long as it's a minority position, anyway.) It is perfectly fine for the courts to operate within a bubble of assumed infallibility, so long as the other branches of government which are supposed to serve as safety values are also operating properly. The reluctance of the Executive branches to use their power to issue pardons and the Legislative branches to modify procedural rules (e.g. mandatory DNA testing, granting defense attorneys access to complete prosecutorial files in order to find held-back exculpatory evidence, etc.) is really damning.
It's not possible to create a legal system that produces the 'correct' outcome every time, and beyond a certain point the harder you try to make it perfect the more slow-moving and complex the system becomes. Understandably, then, you have to draw a line and say "the system handles most things well" for some value of 'most', and you provide an exception-handling mechanism (pardons) for when it kicks out a perverse result. For reasons that elude me, we have largely forgotten that this exception-handling is a necessary part of a functional justice system, and put more and more pressure on the courts to handle all possible situations internally. The result is a ponderous legal system which still fails in ugly ways.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:05 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
There are other people who concentrate on outcomes, not really caring how the system arrives at the desired outcome. This, on the surface, might seem more attractive, particularly if you find process-fetishists like Scalia hard to handle. Focusing strictly on outcomes seems good when you are talking about reversing bad convictions, but an over-emphasis on outcomes rather than process is also how you get 'testilying' and planted evidence and, in the limiting case, beatings-in-lieu-of-arrest.
I am personally more on the fiat justitia ruat caelum end of the spectrum, but that doesn't mean I don't have some appreciation for Scalia's process orthodoxy. In a Supreme Court justice, it's probably not wholly misplaced. (As long as it's a minority position, anyway.) It is perfectly fine for the courts to operate within a bubble of assumed infallibility, so long as the other branches of government which are supposed to serve as safety values are also operating properly. The reluctance of the Executive branches to use their power to issue pardons and the Legislative branches to modify procedural rules (e.g. mandatory DNA testing, granting defense attorneys access to complete prosecutorial files in order to find held-back exculpatory evidence, etc.) is really damning.
It's not possible to create a legal system that produces the 'correct' outcome every time, and beyond a certain point the harder you try to make it perfect the more slow-moving and complex the system becomes. Understandably, then, you have to draw a line and say "the system handles most things well" for some value of 'most', and you provide an exception-handling mechanism (pardons) for when it kicks out a perverse result. For reasons that elude me, we have largely forgotten that this exception-handling is a necessary part of a functional justice system, and put more and more pressure on the courts to handle all possible situations internally. The result is a ponderous legal system which still fails in ugly ways.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:05 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]
This may not be the right place for a "process orthodoxy" vs. "outcome orthodoxy" debate, because this particular case is obviously getting the outcome that Texas wants, protecting a bad cop and burying a 'worthless black man'.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:11 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
All that process v. outcome stuff is all well and good, but what disturbs me is that "Good Faith" should be the dominant factor regardless of where you fall on the process/outcome axis.
posted by mikelieman at 1:25 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by mikelieman at 1:25 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
'There is a big philosophical divide between "process people" and "outcomes people".'
Can you have your cake and eat it too? I mean when the outcome is obviously flawed and bad and wrong, isn't it then time to change your process to ensure this awfulness doesn't happen in the future?
posted by el io at 1:37 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Can you have your cake and eat it too? I mean when the outcome is obviously flawed and bad and wrong, isn't it then time to change your process to ensure this awfulness doesn't happen in the future?
posted by el io at 1:37 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Can we get a poll on how much attention Scalia paid to the process when the Gore Bush election got to the supreme court?
posted by bukvich at 1:50 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by bukvich at 1:50 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't think you are ddd. Thanks for the warnings, I am not going to read this for that reason.
posted by marienbad at 3:02 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by marienbad at 3:02 PM on November 17, 2014
it seems like the Eight Amendment's prohibition of cruel & unusual punishment should apply to executing someone who's "actually" innocent.
Seems like you don't actually have a "justice" system to go along with your "laws" if common moral intelligence does not demand that a due process that yields an unjust outcome be considered as corrupt.
The corruption of due process affects the integrity of the law. That the "due process" in question has been systematically corrupted by racism since the dawn of the republic would seem pertinent as well.
posted by spitbull at 3:12 PM on November 17, 2014
Seems like you don't actually have a "justice" system to go along with your "laws" if common moral intelligence does not demand that a due process that yields an unjust outcome be considered as corrupt.
The corruption of due process affects the integrity of the law. That the "due process" in question has been systematically corrupted by racism since the dawn of the republic would seem pertinent as well.
posted by spitbull at 3:12 PM on November 17, 2014
So we have to choose between two men who have been accused of multiple sexual assaults to figure out which one murdered a young women, and the black man is the one set for execution. That could be a sign of a problem, but that doesn't necessarily make him innocent. At the very least, numerous women have named him as a rapist. I really have problems with this kind of framing. At the very least, it's dismissive of the women who came forward against Reed.
posted by corb at 3:44 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by corb at 3:44 PM on November 17, 2014
It don't necessarily make him guilty, neither. The spectre of the state using its monopoly on violence to execute a potentially innocent man is the problem, here. Racism fuels that, of course.
