Watson Murder Case - Discussion

[K_girl]

You have said something similar in the past Kgirl see post 155 in this thread "I can tell you that if there is a trial, and I am beginning to doubt if there will be one, and Gabe is found not guilty, I will accept that verdict as justice having been served."

I am having problems with equating putting someone in front of a jury or court as the only way of ensuring justice is done. IMHO forcing an innocent to a trial potentially bankrupting them with legal fees and wrecking their health with stress is justice gone mad! Someone for reasons that could even be a result of their own emotional or mental health issues could launch a campaign forcing the person they are fixated on into court because in their twisted perception that is the only way they feel Justice will be served! We don't have to look far to see what some people would interpret as a prime example of exactly that going on involving a Forum dear to all of us!

I stand by my previous post and it is essentially the same as what Mr. Thomas said. However, there would be no need for trials at all if you could determine without a doubt in advance of a trial that someone is innocent. That is why we have judges, courtrooms, juries and trials. It is what we call the legal process. Indeed, there are people who are aquitted but still forced through the agony of a trial. You could say it is not fair for anyone who is aquitted to be put through this process. One would think that you are suggesting that prosecutors should determine the innocence or guilt of someone, then what would be the point of having any trials? This case is not as clear-cut one way or the other at this point as any one of us may think, myself included. It needs to be adjudicated. What happened in Australia was a plea deal, and plea dealing in Australia is under serious criticism, not by the U.S., but by Australian citizens. Previous links to that already provided. It was dealt down to something that should not even be a crime - being a bad buddy. It cannot be enforced as a crime on any other diver. That is how bad and nonsensical the plea deal is. You've got divers coming on here saying they are not sure they want to become rescue divers because of it.

It's already been established that double jeopardy does not apply across International liines and Alabama wants justice served for it's Alabama citizen, Tina Watson. allegedly perpetrated by another Alabama citizen, Gabe Watson.

So - he is out of your country now and in ours and our justice system now has a right to do as they see fit to define what they see as justice.

 

[boulderjohn]

However, there would be no need for trials at all if you could determine without a doubt in advance of a trial that someone is innocent. That is why we have judges, courtrooms, juries and trials. It is what we call the legal process. Indeed, there are people who are aquitted but still forced through the agony of a trial. You could say it is not fair for anyone who is aquitted to be put through this process. One would think that you are suggesting that prosecutors should determine the innocence or guilt of someone, then what would be the point of having any trials?

The prosecutor has to be a filter to determine the likelihood that someone will be justly convicted and then proceed accordingly. Yes, they do make a decision about the guilt of someone before trying them--how else would the system work? To take your statement to the extreme, the prosecutor could put ME on trial for the murder, arguing that it is up to the jury to decide. A prosecutor who puts someone on trial without a reasonable belief that the person is guilty should be removed from office.

Read John Grisham's Book The Innocent Man, which is a documentary about a true story, not a novel. It tells the story about a man in Oklahoma who came within hours of being executed for a crime he did not commit, successfully prosecuted without much more real evidence (if any) than the prosecutor could have come up with to charge you with the crime. Another man was convicted of assisting him in the murder with no evidence against him whatsoever. The only thing they had against him was the police theory that it had to be two people (which turned out to be wrong), and this guy was a friend of the other guy at the time.

The investigation of the police and prosecutor conduct in railroading these two guys showed they did the same thing to two other people in a different crime, two people who are almost certainly 100% innocent. Unfortunately, they have no DNA evidence to get them off, and they are both serving life terms for a crime they did not commit as I type.

The prosecutor's goal was to win convictions--whether the people were guilty or not. As Illinois showed when it called a moratorium on the death penalty after DNA showed that more than half of the people on its death row were innocent, it is all too easy for a prosecutor to get a conviction, regardless of the facts in the case.

We pay prosecutors to identify guilty people and build real cases against them, not put anyone they feel like up in front of an unpredictable jury to see if they can win a case.

 

[boulderjohn]

By the way, one of the reasons that prosecutors find it relatively easy to get convictions in capital murder cases is because of natural jury bias. If it is a capital case, anyone who is against capital punishment is excused from jury duty. Thus, the jury is composed 100% of people who believe in the death penalty. Research has shown that people who believe in the death penalty are much more likely to be biased in favor of the prosecution than people who aren't.

