re: Supreme Court overrules circuit court.

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In this case, she deserves death.

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There is zero question in that.

Saying that we should "run them through like cattle" in regards to people the state has sentenced to death is one hell of a jump of faith from this case, though.

Gotcha

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People sentenced to death should get one shot at appeal. You better throw everything including the kitchen sink. None of this "oh, wait...just thought of something else" bullshite that allows them countless delays. And max 3 years.

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If 3 years was the max along with your other demands these two innocent men would be dead.


LINK

A Utah man who has spent decades on death row after he was convicted of killing a police chief's aunt has been released after prosecutors said newly analyzed DNA evidence excluded him as the source of DNA recovered from key pieces of evidence in the case.

No physical evidence linked Carter to the crime scene, but the jury convicted him based on the confession and the testimony of two witnesses who claimed he bragged about killing Olesen, although those witnesses later recanted.

A DNA analysis received on Sept. 22 excluded Carter as a possible match to blood found on a doorknob and genetic material recovered from the handle of a knife used to stab Olesen.

"If the state of Utah had their way, he would have been executed 15, 20 years ago before we discovered the misconduct," Hamilton said.

Utah County prosecutor Erwin Petilos told the judge on Monday that reassessing Carter's bail was "necessary and fair" as the state continues to examine the remaining evidence in the case.

Carter said later that his confession was coerced, saying he falsely admitted to the crime after police repeatedly threatened him. He was convicted and sentenced to death after a trial in which the defense called no witnesses to testify.

In 2011, the two witnesses from Carter's original trial were tracked down in Mexico, admitting they had been told to lie in court and had received cash and gifts from police in exchange for their testimonies. They said police told them not to disclose the payments and that police and prosecutors threatened them and their son with deportation if they did not implicate Carter in the killing.
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LINK

On Maryland's Eastern Shore yesterday, Kirk Bloodsworth sat down with the prosecutor who helped send him to death row for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl. Nearly two decades later, Ann Brobst told him, DNA had identified the man who had really done it. "We got a hit on a guy," he remembers hearing, in the immeasurable fraction of a moment before he began weeping, realizing the words' import, realizing that the state at last considered him a completely innocent man. Beside him, his wife, Brenda, broke down and wept, too.

"You know how long I've waited to hear you say that?" Bloodsworth asked Brobst, who twice persuaded a jury to convict him of Dawn Hamilton's brutal death -- and who yesterday apologized for how that shattered his life.

But there was more. The suspect, Brobst went on, is already in prison in Maryland, halfway through a 45-year sentence for burglary, attempted rape and assault with intent to murder. His name: Kimberly Shay Ruffner. "My God," Bloodsworth said, "I know him."

In a plot twist few involved could have imagined, the Baltimore County state's attorney's office now believes the killer in the 1984 slaying has been hiding behind bars since a month after the crime. Prosecutors announced yesterday that Ruffner, 45, was tagged by a stain of semen analyzed for the first time this spring and then entered into state and federal DNA databases.

This is beyond bizarre. I bet she isn't suffering nearly as much as did Colleen Slemmer.

Presser saying she was still alive and snoring when they left and outside emergency vehicles.

A bullet in the head would end her very quickly