
It took 10 minutes to convict a 14-year-old and 70 years to exonerate him (2014) - EndXA
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/18/the-rush-job-conviction-of-14-year-old-george-stinney-exonerated-70-years-after-execution/
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nkrisc
I've always wondered, in cases like this: did they actually believe he did it?
Maybe they did, motivated by pure racism and bigotry despite any evidence? But
if they knew he probably didn't do it (but decided to scapegoat him anyway),
weren't they ever thinking about the real killer who has presumably gone free,
with the potential to strike the community again? Maybe they knew they stood
no chance of actually figuring out who did? Or maybe they knew who really did
it, but corrupt officials were eager to protect them and blame an easy target.

~~~
romaaeterna
From the article:

At the time a law enforcement officer named H.S. Newman wrote in a handwritten
statement: “I arrested a boy by the name of George Stinney. He then made a
confession and told me where to find a piece of iron about 15 inches long. He
said he put it in a ditch about six feet from the bicycle.” Few other
documents from that time exist.

James Gamble, whose father was the sheriff at the time, told the Herald in
2003 he was in the back seat with Stinney when his father drove the boy to
prison.

“There wasn’t ever any doubt about him being guilty,” he said. “He was real
talkative about it. He said, ‘I’m real sorry. I didn’t want to kill them
girls.’ “

~~~
nkrisc
Yes thank you, I read it. I was speaking generally ("cases like this"), as
there are many similar cases from the era. And these are the cases that
actually went to trial, instead of ending in mob justice.

Even in this case, if the concession was coerced, that still means the real
killer remained free. Now whether the interviewer one they were coercing a
false confession or not is not clear. But either way getting a false
confession is pretty counterproductive to actually solving a case, and bad
police work. Unless your real goal is not the truth, but to blame the "right"
person, regardless of guilt.

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rumanator
Wikipedia has an informative article about the case.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stinney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stinney)

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crimsonalucard
Who gets thrown in jail for such a crime? Who is responsible for this?

~~~
ninth_ant
Respectfully, those are the wrong questions to ask.

Instead: What injustices are happening today that we tolerate as part of the
status quo? What can we do to ensure - today and tomorrow — that innocents are
not preyed upon because it is easy and convenient to look the other way?

~~~
crimsonalucard
Respectfully disagree. such questions are relevant. No system is perfect and
every system can be exploited to serve the prejudices of individuals.
Everything from the super rich exploiting tax loop holes to putting innocent
people on death row. Not only one must close the loop hole, but the exploiter
must be punished as an example.

Part of ensuring things is to enforce consequences. The more extreme the crime
the more extreme the consequence. The consequence serves two roles. One role
is to help the criminal learn, but more importantly it's to help other people
learn that you cannot commit such heinous acts without repercussions. Without
consequences no system of enforcement will work.

What this article describes was never tolerated by society. It was a loop hole
that when exploited had little consequence.

~~~
TheNorthman
> One role is to help the criminal learn

Do you believe that punishment is an ideal way to learn? How do you imagine
this `punishment` to be carried out [0]?

Assuming you're American: the primary systems prisons have been modeled after
have been the Auburn system and the Separate system and both of these models
have a pretty heavy recidivism.

I'm danish and our prisons are mostly built on the premise of rehabilitation
and have attempted to shy away from what was perceived as "meaningless"
oppression (although this is slowly changing towards a more Kantian view of
punishment, something the general media portrays as being bad). In contrast to
the American system ours is one of relatively low recidivism.

[0]: My question might seem snarky, it's really not. From my perspective
"punishment" is rarely discussed, so I'm genuinely curious regarding, not so
much the justification that much is clear, but the intended "carrying out" of
said punishment is interesting to me.

~~~
crimsonalucard
>Do you believe that punishment is an ideal way to learn? How do you imagine
this `punishment` to be carried out [0]?

Clearly punishment works to deter both humans and animals from doing certain
things. This has been shown to be true in experimentation. Additionally the
threat of punishment is by far more important.

However there are many instances where punishment can serve to do nothing or
even make things worse. In the general case this is not true, but there are
many specific instances where it is true. One example is the drug addict. You
cannot clean up a drug addict by punishing him. Or even less clear is how do
you stop a career criminal from doing the only thing he has known how to do
for his entire life? A punishment will not suffice in both cases. BUT the
punishment must exist.

I'm not saying that the American System is the way to go. Clearly from the
data it is not. But I am saying that the question of consequences must be
enforced. The consequence must be negative as well. Additionally to get to
your point, the punishment probably shouldn't be so extreme as to have
detrimental effects, additionally programs for rehabilitation can be
implemented as well for effectiveness. Even in the danish system, there must
be negative consequences for negative actions in order for a society to
function.... there is no way around it.

Find me an example of a society that has zero punishment for criminals that
still functions and I can probably change my mind.

~~~
TheNorthman
I think the trouble for me is the difference between _rehabilitation with
punishment as an unintended but ultimately necessary bi-product_ and
_rehabilitation _and_ punishment_. A difference, to borrow from Mao, in
"motive force", where the motive becomes a physicality in that it affects the
mental world of the, so called, prisoner.

I can agree to the fact that "punishment" of some form is unavoidable but I
think that the rehabilitation serves as a punishment in itself. I fear that
"the prisoner mind" is affected by what it itself deems "appropriate" and what
it deems "unnecessary" punishment [0].

[0]: You might exchange the words "appropriate" and "unnecessary" with
"private" and "public", as in what is done for private benefit and what is
done for public benefit.

~~~
crimsonalucard
In japan where the crime rate is so low, old people voluntarily commit crimes
so that they can go to jail and be cared for. This occurs because the
punishment is basically not negative at all. It's hard to say whether this is
actually a really bad thing given the state of japan.

On the other end of the spectrum... the abstract threat of punishment itself
can mold a society. Look at singapore where you can get whipped for spitting
gum on the ground. Such policies have created a city that is virtually
spotless. I don't think it is the punishments that cause the city to be like
this but it is the threat of the punishment that keeps the city this way.

The problem is people are too intelligent. Can the threat of punishment be
deployed without an actual punishment? I don't think so. It's also
questionable in singapore whether or not the punishment fits the crime. It's
hard to say whether lashes till your back bleeds for defacing public property
or even death for possessing drugs serve to rehabilitate the criminal.

I don't know why singapore chose such extreme policies. One thing is for sure
though, the death of a drug dealer serves as a sacrificial lamb to generate
the abstract threat of extreme punishment. The death of one prevents the
creation of many. Moral or not moral? Either way you can't argue with the
results.

