[Vision2020] DNA exoneration reaches 200; questions remain for justice system

Donovan Arnold donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com
Thu Apr 26 13:46:50 PDT 2007 

Bruce and Roger,
   
  The Death Penalty I think is a grave societal ill, but we cannot eliminate it from US society at this point. It would be a worthy long term goal. However, our system of implementing the death penalty does, however, need a massive overhauling. The current system:
   
  1) Often kills the wrong guy
  2) Is not uniform
  3) Does not provide adequate defense lawyers for impoverished defendants
  4) Takes too long to implement
   
  Best,
   
  Donovan
   
   
   
   
  See, there are too many

Bruce and Jean Livingston <jeanlivingston at turbonet.com> wrote:
  Roger, that is a civilized approach, and I welcome your willingness to think 
about a difficult topic. Of course, I will keep working on you and others 
to see if I can persuade you to my side of the fence!

Your idea would be an improvement though -- that is, if we continued to 
instruct a jury to convict based on not having a "reasonable doubt" about 
guilt, but then raised the burden of proof at the penalty phase and 
instructed the jury not to give death unless it had "not a shadow of a 
doubt."

Bruce

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "lfalen" 
To: "Bruce and Jean Livingston" ; 

Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 12:35 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] DNA exoneration reaches 200;questions remain for 
justice system


> Bruce
> I am not vary comfortable with the idea of collateral damage. I do not 
> have a problem with the death penalty for Duncan and Shackleford. The two 
> guys that killed my nephew at the Hot Spring next to Crouch should have 
> had the death penalty, they did not. They will probably get out in 10 
> years or so. O. J. is a little different. While I think he is guilty as 
> hell, there is a smidgen of doubt. For that reason I would have had 
> difficultly in convicting him, let along applying the death penalty. I 
> think that the rule of "guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt" should apply. 
> Since it doen't seem to work that way I am on the fence on the death 
> penalty.
> Roger
> -----Original message-----
> From: "Bruce and Jean Livingston" jeanlivingston at turbonet.com
> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 14:07:21 -0700
> To: "lfalen" lfalen at turbonet.com, vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] DNA exoneration reaches 200;questions remain for 
> justice system
>
>> Roger, there is no question that your arguments have some appeal, in the 
>> sense that if we are to have the death penalty, there are some crimes 
>> that are so heinous that they practically "cry out for it."
>>
>> My problem with your "tinkering with the procedures" approach, in an 
>> effort to "fine tune" the system so that our administration of justice is 
>> fairer, is that efforts to eliminate systemic error that allows for the 
>> conviction of the innocent will only reduce the error rate, but not 
>> eliminate it. It seems to me that the costs of administering the death 
>> penalty exceed the "benefit" of it, and that you also must accept as a 
>> "cost of doing business" the inevitable execution of a few innocents.
>>
>> I changed my views about the death penalty, which I once favored, after I 
>> was appointed to represent Roy Roberts, a man that I came to believe was 
>> innocent. Sadly, I was unable to spare his life or win his release. 
>> Here is his clemency petition:
>> http://ccadp.org/clemencyroy.htm
>> Here is an article about Roy on the Northwestern University School of 
>> Law's Center on Wrongful Convictions:
>> http://www.law.northwestern.edu/depts/clinic/wrongful/Executions/Roberts_Missouri.htm
>>
>> Having gone through the wringer of failing to save an innocent man's 
>> life, I no longer accept an approach to the death penalty that amounts to 
>> "collateral damage in the form of the execution of a few innocents is 
>> acceptable." In my opinion, having the death penalty is not worth that.
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "lfalen" 
>> To: "Ted Moffett" ; "Bruce and Jean Livingston" 
>> 
>> Cc: 
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 12:30 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] DNA exoneration reaches 200;questions remain 
>> for justice system
>>
>>
>> >I am not sure that the death penalty should be totally abolished. Some 
>> >people like Duncan surely deserve it. Maybe it should be restricted to 
>> >just a few things. In any case due to number of people that are 
>> >convicted who are innocent, there needs to be better safe guards put in 
>> >place. In regard to the Attorney General's office, It does look like 
>> >they blew it on the Idaho Falls Cace. Although it does'nt rise to the 
>> >same level of seriousness, they have also been hit and miss on enforcing 
>> >the Open Meeting Law. In some cases they have done what they should. in 
>> >others they have not. I will get into this more at a later date.
>> > Roger
>> > -----Original message-----
>> > From: "Ted Moffett" starbliss at gmail.com
>> > Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 02:11:16 -0700
>> > To: "Bruce and Jean Livingston" jeanlivingston at turbonet.com
>> > Subject: [Vision2020] DNA exoneration reaches 200;questions remain for 
>> > justice system
>> >
>> >> Bruce et. al.
>> >>
>> >> http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--dnaexonerations-20423apr23,0,1071686.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork
>> >>
>> >> I guess this is some kind of milestone...But not all these cases are 
>> >> death
>> >> penalty cases. But the question is obvious: if this many are 
>> >> exonerated by
>> >> DNA, how many on death row or imprisoned for other crimes are innocent 
>> >> who
>> >> do not have DNA available to prove or disprove their innocence?
>> >>
>> >> Likely a much larger number!
>> >>
>> >> The price we must pay for a justice system, or a justice system in 
>> >> need of
>> >> radical improvement?
>> >>
>> >> I won't even start...
>> >>
>> >> Ted Moffett
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 4/23/07, Bruce and Jean Livingston 
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > We confronted two high profile cases in the last couple of weeks, 
>> >> > first,
>> >> > a declaration of innocence in the Duke Lacrosse case in NC, and 
>> >> > second, the
>> >> > apparent innocence of Rauland Grube in a murder case from 
>> >> > southeastern
>> >> > Idaho, on which I posted several days ago.
>> >> >
>> >> > Now appears this series of editorials from of all places, Texas. 
>> >> > The
>> >> > Dallas Morning News editorial staff reversed its 100 year stance in 
>> >> > favor of
>> >> > the death penalty. In so doing, it made many of the best arguments 
>> >> > for
>> >> > reconsidering our willingness to retain the death penalty. The 
>> >> > editorial
>> >> > pieces are thoughtful and worthy of all citizens' review, especially 
>> >> > in
>> >> > states like Idaho that continue to have the death penalty.
>> >> >
>> >> > I thought you might be interested in these recent Dallas Morning 
>> >> > News
>> >> > editorials. The Morning News is historically one of the most 
>> >> > conservative
>> >> > major-city newspapers in the country, although it moderated somewhat 
>> >> > when
>> >> > the "liberal" competition folded.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/DN-toy_01edi.ART.State.Edition1.43b925d.html
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/DN-deathmonday2_16edi.ART.State.Edition1.42d305b.html
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/DN-deathmonday1_16edi.ART.State.Edition1.42d1ffd.html
>> >> >
>> >> > The explanation about the Dallas Morning News' editorial slant is 
>> >> > from my
>> >> > sister-in-law, who resides there, reads the paper regularly, and 
>> >> > forwarded
>> >> > me the above links.
>> >> >
>> >> > Bruce Livingston
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > =======================================================
>> >> > List services made available by First Step Internet,
>> >> > serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>> >> > http://www.fsr.net
>> >> > mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>> >> > =======================================================
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>>
> 


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