It's at times like this ....

[briefs]

... as much as some of you disgree, that I'm glad the UK no longer has capital punishment. What an interesting list of folks.

 

Miscarriages of justice | UK news | guardian.co.uk

 

All of them are very sad, but this one in particular stands out for me ....

 

Sally Clark

 

Convicted: 1999

Time served: 3 years

Conviction quashed: 2003

 

Solicitor Sally Clark was sentenced to life for smothering her 11-week-old son Christopher in 1996 and shaking eight-week-old son Harry to death two years later.

 

She was largely set free because an expert witness at her trial, Professor Roy Meadow, was discredited. He had wrongly claimed that there is a "one in 73 million" chance of two cot deaths in an affluent family. The Royal Statistical Society disagreed, saying there was "no statistical basis" for the figure. Clark died four years after her release, from acute alcohol intoxication. She never came to terms with her wrongful conviction.

 

[hamstrung]

edit: read the article stoopid.

[Section_31]

She was largely set free because an expert witness at her trial, Professor Roy Meadow, was discredited. He had wrongly claimed that there is a "one in 73 million" chance of two cot deaths in an affluent family. The Royal Statistical Society disagreed, saying there was "no statistical basis" for the figure. Clark died four years after her release, from acute alcohol intoxication. She never came to terms with her wrongful conviction.

 

I'm obviously no expert but I always thought that sounded like bollocks anyway.

[RobbieOR]

She didn't do it. How did she get accused in the first place. Another police cock up.

[briefs]

edit: read the article stoopid.

 

Don't know what you're getting at. Sorry.

 

EDIT: The point I'm making, as obviously I wasn't 900% clear, is that if alot of these folks had been convicted in a society where capital punishment was prevelant, then they would have been long dead before their ridiculously unfair and unsafe convictions were overturned. In Mississippi an in-mate was executed last summer after spending only 8 years on death row. That's 1/3 of the time some of these people served.

 

That's aside from the fact that two of the 21 people listed in the article were given posthumous pardons as well.

Edited May 5, 2009 by briefs

[RobbieOR]

Don't know what you're getting at. Sorry.

 

He didn't read that it was a miscarrage of justice and assumed she was in the wrong. Am I right Hammy?

[hamstrung]

Don't know what you're getting at. Sorry.

 

I was too quick off the mark and posted something already mentioned in the original article. The bit about her killing herself.

[zigackly]

Hmm ... even if the one in 73 million were true, someone has to win the lottery. Long odds still come off, just less frequently than short ones.

 

What I'm trying to get at is I can't believe anyone ever thought it was a safe conviction based on that evidence.

[Guest TK-421]

I was actually stood outside the Royal Courts when she emerged after the successful appeal. I wanted to get in because I was late filing some documents, and had to sprint around the back because the TV and press were everywhere. It was most inconvenient.

 

The case itself is an awful miscarriage of justice, destroying the lives of a hard working couple. I really admire all the work her husband did and have no idea how he managed it, whilst grieving for his own loss.

[kelster]

 

She was largely set free because an expert witness at her trial, Professor Roy Meadow, was discredited. He had wrongly claimed that there is a "one in 73 million" chance of two cot deaths in an affluent family. The Royal Statistical Society disagreed, saying there was "no statistical basis" for the figure. Clark died four years after her release, from acute alcohol intoxication. She never came to terms with her wrongful conviction.[/img]

 

Doesn't need the Royal Statistical society for that one. The cunt was a paediatrician who should of never been allowed to go within a 100 metres of a calculator. All he has done is take the odds for the chances of one cot death in an affluent family and squared it - as if cot deaths were entirely random events.

[briefs]

Doesn't need the Royal Statistical society for that one. The cunt was a paediatrician who should of never been allowed to go within a 100 metres of a calculator. All he has done is take the odds for the chances of one cot death in an affluent family and squared it - as if cot deaths were entirely random events.

 

That may be true but the courts believed him and respected his views (known as Meadow's Law) for years. He was involved in lots of other cases too, such as the wrongful conviction of Angela Cannings.

 

Maybe if you'd been there at the time of these trials with that sharp observation, all of this could have been avoided. :whistle:

 

Seriously let yourself down with that one.

[RJ Fan club]

[YOUTUBE]ER679C9bqLw&autoplay=1[/YOUTUBE]

 

I am a cunt.

[Scott_M]

RJ Fan Club stole my thunder.

[Chocoholic]

 

And on the right of these pics, our very own Jim, better known as RedinSweden, under the name of Engin Raghip. So, that's the big secret, he left for Sweden after not being able to live in his beloved Shrewsbury after his release from prison, after it was revealed he was involved with the twat from the Halifax ads!

[B3n]

Hmm ... even if the one in 73 million were true, someone has to win the lottery. Long odds still come off, just less frequently than short ones.

 

What I'm trying to get at is I can't believe anyone ever thought it was a safe conviction based on that evidence.

 

Very rarely are things guaranteed 100% either way. I'd suggest if somebody is 99.9999986% guilty then that should be enough.

 

*Nothing specifically to do with this case, just the point you're making.*

[G Richards]

That's quite a list. Some absolutely terrible miscarriages of justice there.

 

The other side of the coin is the list of families who have a son/daughter/mother/father killed at the hands of a violent criminal who was treated far too leniently and let out too early without any apparent rehabilitation. Does the Guardian (or anyone else for that matter) have such a list of people?

[Cosmos]

God said to Abraham....

[zigackly]

Very rarely are things guaranteed 100% either way. I'd suggest if somebody is 99.9999986% guilty then that should be enough.

 

*Nothing specifically to do with this case, just the point you're making.*

 

But something having a very low chance of happening alone, doesn't mean that when it does it is anything but a very unlucky set of circumstances. There would have to be corroborating evidence to convict, surely. You can't determine guilt based purely on the statistical unlikelihood of an event occurring.

[Strontium]

The other side of the coin is the list of families who have a son/daughter/mother/father killed at the hands of a violent criminal who was treated far too leniently and let out too early without any apparent rehabilitation. Does the Guardian (or anyone else for that matter) have such a list of people?

 

 

God has a list, doesn't he? Shouldn't you just be in favour of letting him sort them out?

[dirty_sanchez]

I'm going to just put this one out there.

 

While there are some cases in that list which are almost certainly instances of people being falsely penalised for a crime they didn't commit, some of those people in the list have been released purely on failures in police procedural implimentation. Those people are not necessarily innocent, they might have just been let off because some paperwork wasn't filled out properly. It's probably extremely hard to make use of proper evidence to try someone 20 years down the line.

[Caramac]

That autoplay on youtube does my head in, expect a bill for damage to my speakers and medical treatment for my ears.............

[Anubis]

That's quite a list. Some absolutely terrible miscarriages of justice there.

 

The other side of the coin is the list of families who have a son/daughter/mother/father killed at the hands of a violent criminal who was treated far too leniently and let out too early without any apparent rehabilitation. Does the Guardian (or anyone else for that matter) have such a list of people?

 

Er, are you saying that you think innocents executed simply even out by people who've sufferd at the hands of violent criminals who've been leniently punished?