I doubt that that's the norm,
Not only is it not the norm, it is quite certainly not the truth, either.
You have to remember that law-school students (and defense attorneys like Barry Scheck) don't have a very clear perspective on the subject. Not that prosecutors do, either.
A defense lawyer views a person as not having done the crime if they haven't been proven to be guilty "beyond the shadow of a doubt". This is, of course, a bogus standard -- what they are, in fact, is "not guilty according to a standard that is heavily weighted toward freeing the guilty rather than convicting the innocent".
A legal determination of "not guilty" cannot be taken to mean a person didn't do the crime (else, how could we account for the OJ Simpson trial?). And these college students are enthralled with the notion of making sure that person who did the crime but was not adequately proven to have done so, is freed. So is Barry Scheck.
So, I hear you. But at most, there are likely one, maybe two or three truly "NOT GUILTY" individuals who sit on death rows across the country. Even then, the chances of their being put to death versus dying of natural causes in prison are extremely low.
I would argue that by executing some of these people we might actually be able to extract some deterrent value out of the death penalty. Not that it matters; I just want these creeps off the world the rest of us have to occupy. |