I will give you an example from real life with someone I know, a very intelligent, well-educated person who is very much in favor of the death penalty. When there was a news story recently about a man who had been convicted of capital murder but then later released when DNA showed he was innocent, my friend was upset that the guy was being released. Because he was being released, he said, the poor murder victim would never get justice. He argued that strongly, and I finally said, "If you believe that strongly that someone, anyone, has to be executed to give this poor woman justice, why don't you volunteer to be executed?" It was not until then that he realized that he was so focused on getting "justice" that it didn't matter to him whether the person accused had actually done the crime. Put people like that on a jury, and you can convict anyone of anything.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

One would think that you are suggesting that prosecutors should determine the innocence or guilt of someone, then what would be the point of having any trials?

I also stand behind my post.
Some places avoid overloading the judicial system with vexatious cases by having a system to identify them before they go to court. The person pressing the claim and the lawyer representing them can be fined in these cases. I thought that prosecuters job IS to ensure cases don't get to trial that waste court resources without enough justification. IMHO justification should not depend on individuals campaigning or trial by media!

This case is not as clear-cut one way or the other at this point as any one of us may think, myself included. It needs to be adjudicated.

You are as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine. I believe justice may be served without going to trial if people who have access to all the information (unlike us) are allowed to make a ruling unencumbered by emotional campaigns, media campaigns and posturing for election points.

What happened in Australia was a plea deal, and plea dealing in Australia is under serious criticism, not by the U.S., but by Australian citizens. Previous links to that already provided. It was dealt down to something that should not even be a crime - being a bad buddy. It cannot be enforced as a crime on any other diver. That is how bad and nonsensical the plea deal is. You've got divers coming on here saying they are not sure they want to become rescue divers because of it.

plea dealing in Australia is under serious criticism, not by the U.S

Spoiler

(man I have seen a lot of what could almost be considered Australia bashing by Americans regarding this)

but by Australian citizens I am an Australian Citizen and I have to say other than the media campaign and comments made here specifically related to this case, I have not heard or seen anything that supports that position! [/QUOTE]

It's already been established that double jeopardy does not apply across International liines and Alabama wants justice served for it's Alabama citizen, Tina Watson. allegedly perpetrated by another Alabama citizen, Gabe Watson.

So - he is out of your country now and in ours and our justice system now has a right to do as they see fit to define what they see as justice.

Wow Kgirl that is sure sounding like a double standard! On one hand you feel the right to say that the I as an Australian Citizen and the Australian justice system can not define what is justice in our country but you and YOUR system can define what is justice in your country:shocked2:

The prosecutor has to be a filter to determine the likelihood that someone will be justly convicted and then proceed accordingly. Yes, they do make a decision about the guilt of someone before trying them--how else would the system work? To take your statement to the extreme, the prosecutor could put ME on trial for the murder, arguing that it is up to the jury to decide. A prosecutor who puts someone on trial without a reasonable belief that the person is guilty should be removed from office.

Read John Grisham's Book The Innocent Man, which is a documentary about a true story, not a novel. It tells the story about a man in Oklahoma who came within hours of being executed for a crime he did not commit, successfully prosecuted without much more real evidence (if any) than the prosecutor could have come up with to charge you with the crime. Another man was convicted of assisting him in the murder with no evidence against him whatsoever. The only thing they had against him was the police theory that it had to be two people (which turned out to be wrong), and this guy was a friend of the other guy at the time.

The investigation of the police and prosecutor conduct in railroading these two guys showed they did the same thing to two other people in a different crime, two people who are almost certainly 100% innocent. Unfortunately, they have no DNA evidence to get them off, and they are both serving life terms for a crime they did not commit as I type.

The prosecutor's goal was to win convictions--whether the people were guilty or not. As Illinois showed when it called a moratorium on the death penalty after DNA showed that more than half of the people on its death row were innocent, it is all too easy for a prosecutor to get a conviction, regardless of the facts in the case.

We pay prosecutors to identify guilty people and build real cases against them, not put anyone they feel like up in front of an unpredictable jury to see if they can win a case.

By the way, one of the reasons that prosecutors find it relatively easy to get convictions in capital murder cases is because of natural jury bias. If it is a capital case, anyone who is against capital punishment is excused from jury duty. Thus, the jury is composed 100% of people who believe in the death penalty. Research has shown that people who believe in the death penalty are much more likely to be biased in favor of the prosecution than people who aren't.

