Wrongful Conviction/ Injustice Community Group
For people and families who have tasted or advocate against the horrors of injustice
I always thought Mr. Willingham was innocent as I had followed his case for several years, particularly when it was in the appeal process.
Incidentally, I felt that Michael Morton was innocent, too. He is another guy from Texas who was most likely innocent, yet Texas felt the need to kill him.
But hey! Isn't the death penalty wonderful? We just decided to play God and exact the final punishment on a man using questionable evidence. If these guys were innocent, then this was a murder on the part of the state of Texas.
Who should be held accountable? Does anyone have an idea?
Would LWOP have served the same purpose? Of course, but the politicians down in Texas would not get near the political mileage with a life sentence as they do with the death penalty. Harris County in Texas is the Death Capital of the World.
What is even more sad about the death penalty, is the some people are even PROUD that they support it.
I could go on and on, but here is the link------
http://tinyurl.com/kxofhbv
BTW, look at how Mr. Rick Perry viewed this entire episode---
Willingham was executed on Feb. 17, 2004, after Gov. Rick Perry (R) REFUSED to grant a stay requested by Willingham’s lawyers on the basis of a report by an INDEPENDENT arson expert who concluded there was NO evidence the fire was intentionally set. Perry later called Willingham “a monster.”
What the hell is wrong with these people?
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Incidentally, I felt that Michael Morton was innocent, too. He is another guy from Texas who was most likely innocent, yet Texas felt the need to kill him.
But hey! Isn't the death penalty wonderful? We just decided to play God and exact the final punishment on a man using questionable evidence. If these guys were innocent, then this was a murder on the part of the state of Texas.
Who should be held accountable? Does anyone have an idea?
Would LWOP have served the same purpose? Of course, but the politicians down in Texas would not get near the political mileage with a life sentence as they do with the death penalty. Harris County in Texas is the Death Capital of the World.
What is even more sad about the death penalty, is the some people are even PROUD that they support it.
I could go on and on, but here is the link------
http://tinyurl.com/kxofhbv
BTW, look at how Mr. Rick Perry viewed this entire episode---
Willingham was executed on Feb. 17, 2004, after Gov. Rick Perry (R) REFUSED to grant a stay requested by Willingham’s lawyers on the basis of a report by an INDEPENDENT arson expert who concluded there was NO evidence the fire was intentionally set. Perry later called Willingham “a monster.”
What the hell is wrong with these people?
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Good Thursday to you!I've been watching a really long trial on Youtube these last couple of nights and will finish tomorrowHopefully I'll be in the land of nod soon and I hope my peeps are having sweet dreams followed by a great daySending hugs...xo
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Hey all, i know its been quite awhile since i posted on here. Its been a summer all right. Its been something else........... You know how they say not to open the can of worms? Well a few months ago i decided to find out what my due date would have been for my first baby, the one conceived by r***. My baby would have been due on March 4th of 2006. They would be 20 years old. I was R**** on June...
Can you imagine your children all dead and you found 'wrongfully' guilty of there murder...sigh... How much worse could it get
I saw a news show many years ago of a man convicted of killing both of his parents and sentenced to death however it was overturned.. God bless him...I'm afraid I have memory problems and I can't remember his name but it was in the US
I'm afraid that my friend won't do well in his clemency hearing..sigh... He's from the South and was facing the electric chair however received a life sentence... He's been in 35 years now and even though advocates are on his side it really doesn't seem to matter... Two of the police officers that busted him were fired and I think brought up on charges shortly after he was arrested and his lawyer was disbarred...
One of the lawyers (advocates) said it was the worst case of prosecutorial misconduct he'd ever seen... a death penalty case took ONE day... How can that happen??
The state appointed lawyer wanted to try a death penalty case and Robert agreed...sigh
It's all so bloody barbaric... It doesn't work
However I saw a long news show one night of justice/legal systems around the world and believe me we have it made compared to most... The death penalty has to go... They need to make it extinct... I don't know why the US still has it with all of the wrongful convictions that have been overturned
I wish it could become more about justice instead of about 'winning a case'
http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/northwestern/spring99/convictions.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USIWJp-8nos
My heart aches for the loss we face as freedom is not the reason we have this legal system.
But this nation's reluctance to abolish the death penalty and prosecutors that hide evidence, bribe and coerce witnesses, and KNOWINGLY send innocent people to prison---or even worse to the execution chamber----speaks to a broader problem in America.
We are losing some of our humanity, I fear.
I often wonder what kind of human being would orchestrate the conviction and execution of an innocent man. What is wrong, morally, with a person that does that? How can anyone be so mean and evil as to do what this prosecutor did?
Does sending an innocent man to be executed----murdered----mean that much to a prosecutor that he has to sell his soul to do so? Does he realize---or does he care---that this innocent man will never see his family again? Does the DA realize that he is committing murder? What is wrong with these types of people?
I have answers to most of the problems in the criminal justice system, but I have few answers to these questions. The only possible answer is that these prosecutors just are sociopaths who have absolutely no regard for human life and their need to score a win outweighs any humanity they might have.
These prosecutors are no better than the Ted Bundys of this world.
What is astounding is the lengths these prosecutors will go to in order to convict an innocent man.
This DA bribed a "jailhouse snitch" to testify for the state------
""""""The bar action was filed March 5 without any public announcement. It accuses Jackson of having intervened repeatedly to help a jailhouse informant, Johnny E. Webb, in return for his testimony that Willingham confessed the murders to him while they were both jailed in Corsicana, the Navarro County seat.""""""
"""""Webb has since recanted that testimony. In a series of recent interviews, he told the Marshall Project that Jackson coerced him to lie, threatening a long prison term for a robbery to which Webb ultimately pleaded guilty, but promising to reduce his sentence if he testified against Willingham."""""
Sometimes my passion for justice and fairness in our criminal justice system just overwhelms me and I have to sit back and take a deep breath.
This is one of those times.
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https://staffanspersonalityblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/150/
I watched the clip. The totality and finality of what he had done finally caught up with him.
The best quote of the article, is what I mentioned earlier------------
""""I think this happens to all of us when we give in to hate. We lose our humanity, our dignity, and sense of purpose. You may not notice it but it all adds up so that one day you end up a hateful cynic with no capacity for love. Someone who needs hate to fill the void inside of them."""""
This hatred which seems to infect this nation did not happen overnight. It was an insidious process which took several decades----from generation to generation.
We seem to hate everything in this country-----gays, blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, felons, Muslims; after reading about some of the laws discriminating against women, I actually believe there is a faction in this country that hates women.
This hostility and pure hatred we have for certain groups of people have almost become an addiction in this country; we are "addicted to hate."
Hatred cannot be allowed to run amok for years on end. It becomes uncontrollable and then the hatred controls and poisons our minds.
And like the gentleman in the video, someday all this hate will come back to haunt us and slowly destroy us as a people, as a nation.
Thank you, Jan, for that clip.
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You said, "Vengeance breeds vengeance."
Truer words were never spoken.
The death penalty is all about revenge and vengeance. Otherwise, we would be placing these offenders in prison with Life Without Parole.
At some point, this cycle of vengeance must stop if we are ever to grow as a country. No, I am not against punishing people who have broken the law, but we have LWOP and the death penalty is wrought with too many problems to rely on it as a legal procedure.
It is barbaric and NOT reliable and it must stop.
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