Punished Until Proven Innocent

Sadly one of the leading elements at play in wrongful convictions and even death of the accused is the hearts, minds and motivations of those who have to prove or determine guilt or innocense of the accused.

By Citizen Correspondent Allan Smith

Date Posted: 03/15/07

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Two nights ago, I got a phone call from a woman who was (I suppose) hired to help conduct a survey.

I don't usually participate in surveys but this one was about the death penalty and that is, in my opinion, worth my time so I agreed to answer her questions.

As the questions kept coming at me, I noticed how, as with other multiple-choice survey questions, the perspective of the author of the survey became more and more evident.

I began to wonder if this was a survey or if it was a sermon, disguised as a survey. I began to wonder if the questions were formed and the multiple-choice options worded in such a way as to change my mind on the death penalty for murders. I was asked several times during the survey whether the information given me in the list of possible answers had any impact on my position on the death penalty.

One of the things presented to me during the survey was how that some people ( many of them "minority" males ) have been wrongfully put to death and that in later years, evidence has mysteriously if not magically surfaced which proves that the convicted person did NOT commit the crime. Leading the list of things mentioned in the survey was how that DNA testing is being successfully used to show that the accused was not the perp and yet in too many cases, the accused has either spent way too much time on death row or, worse yet, has been put to death wrongfully.

There is an old and wise principal of law which said that in the mouth of two or three witnesses a thing would be established ( as fact ).

Sadly, that principal, wise as it is, is not the practice of the legal system today.