Plus, rape isn't murder, so whether either or both of them have ever raped anyone is totally irrelevant.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:49 PM on November 17, 2014
Plus, rape isn't murder, so whether either or both of them have ever raped anyone is totally irrelevant.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:49 PM on November 17, 2014
I believe that even men accused and convicted of multiple sexual assaults deserves a full and fair trial with a competent defense attorney and with evidence based on the best science before we decide to put them to death. Anything less is a stain on this great country.
posted by muddgirl at 3:49 PM on November 17, 2014
posted by muddgirl at 3:49 PM on November 17, 2014
whether either or both of them have ever raped anyone is totally irrelevant.
Funny, the article certainly doesn't seem to think so when it's talking about Fennell.
posted by corb at 3:52 PM on November 17, 2014
Funny, the article certainly doesn't seem to think so when it's talking about Fennell.
posted by corb at 3:52 PM on November 17, 2014
I believe you have missed my point.
Fact is, neither man should be executed. There is doubt. (Even if there weren't it'd still be barbaric and wrong, but that's neither here nor there.) There is a 50% chance that an innocent man is going to be executed, which is not only a travesty of justice for him and a tragedy for his family, but it also allows an actual murderer to evade what you think is appropriate punishment. There is no way at all that anyone can spin this as a positive.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:55 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Fact is, neither man should be executed. There is doubt. (Even if there weren't it'd still be barbaric and wrong, but that's neither here nor there.) There is a 50% chance that an innocent man is going to be executed, which is not only a travesty of justice for him and a tragedy for his family, but it also allows an actual murderer to evade what you think is appropriate punishment. There is no way at all that anyone can spin this as a positive.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:55 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Even a multiple rapist convicted of multiple rapes doesn't belong on death row, since rape is not a capital crime. And if he's innocent of the crime he's on death row for, then that means the actual murderer is walking around out in the world. Can we all agree that at minimum, that's not an okay outcome?
posted by rtha at 3:57 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by rtha at 3:57 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]
So we have to choose between two men who have been accused of multiple sexual assaults to figure out which one murdered a young women, and the black man is the one set for execution. That could be a sign of a problem, but that doesn't necessarily make him innocent. At the very least, numerous women have named him as a rapist. I really have problems with this kind of framing. At the very least, it's dismissive of the women who came forward against Reed.
Both of them should probably be in jail for rape and other forms of sexual assault, and for longer than ten years. Nonetheless, Reed should not be executed for a specific crime it appears that he may not have committed. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that no one should be executed at all, but that's a separate disagreement.
And as long as we're considering victims:
I think we can find ways to support women who report sexual assault without accepting a shoddy, structurally racist criminal justice system in the process. And I don't think the courts should be in the business of convicting the right man for the wrong crime, what with the result being that someone else simply gets away with a crime.
And there's a problem here with sentencing disparities, too. You'll note that Fennell is on his way to parole after abusing his powers as a police officer to commit rape, while Reed is on his way to the death chamber for his conviction on a single count of rape. Since the story seems to indicate that both men have multiple accusers, why are the sentences so different? Is a system that favors one type of defendant over another, or one group of accusers over another, a system we should entrust with the power to kill?
posted by kewb at 4:02 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
Both of them should probably be in jail for rape and other forms of sexual assault, and for longer than ten years. Nonetheless, Reed should not be executed for a specific crime it appears that he may not have committed. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that no one should be executed at all, but that's a separate disagreement.
And as long as we're considering victims:
Stites’ relatives would like to see that request granted. Her cousin Judy says she and other extended family members had long hoped that the justice system would acknowledge and remedy the problems with the case without their having to go public — as extended family, they didn’t believe it was their place to do so. But with the execution date drawing near, she is now writing a group letter to outgoing Gov. Rick Perry asking him to stop the execution. “We have to stand up and say, look, there are too many questions to execute a man without them all being answered,” Judy says. “I believe Jimmy Fennell is guilty and I can’t in good conscience” keep quiet any longer.Executing Reed *for the rape and murder of Stacy Stites* without investigating Fennell seems awfully dismissive of the concerns of her loved ones.
I think we can find ways to support women who report sexual assault without accepting a shoddy, structurally racist criminal justice system in the process. And I don't think the courts should be in the business of convicting the right man for the wrong crime, what with the result being that someone else simply gets away with a crime.
