The Supreme Court Just Said That Evidence of Innocence Is Not Enough

[Zeedox]

The Supreme Court Just Said That Evidence of Innocence Is Not Enough

The same court that appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade in order to protect innocents before they are born seems to lose interest when it comes to innocents later in life.

www.thedailybeast.com

On Monday morning, by a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court concurred: Barry Jones’ innocence is not enough to keep him off of death row. The state of Arizona can still kill Jones, even if there exists a preponderance of evidence that he committed no crime.

So much for the fifth, sixth and fourteenth...

 

[Gomez Adams]

The problem is that he's actually guilty.

There was never any evidence whatsoever that he was innocent. They blamed the lawyer for not extensively examining the medical evidence.

Fun fact: he didn't have the money to do it. You get the defense you can pay for here.

Truth is though even if you gave him a dream team of forensic scientists he would still have been found guilty.

 

[Zeedox]

In 2018, a federal court overturned Jones’ conviction, concluding that he had failed to receive effective counsel, a violation of his Sixth Amendment rights. Had that happened, a federal judge ruled, “there is a reasonable probability that his jury would not have convicted him of any of the crimes with which he was charged and previously convicted.”

A federal court disagreed with you in 2018.

 

[Gomez Adams]

Again, wrong.

There is NO PROOF AT ALL that he was innocent.

That man beat that little girl mercilessly. He bashed her skull in and kicked her so hard he ruptured internal organs.

That's not the bad part. The bad part was that she was still alive.

And rather than call an ambulance, that bastard sat back down and drank until he passed out while that little girl died.

Now tell me more about how the lawyer not hiring his own coroner at his own expense is going to get him off the hook scot free.

 

[Zeedox]

Again, wrong.

There is NO PROOF AT ALL that he was innocent.

That man beat that little girl mercilessly. He bashed her skull in and kicked her so hard he ruptured internal organs.

That's not the bad part. The bad part was that she was still alive.

And rather than call an ambulance, that bastard sat back down and drank until he passed out while that little girl died.

Now tell me more about how the lawyer not hiring his own coroner at his own expense is going to get him off the hook scot free.

I don't have to...the courts did in the appeal. Not agreeing that he should get off for a procedural error now also kills the chance of a truly innocent person later. Procedure is correct or it isn't correct. It shouldn't matter if it's Willy Wonka or Charles Manson if procedure is to count for anything.

 

[Gomez Adams]

I don't have to...the courts did in the appeal.

No, they did not.

You're reading into it things that simply are not there.

What they are arguing about is a procedural fantasy outcome in saying that IF an independent expert had testified about SOMETHING (what, they do not say) in a different manner than the prosecutions expert that MAYBE the jury could have been swayed to come up with a different decision.

Not one single time do the words EVIDENCE OF INNOCENCE appear. Because there is none. At all. There never was. Hence there is no reason to cancel his execution.

It's sort of like saying that IF you were 2 feet taller and IF you had grown up playing basketball then MAYBE you could have been a hall-of-famer power forward for the Los Angeles Lakers.

That is just as equally possible as Jones being found innocent. What really would have happened is that the independent doctor would have found the same thing that the county coroner did. It would have sealed Jones' fate, not found anything that would get him off the hook.

This sort of shit always comes up in death penalty cases all the time and it's all bogus. Just like the crowd that to this day says the Willingham was innocent.

He wasn't. He was guilty as hell...which is where he is presently burning.

But people who hate the death penalty come along years after the fact, (note that absolutely nobody gives a damn at the time) find some sort of conspiracy theory to run with or a procedural loophole to exploit and low and behold, he's innocent.

They.

Are.

Not.

 

[Zeedox]

No I was reading where they said "Had that happened, a federal judge ruled, “there is a reasonable probability that his jury would not have convicted him of any of the crimes with which he was charged and previously convicted.”

I highly doubt a judge would issue that statement without reason.

