England UK

In article <mknaq1thekh43djfk7oi49lrb6id9o1p5l@4ax.com>,
Tom Davidson <tom_davidson@davidsonfamily.quickdsl.net.invalid> wrote:

> On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 10:56:32 GMT, Larry <x@y.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Your stat would be right if inmates on death row were randomly killed,
> >in any order, with or without appeals. But if 8 people go through a
> >full appellate process, both state and federal, and one is cleared of
> >the crime while 7 are not, it's just as reasonable to believe that those
> >7 are in fact guilty of the crime. You can't only trust the system when
> >it exonerates someone.
> >
> >As someone pointed out, you're saying that since 1 of 8 on death row are
> >released (by released, do you mean completely exonerated, or sentences
> >commuted to life in prison?), then at least one out of 8 of the
> >remaining 7 are also innocent. Let's play with numbers here to see if
> >what you're saying really is likely:
> >
> >You are saying that for every 64 people on death row, 8 have been
> >cleared (an 8:1 ratio), leaving 56 people. What you're saying is that
> >an _additional_ 7 people (an 8:1 ratio of the 56 left) are innocent of
> >the crimes for which they're on death row.
> >
> >It's interesting how numbers can be manipulated. If your numbers are
> >accurate, then really 15 out of 64 people on death row - nearly 25% are
> >"innocent." And since 7 are left on death row for every 8 that are
> >released, that's only about a 50% success rate in clearing the innocent.
> >Not even the Innocence Project claims the numbers are that bad.
> >
> >Sorry, I just don't buy it. The Cantu case, and maybe a handful of
> >others, are the only ones where the guilt of someone put to death has
> >seriously ben questioned posthumously. That's a couple of cases out of
> >a thousand since the mid-70s. I'm not saying its acceptable, but its
> >far fewer than your 1-in-8 statistic. Far fewer.
>
> Let me be specific about what I'm not saying, and then what I am
> saying.
>
> I am not saying that 1:8 executed people are innocent of the crime for
> which they have been executed.
>
> I am saying that for every 8 people on death row who have been
> executed, 1 person has been exonerated for the crime for which they
> have been condemned to die and released from death row. I imply from
> this that *up to* 1 in 8 people executed are innocent of the crime for
> which they have been executed.

There is absolutely no correlation between these numbers. Just because
1 out of 9 (the way you worded it in this message makes it 1:9, not 1:8)
are exonerated before put to death does not mean another 1:9 are wrongly
put to death - that's not even a rational basis to draw that conclusion
from.