And there's a problem here with sentencing disparities, too. You'll note that Fennell is on his way to parole after abusing his powers as a police officer to commit rape, while Reed is on his way to the death chamber for his conviction on a single count of rape. Since the story seems to indicate that both men have multiple accusers, why are the sentences so different? Is a system that favors one type of defendant over another, or one group of accusers over another, a system we should entrust with the power to kill?
posted by kewb at 4:02 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
In 1993’s Herrera v. Collins, Texas laid all its cards on the table: suppose, said one justice, you had a guy on death row who could produce a videotape proving definitively that he was innocent of the crime. If no court would grant him a hearing on that evidence, and he were executed, would his constitutional rights be violated?
Margaret Griffey, the assistant attorney general arguing the case on behalf of the state of Texas, replied that they would not. The state, she explained, would have met its constitutional obligation by giving him a trial, as long as there were no constitutional violations in the trial itself.
The good news is that five justices found this odious, and said so in their opinions. The bad news is that two of those justices nonetheless joined the majority and ruled against Herrera, the death row inmate. He didn’t have a videotape, but he did have two affidavits from people who said someone else had claimed responsibility for the murders Herrera was convicted of. The precedent of that decision is that actual innocence, even if it can be proven, is not grounds for federal habeas corpus relief. The hypothetical inmate with a videotape is not owed a new trial, they said, but he does have recourse: he can petition the governor for clemency, because, y’know, that has a chance of ever fucking happening.
Relatedly, Herrera v. Collins is also notable for being the case that convinced Harry Blackmun that the court had gone completely fucking nuts on all death penalty issues. In his later “machinery of death” dissent, he wrote that Herrera proved that the Court “prefers ‘finality’ in death sentences to reliable determinations of a capital defendant's guilt.” In this process-versus-outcome debate, they have fallen squarely on the side of process, finding procedural reasons not to have to hear challenges to death sentences, despite the fact that the whole point of the death penalty is the outcome. If an actually innocent person were executed, that outcome would be grossly unjust, even if the process that led up to it were completely by-the-book.
This is where we are today. We have a Court that has explicitly found the death penalty to be both constitutional in theory and workable in practice — and, once it ruled as such, stuck fingers in its ears and erected privacy fences around itself so it wouldn’t have to face evidence that it was wrong on both counts. I once thought that to turn the tide, to convince the Court that it had gone astray, would require incontrovertible proof that a state had executed an innocent man. Now I’m not sure even that would do anything.
posted by savetheclocktower at 10:39 PM on November 17, 2014 [9 favorites]
Margaret Griffey, the assistant attorney general arguing the case on behalf of the state of Texas, replied that they would not. The state, she explained, would have met its constitutional obligation by giving him a trial, as long as there were no constitutional violations in the trial itself.
The good news is that five justices found this odious, and said so in their opinions. The bad news is that two of those justices nonetheless joined the majority and ruled against Herrera, the death row inmate. He didn’t have a videotape, but he did have two affidavits from people who said someone else had claimed responsibility for the murders Herrera was convicted of. The precedent of that decision is that actual innocence, even if it can be proven, is not grounds for federal habeas corpus relief. The hypothetical inmate with a videotape is not owed a new trial, they said, but he does have recourse: he can petition the governor for clemency, because, y’know, that has a chance of ever fucking happening.
Relatedly, Herrera v. Collins is also notable for being the case that convinced Harry Blackmun that the court had gone completely fucking nuts on all death penalty issues. In his later “machinery of death” dissent, he wrote that Herrera proved that the Court “prefers ‘finality’ in death sentences to reliable determinations of a capital defendant's guilt.” In this process-versus-outcome debate, they have fallen squarely on the side of process, finding procedural reasons not to have to hear challenges to death sentences, despite the fact that the whole point of the death penalty is the outcome. If an actually innocent person were executed, that outcome would be grossly unjust, even if the process that led up to it were completely by-the-book.
This is where we are today. We have a Court that has explicitly found the death penalty to be both constitutional in theory and workable in practice — and, once it ruled as such, stuck fingers in its ears and erected privacy fences around itself so it wouldn’t have to face evidence that it was wrong on both counts. I once thought that to turn the tide, to convince the Court that it had gone astray, would require incontrovertible proof that a state had executed an innocent man. Now I’m not sure even that would do anything.
posted by savetheclocktower at 10:39 PM on November 17, 2014 [9 favorites]
ddd, speaking as someone who's posted two FPPs with pictures of dead bodies in the main links, I don't think you are being precious at all. I was taken quite sharply aback to see the photo of Stites's body.
As to the main story, it's horrendous in just about every possible way.
posted by daisyk at 12:42 AM on November 18, 2014
As to the main story, it's horrendous in just about every possible way.
posted by daisyk at 12:42 AM on November 18, 2014
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If a headline asks the question "Is Texas getting ready to kill an innocent man?" the answer is always yes.
posted by maxsparber at 10:27 AM on November 17, 2014 [49 favorites]