A judge has overturned the conviction of a Missouri woman who was a psychiatric patient when she incriminated herself in a 1980 killing that her attorneys argue was actually committed by a now-discredited police officer.
Judge Ryan Horsman ruled late Friday that Sandra Hemme, who has spent 43 years behind bars, had established evidence of actual innocence and must be freed within 30 days unless prosecutors retry her. He said her trial counsel was ineffective and prosecutors failed to disclose evidence that would have helped her.
Her attorneys say this is the longest time a women has been been incarcerated for a wrongful conviction. They filed a motion seeking her immediate release.
This is one of the reasons why the death penalty is fucking bullshit.
Well sometimes it makes sense. It should really be for those psychos that clearly show signs of disregard for human life and would kill again if released.
It’s already for that. It happens only rarely and I doubt any were available for parole. That being said, it’s so rare we could just do without. 2022 had 18 people executed, we are already a hairsbreath away from not doing it so why bother.
My guess is out of all the people that have the power to orchestrate someone’s legal death, a select few actively get off on it and push for it.
40% of death penalty convictions are later exonerated.
If it was 1% you might have a case, but pretty much “clearly showing signs” is akin to flipping a coin right now.
It makes sense if society has collapsed and keeping prisoners alive isn’t possible without seriously straining infrastructure, so something like a civil war, but otherwise it’s pointless. They won’t be released, so they won’t kill again, so what’s the point?
And how do you determine that? If society was more skeptical and less prone to having a
justicepunishment boner, we could possible keep the death penalty for extreme situations, but we’re really just savages not far removed from the Roman Colosseum spectators demanding to see death.