In Alabama, judges are killing black men like it's nothing
Options
A Talented One
Members Posts: 4,202 ✭✭✭
I recently finished a long story that appeared in the New Yorker last month. It's about how in Alabama judges can override a jury's decision to spare a murderer from the death penalty. The story is told around a man convicted of murder who the jury voted unanimously (12-0) to send to prison for life, but who the judge sentenced to death, even though he acknowledges that there is some uncertainty about who actually pulled the trigger that killed the man who died. If this man is executed, it will be the first time someone was executed who the jury voted unanimously to spare his life.
Of course, the man is black. And so are most of the people sentenced to death in Alabama through judicial overrides.
There a few other states where judges can override a jury's decision on whether the death penalty should be imposed. In these other states, however, judicial overrides are almost always used to spare the life of someone sentenced to death by the jury. So Alabama has by a very wide margin the most number of people on death row who were put there through judicial overrides.
The story is almost unbelievable. There is just so much wrong with what is happening there. Racism is certainly a factor, but also important is simple politics (judges are elected there). Even personal relationships between judges seem to be a factor in why judicial overrides have been upheld on appeal.
Here is the link: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/17/double-jeopardy-3
Of course, the man is black. And so are most of the people sentenced to death in Alabama through judicial overrides.
There a few other states where judges can override a jury's decision on whether the death penalty should be imposed. In these other states, however, judicial overrides are almost always used to spare the life of someone sentenced to death by the jury. So Alabama has by a very wide margin the most number of people on death row who were put there through judicial overrides.
The story is almost unbelievable. There is just so much wrong with what is happening there. Racism is certainly a factor, but also important is simple politics (judges are elected there). Even personal relationships between judges seem to be a factor in why judicial overrides have been upheld on appeal.
Here is the link: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/17/double-jeopardy-3
Comments
-
Did yall peep that CIA torture report though?
-
Bully_Pulpit wrote: »Did yall peep that CIA torture report though?
? them Terrorist in Iraq/Afghanistan they killing and torturing ? in America. -
stackmaster 313 wrote: »Bully_Pulpit wrote: »Did yall peep that CIA torture report though?
? them Terrorist in Iraq/Afghanistan they killing and torturing ? in America.
Exactly, have y'all seen the John Burge report? -
stackmaster 313 wrote: »Bully_Pulpit wrote: »Did yall peep that CIA torture report though?
? them Terrorist in Iraq/Afghanistan they killing and torturing ? in America.
They killing and torturing ? in America huh? Put yourself in their shoes, you go into their lands and ? and ? their women and yet they're supposed to sit idle? See how blacks are suffering in America? It's no different to how they feel....why dafuq are we in their country? -
Whites are killing up everybody. /thread
-
stackmaster 313 wrote: »Bully_Pulpit wrote: »Did yall peep that CIA torture report though?
? them Terrorist in Iraq/Afghanistan they killing and torturing ? in America.
They killing and torturing ? in America huh? Put yourself in their shoes, you go into their lands and ? and ? their women and yet they're supposed to sit idle? See how blacks are suffering in America? It's no different to how they feel....why dafuq are we in their country?
? WE, r in nobodies country, blacks aint Vote unanimously to go there.
2nd, them muthafuckas could speak up for themselves. everybody else aint weak like ? , expecting ppl to speak up for them.
Blacks out here getting tortured n killed in their Own country, but u worried about them, is them ? worried about u? -
Whites are killing up everybody. /thread
Whats new though?
Whites r like the 6'2 200 lb 6th grade bully, That everybody hates, but are too afraid to do anything about it, including the teachers, so they instead join Forces with the bully, and get treated like herbs . -
CoonKillaThird wrote: »stackmaster 313 wrote: »Bully_Pulpit wrote: »Did yall peep that CIA torture report though?
? them Terrorist in Iraq/Afghanistan they killing and torturing ? in America.
Exactly, have y'all seen the John Burge report?
I did read some stuff about that. To say that ? is crazy is a gross understatment. -
who are the teachers in your allegory? -
CoonKillaThird wrote: »stackmaster 313 wrote: »Bully_Pulpit wrote: »Did yall peep that CIA torture report though?
? them Terrorist in Iraq/Afghanistan they killing and torturing ? in America.
Exactly, have y'all seen the John Burge report?
? , just read up on this and this ? only got four and a half years in prison. It ? caught with ? that serve more time. WTF? -
who are the teachers in your allegory?
R the ppl who act like they care and are able to stop white supremacy, But Don't.
-
Judges shouldn't have that power imo
Juries are more representative of the people than judges -
who are the teachers in your allegory?
R the ppl who act like they care and are able to stop white supremacy, But Don't.
So far ain't nobody stopped white supremacy. Ain't no quick fix to this ? the most I can do is try to wake folks up.
I gotta feeling we on the verge of something big and 2015 will be a wild year. -
stackmaster 313 wrote: »Bully_Pulpit wrote: »Did yall peep that CIA torture report though?
? them Terrorist in Iraq/Afghanistan they killing and torturing ? in America.
They killing and torturing ? in America huh? Put yourself in their shoes, you go into their lands and ? and ? their women and yet they're supposed to sit idle? See how blacks are suffering in America? It's no different to how they feel....why dafuq are we in their country?
? WE, r in nobodies country, blacks aint Vote unanimously to go there.
2nd, them muthafuckas could speak up for themselves. everybody else aint weak like ? , expecting ppl to speak up for them.
Blacks out here getting tortured n killed in their Own country, but u worried about them, is them ? worried about u?
please, pretty please just spell out the word ARE.
-
Well if Black folks don't get the hell up out of Alabama.
-
These judges even sentencing a few whites to death so they can continue putting blacks to death.
From the article:More than twenty override decisions have involved white defendants, but in some of these cases, too, the judge’s reasoning has had a racial subtext. In 2000, a judge ordering the death of a white defendant noted that if he hadn’t overridden the jury he’d have “sentenced three black people to death and no white people.” The comment has been interpreted as an attempt to cover up racial disparities in the death penalty. Race is “a real consideration here,” Douglas Johnstone, a retired Alabama Supreme Court justice, told me. Some judges, he said, “want to make sure they put enough white people to death to hang on to the prerogative” of override. -
Judges shouldn't have that power imo
Juries are more representative of the people than judges
They should have the power to commute a death sentence, not impose a death sentence when the jury voted for life.