I will give you an example from real life with someone I know, a very intelligent, well-educated person who is very much in favor of the death penalty. When there was a news story recently about a man who had been convicted of capital murder but then later released when DNA showed he was innocent, my friend was upset that the guy was being released. Because he was being released, he said, the poor murder victim would never get justice. He argued that strongly, and I finally said, "If you believe that strongly that someone, anyone, has to be executed to give this poor woman justice, why don't you volunteer to be executed?" It was not until then that he realized that he was so focused on getting "justice" that it didn't matter to him whether the person accused had actually done the crime. Put people like that on a jury, and you can convict anyone of anything.

:worship: I wish I could thank you more than once or at least in bold print colored capitals for these two posts. THANKS EXACTLY the points I have been trying to make. Unsuccessfully so far!:worship:

 

[K_girl]

You guys - a prosecutor must determine whether or not they have a case to start with is a no-brainer - I can't believe I have to say that. My point is - we've got people who have proclaimed Watson's innocence without a trial and without what many consider to be a proper review of the evidence. Most certainly, the original prosecutors and detectives in Australia who worked so hard on the case for so many years and knew the case inside-out, believed they had a good case and were in shock that the DPP pled the case out.

Just as we in the public cannot proclaim someone guilty, nor is it up to us to proclaim someone innocent as we do not have all the evidence in the case. I have made both prosecution arguments and defense arguments from what we do have, much of it in terms of Watson's published statements to police and Dr. Stutz' statements . I have not shouted that Watson is guilty - however, I think there is a lot of shouting that he is innocent. The prosecution claims they have additional evidence they have not made public. There was only one newspaper story where the prosecution said Watson went to Tina's workplace, behind her back, to change her insurance. We'll eventually hear whether or not they really do have the evidence they claim to have and whether or not we will actually have a trial.

All that Tina's family is saying is that there is evidence that merits there should be a trial in this case. These points have been made over and over again.

As far as Boulderjohn talking about bad prosecutors - he may actually have a point with regard to the outgoing prosecutor, Troy King and probably the reason he was voted out of office. We'll see if the next Alabama attorney general believes that they have a case or not.

 

[mike_s]

You guys - a prosecutor must determine whether or not they have a case to start with is a no-brainer - I can't believe I have to say that.

after spending last week on Jury duty and seeing three cases that the prosecutor "thought" they had a case, but clearly didn't.... I can't say I have much faith in our lowly paid prosecutors anymore.

 

[boulderjohn]

You guys - a prosecutor must determine whether or not they have a case to start with is a no-brainer - I can't believe I have to say that.

You have to say it because you wrote the following. Perhaps people read more into it than you intended, but it is a reasonable reading of what you wrote.

However, there would be no need for trials at all if you could determine without a doubt in advance of a trial that someone is innocent. That is why we have judges, courtrooms, juries and trials. It is what we call the legal process. Indeed, there are people who are aquitted but still forced through the agony of a trial. You could say it is not fair for anyone who is aquitted to be put through this process. One would think that you are suggesting that prosecutors should determine the innocence or guilt of someone, then what would be the point of having any trials? This case is not as clear-cut one way or the other at this point as any one of us may think, myself included. It needs to be adjudicated.

 

[k ellis]

By the way, one of the reasons that prosecutors find it relatively easy to get convictions in capital murder cases is because of natural jury bias. If it is a capital case, anyone who is against capital punishment is excused from jury duty. Thus, the jury is composed 100% of people who believe in the death penalty. Research has shown that people who believe in the death penalty are much more likely to be biased in favor of the prosecution than people who aren't.

I will give you an example from real life with someone I know, a very intelligent, well-educated person who is very much in favor of the death penalty. When there was a news story recently about a man who had been convicted of capital murder but then later released when DNA showed he was innocent, my friend was upset that the guy was being released. Because he was being released, he said, the poor murder victim would never get justice. He argued that strongly, and I finally said, "If you believe that strongly that someone, anyone, has to be executed to give this poor woman justice, why don't you volunteer to be executed?" It was not until then that he realized that he was so focused on getting "justice" that it didn't matter to him whether the person accused had actually done the crime. Put people like that on a jury, and you can convict anyone of anything.

