(no subject)

[commotiocordis]

It's so cool how lawyers can write up the same things to sway you in one direction or another.

I'm still reading ConLaw stuff, now on that child rape/capital punishment case that's before SCOTUS right now. Reading the petition for cert (the alleged rapist--Kennedy--'s side), I was totally sold that not only was the whole thing a total reversal of previous court decision in Coker v. Georgia and a bunch of others, the guy shouldn't be executed because a) he's borderline mentally retarded and b) looking at everything presented, there's not nearly enough evidence to even find him guilty of it in the first place--the girl only began to implicate the stepfather after her mother switched sides following having custody taken away for refusing to subscribe to prosecution's theory of the case (the stepfather being the rapist)!

Then I switched to the response to the petition and started reading the other side of the case, where they talk about what actually happened in the investigation more--something very much glossed over in the petition. And after reading that--mostly just from the footnote where they talked about how the girl had to get major surgery to stop the bleeding (though the timing doesn't seem to match up--the girl was still hemorrhaging when EMS arrived, but that was two hours after the guy called to get his carpet cleaned of bloodstains?) because the "perineal body was torn all the way from the posterior fourchette, where the vagina normally ends, to the anus. Additionally, a laceration to the left wall of L.H.’s vagina separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into her vagina"--I was about ready to march down there and kill the guy myself. Or, you know, just inflict similar injury. I'm not so much a fan of the death penalty as I am forcible and anesthesia-less castration and penectomy with fingernail clippers for rapists.

Just makes you think. I was totally up in arms, this guy didn't do it and you can't execute him even if he did, until I flipped to the other side's brief.

Comments

[geonncannon.livejournal.com]

That's why I dropped out of Debate class and why I pray I never get jury duty (only, like, one person I know of has ever had it before, so I think I'm safe). I, too, can easily see both sides of the problem. So much so that I'd probably tend to side with someone just because I heard their side most recently.

But yeah, it goes to show that having all the facts is veeeery important, especially in a case like this.