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You still haven't pointed to a specific case where the highlighted portion happened, just pointed to several that show the criminal justice system does in fact work, albeit slowly at times.
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http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/arti...?&did=2238 (I didn't actually read through those cases, but quickly googled something)
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I'm glad you posted that. I actually, as strange as it would be for many of you to believe, do have a problem with the way Texas handles executions. If you'll notice on that thread, more than half of them are from Texas.
Most of those are kind of weak speculation, but I'd like to focus in on these two, as they are the most glaring examples.
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David Spence Texas Conviction: 1984, Executed: 1997
Spence was charged with murdering three teenagers in 1982. He was allegedly hired by a convenience store owner to kill another girl, and killed these victims by mistake. The convenience store owner, Muneer Deeb, was originally convicted and sentenced to death, but then was acquitted at a re-trial. The police lieutenant who supervised the investigation of Spence, Marvin Horton, later concluded: "I do not think David Spence committed this crime." Ramon Salinas, the homicide detective who actually conducted the investigation, said: "My opinion is that David Spence was innocent. Nothing from the investigation ever led us to any evidence that he was involved." No physical evidence connected Spence to the crime. The case against Spence was pursued by a
zealous narcotics cop who relied on testimony of prison inmates who were granted favors in return for testimony.
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This is the problem with this case. I have a real problem with the American court system allowing incarcerated inmates to provide testimony, especially without serious collaberation, and I have an even bigger problem with sentence reduction and favors for such testimony.
Anyone with a functional brain should be able to see that. Give a sentence reduction to an incarcerated inmate, he'll tell you under oath that the sky is green and that he personally witnessed the JFK assassination, in spite of the fact that he's never seen Texas and wasn't born until 1982.
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Cameron Willingham Texas Convicted: 1992, Executed: 2004
After examining evidence from the capital prosecution of Cameron Willingham, four national arson experts have concluded that the original investigation of Willingham's case was flawed and it is possible the fire was accidental. The independent investigation, reported by the Chicago Tribune, found that prosecutors and arson investigators used arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances. Willingham was executed earlier this year in Texas despite his consistent claims of innocence. He was convicted of murdering his three children in a 1991 house fire.
Arson expert Gerald Hurst said, "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire." Former Louisiana State University fire instructor Kendall Ryland added, "[It] made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation.... They executed this guy and they've just got no idea - at least not scientifically - if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set."
Willingham was convicted of capital murder after arson investigators concluded that 20 indicators of arson led them to believe that an accelerent had been used to set three separate fires inside his home. Among the only other evidence presented by prosecutors during the the trial was
testimony from jailhouse snitch Johnny E. Webb, a drug addict on psychiatric medication, who claimed Willingham had confessed to him in the county jail.
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Notice we have the same problems here in this case. Still, 8 cases, 1/2 of which are suspect, the other half are based on prison "snitches".