Im not sure about every where else but the few places I have been excuse people who oppose the death sentence simply because it is believed that it would cause emotional distress to anyone who opposed it to have to be a part of essentially killing someone.

Though they do excuse people who oppose the death sentence on the grounds of how they answer when the questions are asked "You know the decisions you are about to make could result in the taking of a human life. Are you prepared to make that decision and if so could you moraly make that decision?" "If the evidence you are going to hear call for the death sentence would you be able to make a fair and unbiased decision that may result in this person essentially being put to death?"

These questions are meant to protect innocent people from becoming an emmotional wreck when they are the only one of 12 people and the other 11 are saying death.

You are correct however in saying that by not having anti death people on the jury does hender the possibility of a lesser sentence but unfortunately like so many other aspects of our legal and judicial system it is broken. there is need of reform and need of more harsh punishment when alive.

Prison is set up for 3 kinds of people one is the abuser and who will immediately fit in with a prison gang. These gangs run the prison and for those members they dont care if they go back to prison or not because for them life is best in prison. Then there are the stay to their self inmates who dont associate with anyone at all. These inmates are generally left alone and no one bothers them. These are the ones that generally are most likely not to be repeat offenders. They do their time alone and dont associate with other inmates. Then there are the ones who are scared to death to be in prison. Generally the 1st group will pick up on these people right away and take advantage of them. They befriend them and then begin to scare the day lights out of them using fear to control them. This is where the overly popular image of inmates come from that we hear such as cell block rape etc......

If Prison were set up the way its supposed to be ran then regular punishment would be suffice for murder because it would put a person in a 8 by 10 room for 60 years with nothing but a sink,, toilet and bed. This in itself would be a powerful deterent instead of the way its set up now.

One last thing that would serve to eliminate lesser crimes would be to punish while in prison not punish out of prison. Examples would be when a person gets a felony they are screwed for life. When they get out they have not had any life on their own for x amount of years. They dont know how to pay rent or work and budget. They dont know how to date a girl because they havent seen a real woman most times in 30 plus years. They are often to old (in their eyes) to start a family too so they were robbed in their eyes of the right to a family.

When they go to get a job they know that good paying jobs will run a criminal background check and when they do the felony they commited will show up and they are now not able to be employed. They cant vote, they cant own firearms, they cant live in some places (Such as sex offenders) and they have no family often because even family abandons some of the inmates.

the sex offender laws are great in intent but like so many things it gets abused by alot of neighborhoods. Examples include when a sex offender finaly locates a neighborhood he is eligible to live in then the neighbors find out and decide to build a park in their neighbor hood which then forces these people to again move. When there are no places left to live legaly then they have no choice but to go and live illegaly and then they are again put back into the system for non compliance.

The system is broken and it would take years of overhaul to fix it and you are right there are more then one things in the system that are unfair.

 

[K_girl]

Follow-up on controversy in Australia regarding plea bargaining:

VICTIMS HAVE LITTLE SAY

"VICTIMS of crime want the right to criticise in court the secretive plea-bargaining processes that allow criminals to receive reduced sentences

But Mr O'Connell said the ability of the victim to criticise the charge bargain was even restricted in the victim-impact statement. "The charge bargain constrains victims' rights to make impact statements because victims can only talk about the harm caused so long as what they say is consistent with the agreed statement of facts," he said...

Victims want say in plea bargains | Adelaide Now

***
Source: [Report - Australian Parliament] Victims of Crime: Plea Bargains, Compensation, Victim Impact Statements and Support Services http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/0/578c6f10c6d98565ca256ecf00083b4d/$FILE/10-02.pdf

NOT ALL THE EVIDENCE IS TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION

"7. VICTIMS AND PLEA BARGAINING
7.1 General principles of plea bargaining

"..A mutually agreed statement of facts, omitting references to conduct that would support
more serious charges, is presented to the court at sentence. Any other material before the
court that contains information exceeding the agreed facts must be disregarded by the
sentencing judge." [Page 60]

The most commonly cited benefits of plea bargaining are: [PAGE 60]

· that it spares victims and witnesses the trauma of having to testify and be crossexamined
at a trial, particularly for children and sexual assault complainants;
· the State will be saved the expense of a trial;
· court backlogs and delays are alleviated if more defendants plead guilty;
· the Crown case may not be sufficiently strong to obtain a conviction if the matter
proceeds to trial on the ‘higher’ charge. By allowing the offender to plead guilty to a
lesser charge, at least the offender is penalised to some extent for their actions.

