Davidalli has a nice post up about three young men behind bars.
there is a nice book out and apparently a movie as well. they reportedly claim the three have been railroaded and are in jail wrongfully as a result.
so here’s my take.
i’m sceptical. it’s just like the movements to free tookie williams. well, my scepticism is the same. i don’t know enough about either case to offer firm opinions on their guilt or innocence. but i tend to side with 12 impartial jurors. i have to or i am basically an anarchist. i have to put my faith in my fellow citizen, or the entire legal system falls apart. if i study the case, learn about the evidence. i may disagree, or not. but sans my own personal involvement, i side with the jurors.
so the three guys in question are known as the west memphis 3. one of them has a lower than average iq, around 70.
there were apparently some discrepancies in the procedures that various system officals followed, or did not follow. so here is my scepticism. an author ultimately wants to sell books, and gain notoriety. that sells more books.
has there EVER been a book that said, those people we convicted were rightly convicted and should burn? i’m sceptical of the book form the outset. a movie? hello michael moore. movies can be super biased as well.
but alli is pretty sharp, so i may actually have to try and squeeze in some reading on these guys.
oh, the case/crime? 3 8 year old boys murdered. the three teenagers, two 16 and one 18 at crime time, were quickly arrested and jailed. the trial had the shocker revealed that they were cultists.
some discrepancies. including a disclosure of just 2 days on some evidence. i don’t know at what point the prosecution learned about the same evidence. 2 received life in prison. one death sentence.
here’s my question to y’all. that’s youse guys for you gus.
if there were inconsistancies in the trial process, should they be let out? i’m basically doubting the whole notion that a technicality invalidates punishment for guilt.
weren’t quickly arrested after a month of dropped balls (they didn’t question the victims families, friends, or any of the leads, etc) the cops decided that “oh these 3 boys were outcasts, we should go after them”.
they got the youngest (jessie who is mentally slow to say the least) all twisted in circles after several hours of question and leading to “confess”. Its the most prepostorous transcript I’ve ever read. They only taped 1 hr of conversation even though they had him in costody for more than 10 hours.
Read the book when you get a chance, the only thing more disgusting than the crime is the way the accused were treated.
aw hell. forgot to check the ‘subscribe’ box. 🙂
I will defer to Alli and the larger legal system on this one, cuz I don’t feel like reading a whole book about it. The mere fact that there is a book and movie about it seems to be prejudicing you, Mlah. A decent journalist isn’t going to waste months/years writing such a book if they don’t really believe a miscarriage of justice has taken place. Clearly there were screw-ups. Why’d you file this under ‘politics’? It doesn’t sound partisan at all.