DNA Tests Clear Wrongfully Convicted Half-Brothers After 30 Years

HorsieJuice · Sep 5, 2014

MachZer0 said:
DNA on a cigarette butt?

MachZer0 said:
And had it been available, the only thing the jurors could have been told was that someone dropped a cigarette butt near the crime scene

Yes, DNA off a cigarette butt. Welcome to 2014. You'd have known this was possible if you'd done any of these:

1.) Read the article
2.) Did a google search
3.) Read the article
4.) Watched a CSI re-run
5.) Read the article

Seriously, why are you even participating in these threads if you can't be bothered to read the initial articles and make some modicum of effort to educate yourself on the subject? Do you just enjoy stirring up trouble?

MachZer0 · Sep 5, 2014

bhsmte said:
What evidence do you have to support this claim they gave a detailed confession?

The article I posted, told a different story and mentioned, part of their confession was completely false.

I posted the confession

bhsmte · Sep 5, 2014

cow451 said:

I got a good chuckle out of that one too.

bhsmte · Sep 5, 2014

MachZer0 said:
I posted the confession

Some of the confession had false information, that didn't match the evidence.

HorsieJuice · Sep 5, 2014

MachZer0 said:
Please, I'd love to know how a cigarette butt proves that McCollum didn't rape and murder a young girl which he confessed to doing

It doesn't PROVE that they didn't, but the DNA it contains provides reasonable doubt by establishing that another person - a man who, at the time, was known to have committed sexual assault and who has since been convicted of murder - was at the scene around the time of the murder.

jgarden · Sep 5, 2014

DNA Tests Clear Wrongfully Convicted Half-Brothers After 30 Years

There have been no riots in the streets in response to this false conviction but this is yet another incident that undermines the public's faith in American justice.

This is particularly true among the poor and visible minorities, who constitute a disproportionate number of victims in these cases.

MachZer0 · Sep 5, 2014

HorsieJuice said:
It doesn't PROVE that they didn't, but the DNA it contains provides reasonable doubt by establishing that another person - a man who, at the time, was known to have committed sexual assault and who has since been convicted of murder - was at the scene around the time of the murder.

I don't see the reasonable doubt.
For instance, when was the cigarette butt discarded?

DaisyDay · Sep 5, 2014

GarfieldJL said:
Based on the article, the two have 'mental disabilities', so honestly it is very plausible that they were coerced into admitting they did something that they didn't do. I'm not saying the police intentionally coerced them (because it is possible that they didn't know the two had mental disabilities at the time), however it is easier to coerce someone when they a mental disability (I don't know what they specifically have so I'm only going off of what the OP article said).

IQ that tested as low as 51 (which is very low).

I really think a lot more of this can be chalked up to a lack of awareness concerning disabilities back in the early 1980s, cause these days any 'confession' obtained before an attorney got there could be considered having been obtained via coercion.

There is a lot more awareness about disabilities now, than there were 30 years ago. I don't think they would have been convicted today...

It's hard to say.

bhsmte · Sep 5, 2014

MachZer0 said:
I don't see the reasonable doubt.
For instance, when was the cigarette butt discarded?

I'm not at all surprised you don't see the reasonable doubt and quite frankly, would be shocked if you said you did acknowledge reasonable doubt.

At the end of the day though, it doesn't matter whether you see reasonable doubt, as to whether the judge made the right call here.

HorsieJuice · Sep 5, 2014

MachZer0 said:
I don't see the reasonable doubt.

Seriously? Do you not understand what reasonable doubt is?

For instance, when was the cigarette butt discarded?

I don't know, but according to this article, the confession claimed that someone else (not the rapist) was smoking the cigarette:

DNA evidence could free 2 men in 1983 case | CharlotteObserver.com

MachZer0 · Sep 5, 2014

HorsieJuice said:
Seriously? Do you not understand what reasonable doubt is?

I don't know, but according to this article, the confession claimed that someone else (not the rapist) was smoking the cigarette:

DNA evidence could free 2 men in 1983 case | CharlotteObserver.com

Let's follow the logic. Someone else smoked a cigarette in that area, therefore the two confessed killers could not have committed the crime.

GarfieldJL · Sep 5, 2014

MachZer0 said:
Let's follow the logic. Someone else smoked a cigarette in that area, therefore the two confessed killers could not have committed the crime.

It also doesn't mean the confession wasn't bogus either... Mach, the two brothers were mentally disabled, depending on their functioning level, it would have been alarmingly easy for the cops to coerce them into confessing to a crime they didn't commit.

If this case was retried there is a good chance the confessions would have been tossed, as police coercion due to the mental disabilities, and it really looks like that their conviction was completely based on the confession. If that got tossed, the case falls apart.

HorsieJuice · Sep 5, 2014

MachZer0 said:
Let's follow the logic. Someone else smoked a cigarette in that area, therefore the two confessed killers could not have committed the crime.

Not quite.

"Reasonable doubt" does not mean "could not have" - it means "may not have."

Two people confessed to a crime and were convicted almost solely on the perceived veracity of this confession.

However, the confession was flawed.

Police at the time knew that it contained elements that were demonstrably untrue (i.e. the participation of certain other individuals). Subsequent DNA testing showed that not only were those elements untrue, but that another individual was present at the crime scene - an individual guilty of other rapes and a murder.

If you want to argue that these boys teamed up with this rapist, you could probably make that case, but neither their confession nor the evidence supports that.

bhsmte · Sep 5, 2014

HorsieJuice said:
Not quite.

"Reasonable doubt" does not mean "could not have" - it means "may not have."

Two people confessed to a crime and were convicted almost solely on the perceived veracity of this confession.

However, the confession was flawed.

Police at the time knew that it contained elements that were demonstrably untrue (i.e. the participation of certain other individuals). Subsequent DNA testing showed that not only were those elements untrue, but that another individual was present at the crime scene - an individual guilty of other rapes and a murder.

If you want to argue that these boys teamed up with this rapist, you could probably make that case, but neither their confession nor the evidence supports that.

And low and behold, that cigarette, was smoked by an admitted rapist.

Belk · Sep 5, 2014

MachZer0 said:
Let's follow the logic. Someone else smoked a cigarette in that area, therefore the two confessed killers could not have committed the crime.

That is not the logic.

DaisyDay · Sep 5, 2014

MachZer0 said:
Let's follow the logic. Someone else smoked a cigarette in that area, therefore the two confessed killers could not have committed the crime.

There was NO evidence that they did do it* and some evidence that they did not and fairly good evidence that someone else specifically did do it.

*other than a coerced confession after several hours of intense interrogation without either parent or lawyer present and which got major details wrong (such as two other participants with alibis).

bhsmte said:
And low and behold, that cigarette, was smoked by an admitted rapist.

Who was also a murderer of girls and who also lived nearby.

MachZer0 · Sep 5, 2014

DaisyDay said:
*other than a coerced confession after several hours of intense interrogation without either parent or lawyer present and which got major details wrong (such as two other participants with alibis).

Who was also a murderer of girls and who also lived nearby.

More than two juries, multiple judges and police investigators all disagree. The finding of a cigarette butt really changes little except in the minds of some, like at least one judge, who WANT to release prisoners

MachZer0 · Sep 5, 2014

Belk said:
That is not the logic.

Exactly

FreedByte · Sep 5, 2014

Good to see my thread continuing on in my absence

FreedByte · Sep 6, 2014

"Iron Lady" by Phil Ochs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWamd3jh3TY

DNA Tests Clear Wrongfully Convicted Half-Brothers After 30 Years

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