Passionate subject: Innocent Until Proven Guilty, Or Exonerated After 35 Years In Prison

James Bain

For 35 years, in the eye's of the world, this man was a child rapist. He would have told you he was innocent, but that's what they all say.

The trouble is sometimes they are telling the truth.

These are people who were sentenced to DIE for something they DID NOT DO.



James Bain was convicted on the basis of eyewitness testimony. The victim personally identified him. Bain said he was at home with his sister when the crime occurred. Who would you believe? The jury believed the child and sent Bains to prison for the rest of his life when he was 19.

Turns out DNA evidence proves Bain was NOT A RAPIST. So the Georgia Department of Corrections let him go home. After a 35 year stay in prison.

These are people who were sentenced to DIE for something they DID NOT DO.

I do not oppose the Death Penalty on Moral Grounds. People like Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez make it very hard to do that. I oppose it on grounds that INNOCENT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN AND WILL BE PUT TO DEATH.

I have no idea how else to make my point. That reality should speak for itelf.

THe statistics prove it. Those exonerated are not just a list of names. I believe that people assume that it just won't happen to them.

Put someone in an orange jumpsuit, write the word "convicted of ..." under a photograph of them, and your entire intellectual and emotional perception of them changes. And for all practical purposes perception is reality. The jury said Bain raped a child. So anyone cruising the Georgia Corrections Database would have been under the impression that Bain was a rapist of children.


Now imagine that person is you. Makes people thinking your rude or a drunk seem insignificant, doesn't it? You know your not a drunk, and that's all that matters. With crime however, it does not work that way. Bains knew he was not a child rapist. But what everyone else thought kept him incarcerated.

Arguments for capitol punishment I have personally heard include: "the vast majority are guilty, and I'm sorry if some poor guy gets swept under the rug."

This is also known as the "if you wanna make an omelet you gotta crack some eggs" argument. I guess in this case we are making a "justice omelet." I don't foresee any of the proposers of this line of logic volunteering to be the ingredients.

That's the problem. Being accused of something you did not do, for most people, is the stuff of movies. It's not something that can actually happen. "They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Really? Bains was at home. Is that the wrong place to be?

Death Penalty statistics are batted around all the time. But my argument does not really hinge on statistics outside of wrongful conviction rates, which is enough for me.

For me personally, the concept of the penalty as a deterrent is odd, regardless of statistics considering that most individuals who commit a crime do not intend to be caught.

Deathpenalty.org
Amnesty

"May ten guilty men go free before one innocent man goes to prison"