West Memphis Three

[Scoutfish 16]

Wow...according to the newspapers and any online articles and links I see posted...they are pretty famous and notorious threesome.

 

Yet I never heard of them before today. Maybe you had to be more involved in scouting to know about them.

 

Maybe this was the time I was head over heels chasing the sexy young woman who is now my wife and mother of my WEbelos II son.

 

Maybe it was because IO have never been that big on watching tv that much except for things like Discovery Chanel or The History Channel- War Division.

 

Whatever the case may be, it seems that everybody is talking about it.

 

So what does it mean to you? What impact does/ did it have on you?

 

[nldscout 18]

What I think is no matter what they say claiming they are innocent, they pled to murder, they are convicted murder's, plain and simple. If they had wanted to claim innocence, then why plea.

 

They are trash and scum.

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

nldscout, can I get your real name, so if I'm ever in court, I can strike you with cause from any jury judging me?

 

You might be interested that one of the people working for years to free them is the father of one of the victims; having the local government ignore DNA evidence and instead act on "satanic ritual" stupidity is no way to find actual criminals.

 

From one of the writs filed:

Of great significance, a hair containing mitochondrial DNA consistent with that of Terry Hobbs, a stepfather of one of the victims (Branch), was found on the ligature used to bind another of the victims (Moore). Another hair found on a tree root at the scene where the bodies were discovered contains mitochondrial DNA consistent with that of David Jacoby; Hobbs was with Jacoby in the hours before and after the victims disappeared. Years before the DNA link between Hobbs and the crime scene was discovered, Pam Hobbs, the mother of Branch, came forth with evidence that she believed linked Terry, her former husband, to the murders. And John Douglas, former chief of the Investigative Support Unit of the FBI for twenty five years, has done an offender analysis of the murders which could readily apply to Hobbs but not to any of the three convicted as teenagers in this case.

 

And they didn't plead guilty, they pled "no contest."

[nldscout 18]

Sorry Merlyn, but thats not true. They entered an "Alford" Plea, That is a guilty plea in any court. If they was truly innocent why didn't they stick to thier guns and take the new trial?

 

because they are GUILTY!!

[Horizon 97]

nldscout: You should look up the Alford plea - it does NOT admit guilt. It admits that there is a lot of evidence, but that you are still proclaiming your innocence.

 

From wikipedia (good enough source for this one.

 

An Alford plea (also called a Kennedy plea [1], an Alford guilty plea[2][3][4] and the Alford doctrine[5][6][7]) in United States law is a guilty plea in criminal court,[8][9][10] where the defendant does not admit the act and asserts innocence.[11][12][13] Under the Alford plea, the defendant admits that sufficient evidence exists with which the prosecution could likely convince a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.[5][14][15][16][17]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea

 

Add in police misconduct, missing records, coercion and the new DNA evidence - PLUS the fact that one of the defendants has an IQ in the 70s, and you can find some possible issues. This might not be another re-enactment of The Crucible, but it still smells a bit.

[nldscout 18]

No matter which way you spin it, an ALFORD plea is a plea of GUILTY. I have taken Alford pleas in court before. Its a guilty plea, plain and simple. The only difference between it and a standard plea is you are not required to say I am guilty, but your still pleading guilty.

 

They are guilty, plain and simple and no matter what they proclaim now, they took the guilty plea.

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

Why does that make a difference, if they also say they didn't do it, and if they actually didn't do it? Are you saying our judicial system is perfect?

[Scoutfish 16]

nldscout

 

Not knowing anything about this case personally, I can say that the plea they gave does not mean they feel or admit to guilt.

 

In a much less severe situation, but of the same circumstance: In the past, I have been pulled over and ticketed for an infraction that I know I did not commit.

 

But going to court and fighting it would be costly and there is no garantee that I would win my case.. Just aying it would be costly, as well as having my insurance go up substantualy for 3 years.

So I hire a lawyer who for a fee of $100.00 ( I did say it was a long tima ago! ) went and had my charges reduced to a lesser offense.

 

By doing that, I admited that I was guilty of ..well, what ever it was, it was inconsequential ...and paid a $75.00 fine on top of the lawyers $100.00 fee as well as lose out on making $180.00 that day by my missing work.

