Abugadu posted:

A little over a decade ago I briefly took on an Innocence Project-type murder case where it was painfully obvious the client had been set-up by the actual killers, who made plea bargains to hand-slap deals to testify against the client. Cartoonishly bad. And after he was convicted, the previous attorney on the case had found an eyewitness who said the client wasn't there, but that was found unreliable because the witness had been in jail for marijuana possession a few months after the crime (which was why they couldn't find him for the trial).

Appeal denied, habeas denied, all legal avenues exhausted, wasn't jack poo poo I could do because there was no DNA evidence for people to get excited about. No one gave a poo poo about this dude because it was in Flint, Michigan and they have a billion other things to bother themselves with.

I continue to write letters to his parole board every time he comes up. His last attempt was denied. He will die in jail, having spent a majority of his life in there.

The suckerpunch feeling doesn't go away.

wikipedia posted:

Tracy killed 71 people, caused A$837 million in damage (1974 dollars), or approximately A$4.45 billion (2014 dollars). It destroyed more than 70 percent of Darwin's buildings, including 80 percent of houses. Tracy left more than 41,000 out of the 47,000 inhabitants of the city homeless prior to landfall and required the evacuation of over 30,000 people.[6] Most of Darwin's population was evacuated to Adelaide, Whyalla, Alice Springs and Sydney, and many never returned to the city. After the storm passed, the city was rebuilt using more modern materials and updated building techniques. Bruce Stannard of The Age stated that Cyclone Tracy was a "disaster of the first magnitude ... without parallel in Australia's history."

Bompacho posted:

Holy poo poo, if you're not bound by a bunch of confidentiality, and it's not too much of a sore point for you, then you should make a thread about that. I'd be interested to hear more about it.

Abugadu posted:

Zeroisanumber posted:

The loving Imperial Japanese Airforce didn't do a 10th of the damage to Darwin that Tracy did.

Bompacho posted:

It's pretty amazing that Mother Nature at her worst can still trump us humans for destructive force.
In terms of loss of life the Japanese still beat out Tracy, but interestingly more bombs were dropped on Darwin than Pearl Harbor.

Somewhat lucky that Darwin was not nearly as densely populated. So the loss of life was probably only 1/10 of that of Pearl Harbor.

Abugadu posted:

Cops get involved when the kid's suppliers from Detroit show up and demand to know what is going on and make some threats.

quote:

The other medical expert was James P. Grigson, a forensic psychiatrist. He testified so often for the prosecution in capital-punishment cases that he had become known as Dr. Death. (A Texas appellate judge once wrote that when Grigson appeared on the stand the defendant might as well “commence writing out his last will and testament.”) Grigson suggested that Willingham was an “extremely severe sociopath,” and that “no pill” or treatment could help him. Grigson had previously used nearly the same words in helping to secure a death sentence against Randall Dale Adams, who had been convicted of murdering a police officer, in 1977. After Adams, who had no prior criminal record, spent a dozen years on death row—and once came within seventy-two hours of being executed—new evidence emerged that absolved him, and he was released. In 1995, three years after Willingham’s trial, Grigson was expelled from the American Psychiatric Association for violating ethics. The association stated that Grigson had repeatedly arrived at a “psychiatric diagnosis without first having examined the individuals in question, and for indicating, while testifying in court as an expert witness, that he could predict with 100-per-cent certainty that the individuals would engage in future violent acts.”

quote:

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was known for upholding convictions even when overwhelming exculpatory evidence came to light. In 1997, DNA testing proved that sperm collected from a rape victim did not match Roy Criner, who had been sentenced to ninety-nine years for the crime. Two lower courts recommended that the verdict be overturned, but the Court of Criminal Appeals upheld it, arguing that Criner might have worn a condom or might not have ejaculated. Sharon Keller, who is now the presiding judge on the court, stated in a majority opinion, “The new evidence does not establish innocence.” In 2000, George W. Bush pardoned Criner. (Keller was recently charged with judicial misconduct, for refusing to keep open past five o’clock a clerk’s office in order to allow a last-minute petition from a man who was executed later that night.)

