I Have Another Question
On Sunday's 60 Minutes, they had a segment concerning men in Dallas County, Texas who were wrongfully convicted of crimes, with the prosecutors office actually withholding evidence of innocence of those who were on trial. The segment was moving and VERY disturbing.
But what is more disturbing is how all of the people who, rightly, shouted from the rooftops about Nifong trying to railroad the Duke lacrosse players, NONE OF THEM have said squat about this.
So far, 17 men have been cleared in Dallas - that's more than most states. All were put on trial by prosecutors who worked for the legendary District Attorney Henry Wade. Wade was Dallas' top prosecutor for more than 30 years. He never lost a case he handled personally. But it turns out the record of Wade's office was too good to be true. And now, a new Dallas district attorney is focusing on the Wade legacy - it's a search for innocent men waiting to be exonerated.
Again, why haven't they said a word? And why is it that when I was searching for comments about this, it seems to be the "left leaning" blogs commenting on it the most? At least, they are first in the Google results.
Should I even ask how many people were executed who were not guilty of the crime they committed?
A good question. I've read a lot of the stuff those folks shouting from the rooftops about Nifong had to say. They had a good reason to shout, for sure, but that doesn't mean they were all motivated by a thirst for justice for all. Some definitely were (and are). Others had found their golden opportunity to show the world that nobody's as persecuted as a wealthy white man. Lots of people in between, of course, and coming from other angles.
The Dallas situation is the kind of thing that liestoppers (.blogspot.com) seems to be trying to follow closely. If they're not writing about it, they're definitely not living up to their claims. But their discussion forum was trashed a week or so ago, so I think they've been scrambling just to keep going.
I've noticed that questions like "if you care so much about X, why don't you care about Y" come up a lot when people are arguing about things like the Duke lacrosse case. I have a feeling you can almost always find something along those lines to throw at people who've taken to crusading for a cause. I'm not sure they're always such great questions. The one you raised seems pretty fair, though.
Posted by: Robert Zimmerman | May 05, 2008 at 11:14 PM
Libertarian blogs like Reason or Cato they have been posting about people being cleared from DNA evidence for awhile. They have also highlighted other issues in the criminal justice system (even some here in my home state of MS) that other media outlets have ignored. I can’t remember what they were saying about the Duke case.
Posted by: LLR | May 06, 2008 at 05:51 PM
You are right, the libertarians have been consistent in their views on this.
Posted by: DarkStar | May 06, 2008 at 10:29 PM
http://reason.tv/video/show/403.html
Another example of Libertarians fighting against the death penalty system. It should be noted that I got the link from a right leaning blog.
Posted by: LLR | May 08, 2008 at 06:27 PM