 

[Gomez Adams]

No I was reading where they said "Had that happened, a federal judge ruled, “there is a reasonable probability that his jury would not have convicted him of any of the crimes with which he was charged and previously convicted.”

I highly doubt a judge would issue that statement without reason.

Exactly. IF. POSSIBILITY. MAYBE. COULD HAVE.

What they're arguing is a procedural error. They are NOT talking about any actual evidence at all.

In fact, the evidence has been gone over about 17 times over the years. Nobody has ever found anything at all that would even remotely suggest his innocence.

Another sports analogy: Let's say a quarterback throws a pass to the receiver on the left side for a touchdown. Several days later, somebody going over the footage of the game sees that on that play over on the right side the offensive receiver got tangled up with the right side defensive back.

So then he goes off the rails about how holding should have been called on that receiver.

Was that a procedural error on the officials part?

Yes.

Would it have changed the outcome of the game?

No. It was on the opposite side of the field. Neither player had any chance of being involved in the outcome.

That is what this ruling is all about.

At no time was any actual evidence examined in this ruling. That had already been done to death. This is all about one simple procedural error: The defense attorney didn't hire his own medical expert.

That is it. That is all this is.

And again, it wouldn't change the outcome. They have to say it "COULD HAVE" or "MAY HAVE" or "POSSIBLY" because the court does not deal in absolutes of the unknown.

Could have.

Should have.

Maybe.

Possibly.

This crime and trial went down 28 years ago. For 28 years it was upheld because there was never any evidence whatsoever that Jones was innocent. That says it all right there.

And again, it's just like every other death penalty case: nobody finds a thing until days before an execution and then all of a sudden 1,000 conspiracy theories come out of the woodwork by lawyers wanting to make a name for themselves.

The Willingham case went down the same exact way. They all do.

 

[Zeedox]

The judge said a "reasonable" - so sorry I dont agree.

 

[Gomez Adams]

The judge said a "reasonable" - so sorry I dont agree.

Here's the statement from the lawyer that he based that on:

They could have pointed out that the lead detective, who examined Rachel at the hospital, didn’t bother to investigate how or when the child sustained her fatal injury — or consider a single other suspect aside from Jones. They could have called a medical expert to show that there was no real evidence that the child had been raped. Most crucially, Jones’s lawyers could have called a pathologist to challenge the state’s theory of the crime, which rested on a narrow timeframe during which Jones had supposedly assaulted Rachel the day before her death.​

I'll take them in order:

They could have pointed out that the lead detective, who examined Rachel at the hospital, didn’t bother to investigate how or when the child sustained her fatal injury​

Irrelevant. Whether he kicked that girl to death the day before, that night, or early that morning is irrelevant. He DID kick her to death. His boot marks were all over her. If you shoot a guy at 5 in the morning rather than 12 midnight it doesn't change the fact you shot and killed him. Neither would this.

or consider a single other suspect aside from Jones.​

​

Because there was no evidence of anybody else being involved. Ever. At all. They looked. There wasn't any.

They could have called a medical expert to show that there was no real evidence that the child had been raped​

​

The problem is that there was considerable evidence that she was. So how this mystery expert is suddenly going to change 20 years of forensic fact is beyond me.

Jones’s lawyers could have called a pathologist to challenge the state’s theory of the crime, which rested on a narrow timeframe during which Jones had supposedly assaulted Rachel the day before her death.​

​

12 to 14 hours is NOT a "narrow timeframe". It's an eternity. We're not talking about the O.J. trial where he supposedly drove 7 miles through residential neighborhoods with 35 mph speed limits, brutally murdered 2 people in a literal blood bath and then drove back, got cleaned up, got rid of all the evidence and didn't leave a single trace at the crime scene all in less than 45 minutes.

It's the most ridiculous "here's what might have happened" bullshit you can come up with. But you get a liberal judge that says, 'Well, I guess it's possible' and now everybody says "HE'S INNOCENT!!!"

It's bullshit.