Watson Murder Case - Discussion
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Aloha
I am not sure why the exclamation points were necessary, Aloha. You havenÃÕ caught me in a lie or something of that nature. My points in that post were more valid than you think, however, I made the same mistake you did in overlooking the jurisdictional issues in Australia. And Under Exposed says nearly the same thing I did as well in a later post.
It doesnÃÕ matter anyway given that youÃ×e conceded that the evidence seems not to be there for a conviction.
This whole song and dance has always been about that anyway.
Cheers!
I am not sure why the exclamation points were necessary, Aloha. You havenÃÕ caught me in a lie or something of that nature. My points in that post were more valid than you think, however, I made the same mistake you did in overlooking the jurisdictional issues in Australia. And Under Exposed says nearly the same thing I did as well in a later post.
It doesnÃÕ matter anyway given that youÃ×e conceded that the evidence seems not to be there for a conviction.
This whole song and dance has always been about that anyway.
Cheers!
livinoz
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I think you said it was a moot point?
I somehow don't think this case has quite finished yet!
Okay, so in order to believe this story, you have to believe one of a few other things. Pick the "reasonable" alternative from the following list, or add one of your own:
1. Tina spontaneously stopped breathing in spite of having fully functional gear, plenty of air, and no other medical issues.
2. Tina's equipment failed and she stopped getting air long enough to kill her and then it began to function properly again, showing no signs of a failure to the investigators.
3. Tina's air was turned off by someone or something else, and then turned back on before she was found.
4. Tina turned off her own air, or it was never fully on, and Gabe turned it back on after it was too late and then dropped her.
5. Someone lied about her air being on when she was found, or about the condition of her gear after testing.
Any other possibilities as to how she could be found asphyxiated on the ocean floor with no water in her lungs and fully functional gear? In order for the concept that Tina was having trouble and Gabe failed to provide aid, something has to explain the trouble, her death, and the state of her person and gear when she was recovered. If that can't be explained reasonably without a detrimental act by some third party, then the failure-to-provide-aid defense wouldn't have been consistent with the facts.
The case for murder certainly would have gotten a bit into technical aspects of diving. Hopefully the prosecutor got some dive training, if he wasn't already certified, in order to understand what he was working with.
livinoz
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As the DPP said they had insufficient evidence to try Watson for murder, can I ask, what is the point of speculating further? As Moynihan stated:
"The decision to accept Mr Watson's plea of guilty to manslaughter was made after a careful and thorough examination of the admissible evidence, and was not taken lightly," Mr Moynihan said.
"Given the complex circumstantial nature of the case, Mr Watson's admission that he breached his duty to render assistance to his wife ultimately meant there was no reasonable prospect of proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was guilty of murder."
Okay, so in order to believe this story, you have to believe one of a few other things. Pick the "reasonable" alternative from the following list, or add one of your own:
1. Tina spontaneously stopped breathing in spite of having fully functional gear, plenty of air, and no other medical issues.
Tina was afraid, hyperventilated and passed out the common result of continued hyperventilation on land but much more complicated if you do it under water!
2. Tina's equipment failed and she stopped getting air long enough to kill her and then it began to function properly again, showing no signs of a failure to the investigators.
Tina's reg could not deliver air at the speed it was being demanded which made her try breathing even harder. Carbon Dioxide toxicity underwater from over breathing is not unheard of......
3. Tina's air was turned off by someone or something else, and then turned back on before she was found.
There is no published evidence presented that this occurred.
4. Tina turned off her own air, or it was never fully on, and Gabe turned it back on after it was too late and then dropped her.
oh sorry were you serious?
5. Someone lied about her air being on when she was found, or about the condition of her gear after testing.
Any other possibilities as to how she could be found asphyxiated on the ocean floor with no water in her lungs and fully functional gear? In order for the concept that Tina was having trouble and Gabe failed to provide aid, something has to explain the trouble, her death, and the state of her person and gear when she was recovered. If that can't be explained reasonably without a detrimental act by some third party, then the failure-to-provide-aid defense wouldn't have been consistent with the facts.