TheFallenEvincar posted:

Christ, reading that New Yorker article on Willingham both terrifies and enrages me. I can't even bear finishing it to the end. Some of these people are loving animals and come off as criminal as the actually rightfully convicted murderers.

Doctor Malaver posted:

Does anyone remember what was the Youtube channel with animations of industry disasters? They are made by some government safety agency and explain in simple graphics timelines of accidents. I find them interesting because I know nothing about chemicals, valves, oil processing technology, etc and they are unnerving too.

TheFallenEvincar posted:

Christ, reading that New Yorker article on Willingham both terrifies and enrages me. I can't even bear finishing it to the end. Some of these people are loving animals and come off as criminal as the actually rightfully convicted murderers.

stickyfngrdboy posted:

I read that assuming that Willingham was freed, and the further I got, the more evidence that appeared that proved he was innocent, the more certain I was that he'd get out. I'm struggling to understand how that man was still executed, and how nobody has been sanctioned, imprisoned, or preferably executed for his death. Disgraceful.

quote:

“It’s a racket,” says Sanders, the former Columbus police chief. “Most states pay a [state] medical examiner $100,000, maybe $200,000 per year. Do the math. Fifteen hundred autopsies per year at $500 to $1,500 a pop. Hayne’s making millions.…Prosecutors love him because he’ll testify to whatever they need him to. Meanwhile, the state legislature saves money by not having to fund a full-time state medical examiner, office, and staff.”

quote:

Jimmie Duncan was convicted for the 1993 murder of Haley Oliveaux of West Monroe, Louisiana based primarily on the testimony of Hayne and Michael West, a bite mark examiner and at the time coroner of Forrest County, Mississippi.[9] Duncan had admitted to leaving Oliveaux in a bathtub unattended, and was initially charged with negligent homicide. Hayne examined Oliveaux and claimed to have found bite marks on her face that had not been seen by any of the other medical professionals who had previously examined her body, such as EMTs and hospital personnel. After this, a mold was taken of Duncan's teeth for use in bite mark analysis by Michael West. In performing this analysis, West repeatedly pressed the mold into the cheek of Oliveaux' corpse, creating bite marks which had not previously existed. This was recorded on videotape which surfaced in 2008. Michael Bowers, deputy medical examiner for Ventura County, California commented with regard to the bite marks that "Dr. West created them. It was intentional. He's creating artificial abrasions in that video, and he's tampering with the evidence. It's criminal, regardless of what excuse he may come up with about his methods."

TheFallenEvincar posted:

Christ, reading that New Yorker article on Willingham both terrifies and enrages me. I can't even bear finishing it to the end. Some of these people are loving animals and come off as criminal as the actually rightfully convicted murderers.

Nouvelle Vague posted:

It's not exactly the same, but this is a really nice (and heartbreaking) write-up on the victims of Dean Correll.

Quint Gets Eaten posted:

Chiming in that this is an incredible read. I've always been fascinated by Corll; it's amazing that such a horrific (and prolific) serial murderer could have fallen into obscurity. (As others have said, he was dead when his story broke, which is probably why the story doesn't have the Ted Bundy-level of infamy associated with it.) Other than a special I saw on ID Discovery a few years ago and a few pages in serial killer encyclopedia-type books, I haven't seen very much on him and his crimes. I had no idea that there were potentially many other victims, but no investigations were made because more bodies would equal bad publicity, Jesus Christ.

