Note: All opinions are those of Pat Schwind only.
Our topic was The Death Penalty Must be Killed! America is a horrible country in many ways. We lock up more people per capita, than anybody but Joe Stalin & Adolph Hitler. We even make creeps like Castro & the RED Chinese look like ‘pikers’ in this regard.
We put millions in prison for victim less crimes, & put innocents to death, after we deny them a decent chance at a fair trial. Our military wastes billions of bucks to mass murder innocent brown folks around the world, while we begrudge poor kids a carton of milk in our cities. We subsidize almost every industry, but have insufficient funds for enough ‘public defenders’ who really care. Real patriots should be screaming. WE SUCK!!
Our speakers were Inge Casey, President of the AZ Death Penalty Forum, and Ben Vossler & Lindsay Heff, of the Justice Project at ASU. The Death Penalty is an issue of social justice. The AZ Death Penalty Forum has a simple goal: End the Death Penalty in AZ. The Justice Project at ASU, founded in 1998, tries to get innocent people out of prison.
Ben & Lindsay gave a number of specific examples of innocent people freed from Death Row. E.g. James Bain, who spent 35 years in prison for a rape he never committed. Larry Youngblood spent 10 years in prison for a rape he never committed. A couple months ago, I personally saw Curt Bloodsworth, at a Project Justice presentation. He spent 12 years on Death Row for a brutal rape & murder of a 12 year old girl. He had no more to do with that crime than did you or I.
There are some very significant reasons that so many convictions are false:
1) Witness misidentifications; 80% of all DNA exonerations are in cases in which this played a big part in the conviction.
2) False confessions; 25% of DNA exonerations involve cases in which the accused was so "beat down", emotionally & sometimes physically, that they believed the prosecutor's lies, about "things'll be easier for you if you just confess".
3) Informants & "snitches" just lie, often to get years knocked off their sentences, or get to "plead out" to a lesser crime, in their own self interest. This is the case in 15% of DNA exonerations.
4) Invalid Forensic Science. A few years ago, one of my best friends from UVA, now a statistics professor at Duke, came out to a convention at the Mission Palms Hotel in Tempe, to present a paper on the subject of the then current ballistics techniques & interpretations being almost worthless. The audience was composed of ~ 200 of the "top cops" (chiefs of police) & prosecutors, from most of the largest police agencies in America.
After his presentation, he was thanked for his time, but nothing changed. Simply because most cops & prosecutors are simply "control freaks", who really don't care about justice. If they did, they wouldn't lie, or withhold & falsify important evidence routinely. I have tons of evidence to back up this truth. But not in the brief space we have here.
5) Bad Lawyering: Too often those accused of serious crimes are terribly poor & not too smart. So they get public defenders who are paid a pittance to fight for justice when a man's life is at stake. These public defenders are often paid a fraction for many months work, of what the prosecution pays an "expert witness" for just a couple hours work, maybe a day, including travel time. "Expert witnesses" are often just "hired guns", who tell the court what the prosecutor wants to hear, with no regard for justice whatsoever! That's Justice in America! Too often Injustice.
6) Government Misconduct: As I said a couple paragraphs above: "...most cops & prosecutors are simply "control freaks", who really don't care about justice. If they did, they wouldn't lie, or withhold & falsify important evidence routinely." Folks, this happens all the time. I respect a "good cop". Unfortunately, there's not a lot of them today. There's simply too much pressure on good cops, to simply "go along to get along", especially on large urban police forces. If you can't believe this, think back to the days of the civil rights struggle, when the cops were just an instrument of fascism, to "keep black folks in their place", & thwart the Federal mandates for true justice, at every opportunity.
Since 1970, there have been 254 DNA exonerations in the US. 138 from Death Row. Folks, that means that our justice system simply SUCKS!! Innocents spend an average of 9.8 years on Death Row!! If you have to wait at a red light too long you get uptight. How'd you like to endure the injustice of being convicted of a crime you had nothing to do with?! So the next time some right wing screwball starts crowing about how great "Sheriff Joe's doing his job", please have the guts to stand up & say something like: "Sorry, but guys like Sheriff Joe are just fascist pigs, who don't care about justice... You need to get your facts strait!" One of those facts is that Thugs like Joe Arpaio cost municipal gov'ts all over America, a total of Billions of Dollars every year!! Sheriff Joe's cost Maricopa County tens of millions since he took over. It was just in the paper a few days ago (AZ Republic).
Inge Casey did a great job of proving that killing a convict, rather than giving him "life w/o parole", is another expense we can no longer afford. Why's it so expensive? Because the court costs during the appeals process, with the prosecution's "expert witnesses", far exceeds the $25K - $35K per year it costs, just to keep someone behind bars. Not to mention that the guy might be innocent in the first place!
Arizona now has 132 people on Death Row! I can't wait to leave the country. Marie & I'll prob'ly always have a home here, just because the weather's so good. But do I feel a part of this state? Hell NO! After 32 years here, when someone asks me "where you from", I say, "Maryland", because Arizona is such an embarrassment, for so many reasons!
But I digress. Have a nice day!