this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
276 points (99.3% liked)

News

22890 readers
3611 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Just days before inmate Freddie Owens is set to die by lethal injection in South Carolina, the friend whose testimony helped send Owens to prison is saying he lied to save himself from the death chamber.

Owens is set to die at 6 p.m. Friday at a Columbia prison for the killing of a Greenville convenience store clerk in 1997.

But Owens’ lawyers on Wednesday filed a sworn statement from his co-defendant Steven Golden late Wednesday to try to stop South Carolina from carrying out its first execution in more than a decade.

Prosecutors reiterated that several other witnesses testified that Owens told them he pulled the trigger. And the state Supreme Court refused to stop Owens’ execution last week after Golden, in a sworn statement, said that he had a secret deal with prosecutors that he never told the jury about.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 1 points 39 minutes ago

Don't worry everybody. It's South Carolina, so there's no chance they won't execute him. Gdi.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

That the United States holds ourselves a bastion of democracy and human rights is absolutely absurd. The death penalty shouldn't exist; This is quite possibly murder.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

I don't have a problem with the death penalty as a concept.

I have a problem with the fact that it disproportionately is given to people of color where evidence is dubious and circumstantial.

Treason and sedition should still be capital crimes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

not to diminish your point - but separately - also disproportionately innocent people

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I do, when you start putting the right to kill for crimes, in the hands of the state, you've lost the plot in democracy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

well we also made a ton of dubious self defense loopholes, so the state doesn't have a monopoly

[–] [email protected] 85 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

And the state Supreme Court refused to stop Owens’ execution

When the blind justice has a hard-on for killing people...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

First execution in nearly 10 years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago

In South Carolina? First on-the-books in nearly 10 years.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 hours ago (30 children)

still bloodthirsty that they refuse that execution even though new information have come to light.

load more comments (30 replies)
[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

FFS if you insist on keeping this barbaric custom, at least limit it to cases that are 100% sure.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

That's kinda what it comes down to for me though. Can you EVER be 100% sure? Even if you're 99.5% sure, odds are sooner or later you'll execute someone who was innocent. And in my opinion that one single lost innocent life means the practice is unjustifiable.

I wonder how many people who disagree with me are pro life.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Yes. You absolutely can be. Ten-fifteens-twenty different angles of video evidence. 30+ eye witnesses. There’s a ones a point of insurmountable evidence to the point. It can be done.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Sure, you've invented a fictional scenario that has never happened but appears quite certain. But even then there are external factors you can't account for such as duress.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 minutes ago* (last edited 3 minutes ago)

fictional scenario that has never happened

Remember that guy a few years back that killed a someone on a bus and ate their face? Seen by literally dozens of passengers who watched in horror as well as the bus cam. He was arrested while still on the bus.

It can happen and does. This is but one of many examples. There are times when it can be absolutely, 100%, without any shadow of a doubt, proved that some committed a heinous crime. To think oftherwise is sheer ignorance. You come off as a child.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 25 minutes ago

Public mass shootings is a good start for a baseline for me.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I think you can. For example, I am 100% sure that Ethan Crumbley shot his classmates. (That doesn't mean I think he should be executed though).

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

With respect, it kind of misses the point to highlight a case where guilt is basically certain. That's not my concern. My concern is the fringe cases with more ambiguity. I think that if there's even a 1% chance that an innocent person is executed, the risk isn't worth it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

I don’t believe pointing out a case where certainty is ensured missed the point; rather, it argues the point. He’s giving an example where execution would be okay due to their being absolute certainty, not arguing that it should be the same outcome where there isn’t absolute certainty.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

In all of those fringe cases, 12 people thought the person was guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. And beyond any reasonable doubt basically means 100% certainty (ie any doubt is unreasonable).

People who think it's ok to execute someone when guilt is "100% certain" are the people who designed the current system.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 hours ago

Nowadays people just want to see other people burn

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Knowing about how deeply police intimidate, manipulate, and gaslight inmates/people in custody to get these confessions, both confessions should be under deep scrutiny.

"Criminals" intimated into confession is literally just the police refusing to do their actual jobs and using emotional and mental manipulation to "crack the case." They didn't find the killer, they just bullied a plausible suspect into "admitting" they did it.

Fucking sickening.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Confessions in police custody without being verified as voluntarily provided by defense counsel should not be admissible in court as a confession.

The death penalty should be abolished.

Appeals should have the same reasonable doubt standard as a trail. If new information introduces reasonable doubt is juat as important as whether they followed procedures during the trial. The whole idea that 'it should have been introduced at trial' is commonly used to dismiss appeals based on evidence that was excluded or not available at the time, especially for defendents that can't afford high priced lawyers.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›