The coroner had problems with this concept and that is why further action was recommended. Remember the prosecutor must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone committed murder. Saying that you don't find someone's explanation reasonable is not enough to convict.
The case for murder certainly would have gotten a bit into technical aspects of diving. Hopefully the prosecutor got some dive training, if he wasn't already certified, in order to understand what he was working with.
Thanks for your learned contributions Under-exposed you have shed a lot of light on the topic.
alohagal
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That would be up to his defense lawyer to give him the best advice possible. But, the defendant makes the ultimate decision to accept. I am not sure how much the judge has sway...but I know they will ask the defendent several times if he is aware of his decision and is making it without coercion or duress.
And the defendant, having been fully terrorized about the possibilities of conviction of the greater charge, will lie and say it is voluntary. The innocence project has exonerated many defendants through DNA, people who pled guilty to charges of which they were totally innocent because they feared the greater evil of conviction of the higher charge--or the certainty of the death penalty.
Read John Grisham's book The Innocent Man. (It is a documentary of a true story, not a novel). You will see how an obviously innocent man was convicted of a crime he did not come remotely close to committing, with no real evidence against him, and sentenced to die. His final appeal saved him hours before his execution, and he was only saved because DNA proved conclusively that he was innocent. (It also showed who was guilty--the man who should have been the prime suspect all along.) You will also see that several other people convicted by the same people using the same process and who are just as obviously innocent will be in jail for the rest of their lives because they do not have the benefit of DNA to prove their innocence.
Here in Colorado we just had a man released from prison after many years after being convicted of a crime he did not commit, again freed by DNA. The obvious prosecutorial misconduct in the original case that led to his conviction is now being evaluated.
A number of years ago the governor of Illinois suspended the death penalty after more than half of the people on death row were proved innocent via DNA.
I was in Broward County, Fla a few years ago when when the local newspaper uncovered a mass of false confessions. Police arrested a man for something like burglary, and then told him he would get a lesser sentence if he confessed to other burglaries. Given that bonanza, the guy confessed to anything they threw at him, even crimes committed while he was in another stte. The newspaper investigated and discovered that this was a popular method of clearing cold cases there--offer leniency to anyone willing to take an old case off the books.
When you are faced with the horror of a certain conviction for a crime you did not commit, you will jump at the chance to pead to a lesser crime you did not commit, and when the judge asks if you are confessing freely, you will lie and say yes. Given the opportunity to get a lesser sentence for confessing to other crimes you did not commit, you will do the same thing.
This is not to anyone in particular. Consider this a Dadvocate rant if you like.
But then it all comes down to the competency level of the defendant’s attorney and the role he or she sees him or herself playing in the process. If you are wealthy in the US, the odds of coercion are less likely to occur than if you are poor. A (well) paid advocate for the defendant, one with a better access to resources, man hours and the rest, is more likely to serve his or her client honestly than one who doesn’t have these resources and in some cases sees his or her role as working for the best plea.
Inherent in a system like this is the inescapable impact of some coercion on some levels. Paying platitudes to the process by asking a defendant if he or she has been coerced really doesn’t limit the impact in the end. More than likely it disguises it. There are plenty of cases in the US where an experienced public defender has worked in cahoots with the prosecutor to get pleas that keep cases off the docket and thus never allowing them to go to trial. In order to make that process work, there has to be the perception that going to trial, innocent or not, comes with a heavy risk to the defendants’ life, especially when the Prosecutor can toss out all kinds of sentences to either sweeten or sour the situation. I find the Aussie limits to this very intriguing indeed, if indeed they are true. I admit that.
With ever increasing prison terms for a host of crimes in the US, I imagine the pressure could almost be unbearable for someone who is innocent but doesn’t want to lose everything in fighting a system that has the deck stacked against him or her. I imagine that this pressure would be exponentially more profound if the media were publishing slighted articles to stoke the flames of the general public as well.
I don’t know if everything Livinoz and the other Aussies are saying is true about how defendants receive proper council and thus a better chance of forcing the DA’s hand in cases like these, but it seems on the surface to be a better system for the poor man than what happens in the US (taking into account that there are differences in different states).