However, according to critics of plea bargaining, some of its disadvantages are: [PAGE 60-61]

-victims often feel that their suffering has been trivialised when fact summaries and
witness statements are edited as part of a plea bargain..

..At present there is no statutory duty upon the prosecution to inform or consult with the
victim in the plea bargaining process... [page 62]

7.2.1 Plea bargain in R v AEM (jnr) & AEM (snr) & KEM [page 63]

Controversy over the treatment of victims in the plea bargaining process was sparked by
the sentencing case of Regina v AEM (jnr) & AEM (snr) & KEM (District Court of NSW,
Sydney, 23 August 2001). The defendants were young males who approached two 16 year
old girls, DB and JH, at Beverley Hills railway station and drove them to a house in
Villawood, where the girls were repeatedly sexually assaulted during a 5 hour period.

Judge Latham was confined by the set of facts which the prosecution and defence had negotiated in order to obtain the guilty pleas. According to this version of the facts, the victims went voluntarily with the offenders and no knife was produced or threats were made in transit to the premises where the offences occurred. A victim impact statement was tendered on behalf of DB but Judge Latham was obliged to disregard the content that went beyond the agreed facts.

[I]After the sentences were passed, media reports revealed the disparities between the agreed
facts and the victims’ original allegations. DB and JH had told the police that the offenders
forced them into the car, a knife was produced[/I].. the victims, in their original statements to the police, had asserted that they did not voluntarily go with the offenders and that a knife was displayed in the car. Mr Samuels deduced that those ‘two important allegations …were no doubt omitted to dispose of any charge of kidnapping, under s 86 of the Crimes Act.’110

She [the victim] expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of choice or control she had in the process:
They could have told us at least that they were going to change it [the story] and then let us decide what we wanted to do from there. But they didn’t. Personally, I would rather go through the process of court because at least my story is getting told and they are actually sentenced on what they did and not what they didn’t do.

 

[boulderjohn]

after spending last week on Jury duty and seeing three cases that the prosecutor "thought" they had a case, but clearly didn't.... I can't say I have much faith in our lowly paid prosecutors anymore.

1. A friend of mine was on a jury recently. When the prosecution was done presenting its case, before the defense had even started theirs, the jury was completely convinced the accused was totally innocent. The judge stopped the trial at that point with a directed acquittal. Since this was a serious criminal case, I can't imagine what the defendant's legal fees were.

2. I was involved in a relatively minor, non-jury case in which someone totally innocent was prosecuted. Well before the trial, the defense attorney met with the prosecuting attorney and tried to convince him that he had no case and should drop the charges. The prosecutor refused, saying he anticipated a slam dunk victory. Just before the trial, the defendant's attorney questioned the star prosecution witness, seeing clearly from her ridiculous story that she would be committing perjury. He was prepared to destroy her on the stand. Apparently his questions must have made her realize that, for she failed to show for the trial. The prosecutor asked for a recess. During that recess I took a stroll to get a drink of water. I blundered into a recess where the prosecutor was talking to his only other witness, the arresting officer. The prosecutor was almost shouting in disbelief upon learning for the first time that the officer had made the arrest only on that ridiculous story of the other witness, had not seen the incident, and didn't have a shred of evidence to offer himself. Back in the courtroom, the prosecutor told the judge he was dropping the charges. The judge then gave the defendant a lecture about how lucky he was to be escaping punishment this way--in other words, the prosecutor did have a slam dunk case with a judge who was prepared to convict without evidence. The fiasco cost the defendant thousands of dollars in legal fees.

......

I would seriously like to see prosecutors and police held more accountable for things like this. In the Oklahoma case I mentioned earlier, state law almost makes prosecutors immune from any retribution, but in this case it was so bad the defendant did win a pretty big award. If I remember, the police who were part of the railroading got away free. This was true even though when they finally arrested the right guy, a man with so much evidence against him he should have been arrested immediately after the murder, it was later found that he was almost certainly not investigated because he was the guy who supplied the police department with cocaine.

I guess I am saying I don't trust the system to protect an innocent person from a zealous prosecution.