Two men exonerated in 1991 rape claim

trouble13 said:

Just want to float an idea at you. What if the law said that however much they spent on prosecuting you they must offer the equilivent amount in defending you. Would that be more fair iyo?


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It isn't so much a matter of funding (granted, top notch defense commands top notch prices) but, rather, a function of competence in defense. Everyone involved is going to see a given case their own way. There can also be several "right" opinions. For example, if a public defender suggests taking a plea for 5 years instead of a trial where the defendant might get 10 years or nothing that isn't a "wrong" decision.

ultmd said:

How? Because systemic (and, at times, personal) racial bias plays a factor in EVERY aspect of the judicial process....from policing and surveillance, to indictment, to trial and to sentencing process. And we KNOW this to be a FACT.

We KNOW, for example, that African-Americans and white Americans use and sell illegal drugs at the same rates (actually blacks are slightly LESS likely to use and sell most illegal drugs than whites, but not to a statistically significant degree). And yet, we also KNOW, that blacks are MUCH more likely to be arrested, charged and convicted on drug offenses than whites. And we KNOW that, once convicted, blacks receive harsher sentences, on average, than whites convicted of the SAME offenses.



Ok, I'll play.

For example......?

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Not everything is racial. If you've got a defendant that chooses to go to trial instead of taking a plea and he gets 10 years instead of 5 if he took the plea that isn't a racial issue, it's entirely due to his decision to go to trial.

How about, for any wrongful imprisonment that results in over 10 years of wrongful imprisonment, the case has to be investigated by the DoJ. This will result in how to handle such cases better in the future and where the mistakes were made and if there were any criminal wrongdoing in the prosecution, it would be found and real justice could then be metted out.

Lutherf said:

Let me ask you a question. If a black subject is convicted of felonious assault against a black victim and the witnesses are also black then, assuming the conviction was overturned at some later point, how is racial bias a factor in that?

I'm not suggesting that the above scenario is indicative of all cases where a black person is wrongly convicted but I do want to point out that there are LOTS of reasons that we could see such a disparity and racial animus, conscious or unconscious, isn't necessarily the only cause.

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There's a long documented history of White jurors seeing things differently. You may not agree but the Trayvon Martin case was a perfect example. After the trial is obvious that Zimmerman is a nut. There is no way that if Trayvon were a White teen stalked Zimmerman, a gun-toting vigilante, that Zimmerman gets off. The jury just thought that the Black kid was the dangerous one, not the guy with a gun chasing the Black kid at night.

Here is another example of a racist justice system. A man with some prior dug possessions convictions, who has been gainfully employed for 20 years, get 13 years after being caught (illegally searched) with two joints worth of marijuana. Yes, 13 years. He initially got 5 years but the prosecutor appealed and got him more.

But guess what explains it all? In Louisiana, the prisons are privatized. Keeping the prisons full keeps the money flowing to the Sheriffs.

13 years in prison for two marijuana joints? Bernard Noble supporters cry foul

Noble, 49, was arrested while riding his bike in the Broadmoor area in 2010. Police searched him and found 2.8 grams of marijuana, the equivalent of two cigarettes, supporters say. Because he had prior non-violent drug offenses -- for small amounts of cocaine and marijuana -- an Orleans Parish jury convicted him under a state law that gives harsher punishments for habitual offenders.

Two trial judges, Terry Alarcon and Franz Zibilich, sentenced him to only five years after hearing his case. But Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office appealed, all the way to the Louisiana Supreme Court. That court decided that Noble's case was unexceptional and thus unworthy of a break from state law.

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SonOfDaedalus said:

There's a long documented history of White jurors seeing things differently. You may not agree but the Trayvon Martin case was a perfect example. After the trial is obvious that Zimmerman is a nut. There is no way that if Trayvon were a White teen stalked Zimmerman, a gun-toting vigilante, that Zimmerman gets off. The jury just thought that the Black kid was the dangerous one, not the guy with a gun chasing the Black kid at night.

Here is another example of a racist justice system. A man with some prior dug possessions convictions, who has been gainfully employed for 20 years, get 13 years after being caught (illegally searched) with two joints worth of marijuana. Yes, 13 years. He initially got 5 years but the prosecutor appealed and got him more.

But guess what explains it all? In Louisiana, the prisons are privatized. Keeping the prisons full keeps the money flowing to the Sheriffs.

13 years in prison for two marijuana joints? Bernard Noble supporters cry foul

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This reply is a fine example of another part of the problem. You talk about the Zimmerman case as if the issue of racism was being litigated. That wasn't the purpose of the trial. It was a trial about self defense and the verdict was wholly appropriate in that regard. Just because a whole lot of people (including the prosecutor) WANTED the case to be about racism they were focusing on an aspect that wasn't under consideration. That also leads back to one possible cause of conviction disparities. If defense counsel is arguing racism and the crime on trial is aggravated assault an even minded jury is going to convict every time and rightfully so.

TheGoverness said:

Article Here.




This story came out a few weeks ago, but it's still very relevant to talk about. This story pisses me off to no end. I cannot believe that these two were convicted of this, I think it was just a case of "Oh, it's two black men, so those thugs probably did it". The doctor examination showed that she had no injuries to what she had claimed she had gotten from them. Nor did they search the ****ing car she claimed she got raped in. Like, what the absolute ****. This whole case is just horrible beyond belief. **** that woman for lying about rape, because not only are you making it harder for actual rape victims to come out with there experiences, you ****ing destroyed those men's lives, and took 26 good years away from them. And that DA can shove it. It is not a tragedy for all involved. It is a tragedy for the two lives that were ruined because of your former client's lies.

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Governess, it says in the OP that she knew the two men so she didn't just say it was two black men, as you imply.

"The alleged victim said she was forced into a vehicle at knifepoint near a subway station in Queens. She said Perry and Counts — whom she already knew "

She identified them as the perpetrators. This was not random.

SonOfDaedalus said:

This case is about the systematic racism of the justice system. Blacks convicted with almost no evidence is far more common than you think. That's the kind of thing Kaepernick was protesting but many Americans think doesn't exist.

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When a rape victim yells THOSE TWO MEN DID IT, the police have to listen.

These two were not randomly picked out of a crowd.

This had nothing to do with race, even though you want it to be, but rather a case of the two men she thought would be credible in court.

Mason66 said:

Governess, it says in the OP that she knew the two men so she didn't just say it was two black men, as you imply.

"The alleged victim said she was forced into a vehicle at knifepoint near a subway station in Queens. She said Perry and Counts — whom she already knew "

She identified them as the perpetrators. This was not random.

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Um, when did I ever dispute that she didn't know them? I'm talking about how the doctor examination found no evidence to the injuries she said she had received from them, and how the car that she was raped in wasn't even searched. And there was absolutely ZERO evidence linking them to the crime. And yet they STILL were convicted.