The language by the Alabama DA says a lot to me so far. That no matter the course taken, he will try Gabe again in the US, even if that means stretching the boundaries of jurisprudence “to the limit”.
I still don’t know of Gabe’s guilt or innocence to be honest. It is entirely possible that he has done what people say he has done. I’d hate for him to get off if he is guilty of this crime.
What worries me as a citizen of the US, however, is that the prosecution seems to have a serious upper hand in the process of going to trial because many of my compatriots seem perfectly happy to try cases like this one through media reports, podium pounding, and the rest. Assuming for the moment that Gabe is innocent and that his biggest failure to date is that he panicked underwater and let his wife die, what must he be thinking about a legal system hell’s bent on convicting him despite the evidence that appears to be wholly lacking on many levels?
This guy is a pariah in Alabama (partly because of his own idiocy). Not only will he get convicted, they will want to throw a very heavy book at him. Their credibility is at stake it seems, which doesn’t bode well for Gabe at all. Couple that with an institutional advantage and the situation only gets worse.
Is it really enough to trash another country and a another legal system such as Australia’s and then simply assert that you know better or that you know more than what they do, as if reading a writ from on high on the Mount Sinai of the USA? This reads like a vendetta to me, one that has a real chance of coming to fruition, and I have to say as a US citizen this scares that hell out of me.
Alabama, the epicenter of King Jr’s passive resistance in the face of water cannons and dogs, the place of undue convictions in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, should want to err on the side of caution in this case I would say. The USA, a country locked in the inescapable reality that we have walked a thin line in this war on terrorism and have thus damaged the ideals we are meant to hold ourselves to, not to mention the rest of the world in our foreign policy.
Winning a conviction on bombastic proclamations and emotional rabble rousing might get Gabe in the end, but at a significant cost to the rest of us and to our collective image as a fair-minded and rational people, something I think we actually are in so many ways despite international attempts to paint us as the villains and the police officers of the world. We are far, far more complex than that, and this case undermines our objectivity on so many levels in my opinion.
For me, no, the ends do not justify the means, not if that entails trampling on very important limits on governmental power, limits that were and still should be the hallmark of who we are. I say this is a road we should not tread upon, even if that means a “guilty” Gabe Watson walks free in the end.
Cheers!
But then it all comes down to the competency level of the defendant’s attorney and the role he or she sees him or herself playing in the process. If you are wealthy in the US, the odds of coercion are less likely to occur than if you are poor. A (well) paid advocate for the defendant, one with a better access to resources, man hours and the rest, is more likely to serve his or her client honestly than one who doesn’t have these resources and in some cases sees his or her role as working for the best plea.
Inherent in a system like this is the inescapable impact of some coercion on some levels. Paying platitudes to the process by asking a defendant if he or she has been coerced really doesn’t limit the impact in the end. More than likely it disguises it. There are plenty of cases in the US where an experienced public defender has worked in cahoots with the prosecutor to get pleas that keep cases off the docket and thus never allowing them to go to trial. In order to make that process work, there has to be the perception that going to trial, innocent or not, comes with a heavy risk to the defendants’ life, especially when the Prosecutor can toss out all kinds of sentences to either sweeten or sour the situation. I find the Aussie limits to this very intriguing indeed, if indeed they are true. I admit that.
With ever increasing prison terms for a host of crimes in the US, I imagine the pressure could almost be unbearable for someone who is innocent but doesn’t want to lose everything in fighting a system that has the deck stacked against him or her. I imagine that this pressure would be exponentially more profound if the media were publishing slighted articles to stoke the flames of the general public as well.
I don’t know if everything Livinoz and the other Aussies are saying is true about how defendants receive proper council and thus a better chance of forcing the DA’s hand in cases like these, but it seems on the surface to be a better system for the poor man than what happens in the US (taking into account that there are differences in different states).
The language by the Alabama DA says a lot to me so far. That no matter the course taken, he will try Gabe again in the US, even if that means stretching the boundaries of jurisprudence “to the limit”.
I still don’t know of Gabe’s guilt or innocence to be honest. It is entirely possible that he has done what people say he has done. I’d hate for him to get off if he is guilty of this crime.