 

So here I am out $355.00. I also pleaded guilty of something I did not do and will maintain to this day that I did NOTHING wrong.

 

But had I fought that cahrge and lost, I would have lost ALOT more money and would have lost if for years at a time and had a mark on my driver's license.

 

In pricipal. I gave in, in reality, I did the smart thing buy admitting to a miniscule charge that only carried a small fine and ws then done and over with - no record, no insurance hike, - NOTHING!

 

 

THese guys may or may not be guilty, I have no idea...but as far as their plea goes..it got them out of jail.

 

THeir goal was to get out of jail. They were ready to be free and the Alford plea got them, their freedom.

 

You can try to win the battle but lose the war, or you can take a defeat in the war and win the overall battle.

 

Again, these guys just might be guilty as can be.

 

But making deals and pleaing guilty to lesser charges as well as Alford pleas happen all the time.

 

It's taking a known outcome instead of gambling on an unknown outcome.

[packsaddle 753]

Scoutfish, is there supposed to be a difference between the two ends of this sentence? "You can try to win the battle but lose the war, or you can take a defeat in the war and win the overall battle."

Just asking....

[Beavah 205]

Yah, I'm with Scoutfish, I had never heard of the "three".

 

I'm not as sanguine as nldscout about cases like this, because I believe there is a difference between law and justice. Yah, yah, for all practical purposes an Alford plea is a guilty plea under the law, and therefore these folks were "guilty" under the law. Some folks stop there.

 

For me, I think da law should serve justice, and that regardless of da legal definition of "guilty" there may still be a practical case of innocence. If anything, the advent of DNA testing and the work of various groups like the Innocence Project has shown us that our courts are nowhere near as good as we think at determining justice. It's really quite depressing, and should cause any citizen and especially those of us involved with da law to pause and reflect deeply. Even lots of cases with full-out confessions turn out to be innocent folks duped or intimidated by law enforcement or aggressive prosecutors. I think I saw a study recently that claimed with the right circumstances and approach well nigh 70% of folks will admit to something they didn't actually do. And right now SCOTUS is reviewin' a case on the lack of reliability of eyewitness testimony.

 

Simply put, by focusin' too much on "winning", and by officers of the court bein' just plain mentally lazy, we convict a lot of innocent people. And then far too often when other evidence comes to light otherwise good people stick their fingers in their ears and go "la la la... not listening!". It's hard to admit yeh might have been wrong about somethin' this important. That even led Texas apparently to execute an innocent man.

 

Now that doesn't matter to the law, eh? But I reckon it should matter a lot to anybody who cares about Justice.

 

Beavah

 

[packsaddle 753]

I agree with Beavah on this with respect to the need for real justice, but there's another component to the argument that should be especially troubling, even to those who do want to stop with legality.

If the wrong person is convicted, the criminal is free....to continue....and you gave him a 'pass'.

[Scoutfish 16]

"You can try to win the battle but lose the war, or you can take a defeat in the war and win the overall battle."

 

 

Yeah, I really screwed that one up!

 

Ii was supposed to say : You can win a batlle but lose the war, or lose a battle and win the war.

 

 

[Scoutfish 16]

"If the wrong person is convicted, the criminal is free....to continue....and you gave him a 'pass'. "

 

Yeah, that's one thing that really bothers me. It happens on tv shows and movies more often than it happens in real life ( as far as I know), but it has happened in my area a few times.

 

DA's, ADA;'s and state prosecutors and even the occasional grandstanding mayor or congressional rep will pat themselves on the back about what a great job they did convictiong somebody.

 

But as time goes by, we find out that evidence was withheld, evidence was tampered with or done in such a shoddy way as to instantly discredit it's value and worth to even your average fourth grader.

 

Why? Because somebody was looking for points in the public eye or in the pursuit of getting elsected "again" in a few months.

 

But my problem is this: Not only did you falsly convict the wrong guy....but the responcible person is out free to do their crime again and again...and nobody is even expecting or cautiously aware of it.

 

Justice took a back seet to personal gain. It would be an instant and automatic removal from office if I had my way.