Frostwerks posted:

It really needs to be repeated but for all the poo poo Florida gets in popular culture, Texas is by far loving worse. I suspect it gets off the hook because it's "real america" or somesuch horseshit. gently caress Texas, gently caress Texans.

quote:

Cagots were shunned and hated. They were required to live in separate quarters in towns, called cagoteries, which were often on the far outskirts of the villages. Cagots were excluded from all political and social rights...They were compelled to wear a distinctive dress, to which, in some places, was attached the foot of a goose or duck (whence they were sometimes called "Canards"). So pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to walk the common road barefooted or to drink from the same cup as non-Cagots. The Cagots were restricted to the trades of carpenter, butcher, and rope-maker.

quote:

The Cagots were not an ethnic group, nor a religious group. They spoke the same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families identified as Cagots. Few consistent reasons were given as to why they should be hated; accusations varied from Cagots being cretins, lepers, heretics, cannibals, to simply being intrinsically evil.

Rochallor posted:

The Cagots were a minority group in Europe who were persecuted for hundreds of years. They were restricted to certain unclean jobs, like other traditionally ostracized groups.


But the thing about the Cagots is that nobody knows why they were hated.


Either nobody cared enough to write down what it was that was different about the Cagots, or there was never any difference. The absolute pinnacle of bigotry. Ur-bigotry. They were hated just because.

I Might Be Adam posted:

I had never heard of Corll and I've lived in Houston my whole life.

Your Sledgehammer posted:

We're not all bad, you know. Some of us were born here and would rather be somewhere else...and there's always Austin

But I'm guessing you're a butthurt Floridian who doesn't want to feel like he lives in the worst state of the union (hint: it's Mississippi, you dumbfuck)

nucleicmaxid posted:

This is almost a meme on something awful. There are a few posters who just love to jerk off about how awesome and special (Texans/Southerners/etc.) are because of (reason.)

NiceGuy posted:

Fixed that for you, just to highlight one of the main reasons everyone hates Texas.

Rochallor posted:

The Cagots were a minority group in Europe who were persecuted for hundreds of years. They were restricted to certain unclean jobs, like other traditionally ostracized groups.


But the thing about the Cagots is that nobody knows why they were hated.


Either nobody cared enough to write down what it was that was different about the Cagots, or there was never any difference. The absolute pinnacle of bigotry. Ur-bigotry. They were hated just because.

NiceGuy posted:

Citation: Any one of countless pro-Texas threads in GBS started by the likes of roboshit or texaholic or whoever. Have fun searching for them because I sure as poo poo ain't.

NiceGuy posted:

Fixed that for you, just to highlight one of the main reasons everyone hates Texas.

slinkimalinki posted:

This is pretty much exactly the same as burakumin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin

FourLeaf posted:

But the Burakumin were explicitly associated with performing low-status, unclean jobs. Whereas the Cagots were restricted to occupations like carpentry or butchering, jobs that weren't considered sinful in medieval Europe like, say, moneylending (because the Jews were forced to take those jobs).

It's just very weird. The theory that they're descended from some evil guild of carpenters is pretty amusing though.

FourLeaf posted:

But the Burakumin were explicitly associated with performing low-status, unclean jobs. Whereas the Cagots were restricted to occupations like carpentry or butchering, jobs that weren't considered sinful in medieval Europe like, say, moneylending (because the Jews were forced to take those jobs).

It's just very weird. The theory that they're descended from some evil guild of carpenters is pretty amusing though.

Aphra Bane posted:

Wow, that was fascinating.


You may already know of it, but the first thing that comes to mind is the Cameron Todd Willingham story, whereby a woman becomes the penpal of a death row inmate and ends up doing her own investigation to try and clear his name.

CodfishCartographer posted:

On the other hand, it appears discrimination against burakumin still exists today.

FourLeaf posted:

It's just very weird. The theory that they're descended from some evil guild of carpenters is pretty amusing though.

citybeatnik posted:

I remember there being a major freakout because Google Maps had an option to interlay old Japanese maps on top of their street view, because they thought it'd be pretty nifty to see how things have changed.

The problem being, a great deal of those maps had entire neighborhoods blocked off as "YOU SHOULD HATE THE PEOPLE HERE FOR NO REAL RATIONAL REASON!".