What worries me as a citizen of the US, however, is that the prosecution seems to have a serious upper hand in the process of going to trial because many of my compatriots seem perfectly happy to try cases like this one through media reports, podium pounding, and the rest. Assuming for the moment that Gabe is innocent and that his biggest failure to date is that he panicked underwater and let his wife die, what must he be thinking about a legal system hell’s bent on convicting him despite the evidence that appears to be wholly lacking on many levels?
This guy is a pariah in Alabama (partly because of his own idiocy). Not only will he get convicted, they will want to throw a very heavy book at him. Their credibility is at stake it seems, which doesn’t bode well for Gabe at all. Couple that with an institutional advantage and the situation only gets worse.
Is it really enough to trash another country and a another legal system such as Australia’s and then simply assert that you know better or that you know more than what they do, as if reading a writ from on high on the Mount Sinai of the USA? This reads like a vendetta to me, one that has a real chance of coming to fruition, and I have to say as a US citizen this scares that hell out of me.
Alabama, the epicenter of King Jr’s passive resistance in the face of water cannons and dogs, the place of undue convictions in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, should want to err on the side of caution in this case I would say. The USA, a country locked in the inescapable reality that we have walked a thin line in this war on terrorism and have thus damaged the ideals we are meant to hold ourselves to, not to mention the rest of the world in our foreign policy.
Winning a conviction on bombastic proclamations and emotional rabble rousing might get Gabe in the end, but at a significant cost to the rest of us and to our collective image as a fair-minded and rational people, something I think we actually are in so many ways despite international attempts to paint us as the villains and the police officers of the world. We are far, far more complex than that, and this case undermines our objectivity on so many levels in my opinion.
For me, no, the ends do not justify the means, not if that entails trampling on very important limits on governmental power, limits that were and still should be the hallmark of who we are. I say this is a road we should not tread upon, even if that means a “guilty” Gabe Watson walks free in the end.
Cheers!
livinoz
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You raise a multitude of interesting issues there Dadvocate.
I don't think any legal system is perfect, and let's be honest, some are "less perfect" than others, but I believe the onus is on each of us to make sure it works and make sure it works the way it was meant to work, and that means transparency in the Judiciary and in Government. The tenet of people being innocent until proven guilty (and that means beyond reasonable doubt) should not be lost in the rush to find an easier way out, or to coerce someone into pleading guilty for something they didn't do, because then the system has failed both on an individual as well as a societal level. As for "trial by media" I think enough has been said elsewhere about that.
I must admit it worried me too to read the statement of the A-G from Alabama. Maybe public outcry has influenced him unduly, or maybe there are other pressures being bought to bear of which we are so far unaware. But the grief of one family should not translate into injustice for anyone and I agree with Dadvocate that this is starting to feel like a vendetta.
Freedom comes with great responsibility: to protect the innocent, to protect the weak and those unable to protect themselves, and to uphold justice in the face of adversity or when basic rights are challenged. When constitutional and human rights are circumvented, when expediency or financial considerations are more important than upholding justice, then I believe the system has failed the very people it was meant to serve.
I don't think any legal system is perfect, and let's be honest, some are "less perfect" than others, but I believe the onus is on each of us to make sure it works and make sure it works the way it was meant to work, and that means transparency in the Judiciary and in Government. The tenet of people being innocent until proven guilty (and that means beyond reasonable doubt) should not be lost in the rush to find an easier way out, or to coerce someone into pleading guilty for something they didn't do, because then the system has failed both on an individual as well as a societal level. As for "trial by media" I think enough has been said elsewhere about that.
I must admit it worried me too to read the statement of the A-G from Alabama. Maybe public outcry has influenced him unduly, or maybe there are other pressures being bought to bear of which we are so far unaware. But the grief of one family should not translate into injustice for anyone and I agree with Dadvocate that this is starting to feel like a vendetta.
Freedom comes with great responsibility: to protect the innocent, to protect the weak and those unable to protect themselves, and to uphold justice in the face of adversity or when basic rights are challenged. When constitutional and human rights are circumvented, when expediency or financial considerations are more important than upholding justice, then I believe the system has failed the very people it was meant to serve.
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