trickybeck wrote:
Ok I'll talk to you like a child.
Think about why that 14 number isn't an accurate number to use to rationalize the accuracy rate of death penatly convictions. Think what the number is telling you.
It's telling you that 14 have been overturned due to DNA.
It's not telling you that 14 is the total number that were wrong that DNA could overturn, or could have overturned if the proper evidence were taken and preserved.
14 is the number that DNA has managed to overturn.
The comment Smash made, and to which I responded with the number 14, was specific to cases in which a conviction was overturned by the use of DNA evidence.
Perhaps you should re-read Smash's statement again. Then re-read what I wrote in response to his statement?
There have been exactly 14 death row sentences overturned by the use of DNA evidence. That's all I was pointing out. This simply does not happen very often. Period.
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Using it to calculate a success rate is specious.
Depends on what success rate you are calculating though, right? If we're calculating the success rate at accurately convicting the right people and *not* convicting the wrong people, the innocence project has absolely zero bearing on that. It can't go back in time and unconvict people.
If you're talking about the success rate in terms of the rate of death row inmates who've been freed because of DNA evidence after the fact, then the 14 number is perfectly relevant. It tells us how many times DNA has been successfully used to overturn a death row sentence.
Now if you're talking about the resulting success rate after applying those numbers, we can't know that. But we can *never* know that. As I pointed out earlier, we can never be 100% certain about anything. So we can never know if we're being 100% accurate in our convictions. All we can do is be as accurate as possible. DNA certainly helps with that. What I don't understand is that those arguing against the death penalty largly argue based on that accuracy level, but then seem to want to use the fact that DNA allows us to more accuracly determine if someone is guilty (or innocent) as ammunition against the death penalty.
DNA evidence and its use allow us more tools with which to be certain that someone on death row deserved his sentence, not less.
We can debate how much more certain, but that's pretty much going to be guesswork and opinion. I could argue that the 14 guys proven innocent as a result of DNA evidence means that our process even without DNA was pretty darn accurate (14 being a very small percentage of the total number of death row inmates over the last 30 years or so). You'll certainly argue that since 14 is such a small number, that there must be many more who are also innocent but for whom DNA evidence could not clear them.
Maybe I'm right. Maybe you're right. I tend to think that your opinion rests on some pretty questionable assumptions though. It's also somewhat irrelevant. If someone has managed to go through the incredibly long process of appeals, re-examination of evidence, potential for pardon, and now DNA evidence, and there is still no compelling reason to overturn his conviction, the most reasonable assumption is that the conviction was correct and the person actually did commit the crime for which he was convicted.
We could assume otherwise, but then we're basically calling into question *any* conviction in any case. As I commented earlier, you're essentially chucking out the entire judicial system at that point, and providing no basic for "success" by the nature of your arguement. If you can't provide a criteria for which you would consider our criminal justice system "successful", then your argument that the current system isn't successful enough is somewhat irrelevant.
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Like I said, I'm not even going to delve into the separate argument of your rationalization of the failure rate.
Again. How about you define exactly what you are measuring, and what measure you would *not* consider a failure? It's really easy to make broad statements about an issue when you only address half of it. I could look at a glass of water all day and declare that it's not full enough regardless of the water level. That's essentially what you are doing here. You need to put a mark on the glass and say "this is how much water should be in there". Otherwise your argument is irrelevant.
