Who wants to be a judge?

[papasmurfbell]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/26/ms-judge-accused-of-smacking-mentally-disabled-black-man-yelling-run-n-gger-run/

 

 

 

Under Mississippi law, elected justice court judges are required only to hold a high school diploma, although legislators recommended in 2007 that they should hold a higher degree, preferably a law degree.

 

 

 

MS judge accused of smacking mentally disabled black man, yelling, ‘Run, n-gger, run’

 

[deeshopper]

Nice.

[Spen]

Thats not scary at all.....

[papasmurfbell]

Well this guy has given grounds fro every case he has heard to be retried. Enjoy the use of more tax dollars going to waste.

[Spen]

A few years ago I read a pretty interesting book called "The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession". It was basically a collection of articles a journalist published various places put into book form. One of them was about the death penalty and how relatively low qualified people have been responsable for sending many people to death row, mostly in rural areas. It mentioned how some detectives and policeman are not trained to properly analyze crime scenes and instead rely on folksy wisdom and common sense detectin'. The main focus of the article was on arson investigations. In some areas there is virtually no training involved and these people often determine whether a crime was committed or whether it was an accident. The main story was about a man named Cameron Todd Willingham (interesting read if you feel like looking it up), but there was a lot more information in the article about how inspectors deemed unqualified still continue to testify in criminal cases as expert witnesses.

[papasmurfbell]

Is that the famous arson case that was in the press several yrs back? I recall that it was deemed arson but in the appeal an expert basically said the original expert had no idea what he was talking about. I believe the guy was convicted of burning up his family.

 

Just recently I saw something on how the FBI was teh go to for hair fiber cases. They sent many people away on that testimony alone. Now over and over DNA is overturning those cases and the FBI is going back and looking to see how badly they screwed up.

[Spen]

Yes thats it. The arson inspector was incompetent. This part is fun too:

 

A psychologist was asked to interpret Willingham's Iron Maiden poster, and said that a picture of a fist punching through a skull signified violence and death. He added that Willingham's Led Zeppelin poster of a fallen angel was "many times" an indicator of "cultive-type" activities. Psychiatrist James Grigson said that a man of Willingham's criminal history was an "extremely severe sociopath" and was incurable. Grigson was an expert witness for the prosecution in murder trials across the state of Texas. Prior to his death, he was expelled by the American Psychiatric Association and the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians for unethical conduct, the APA stating that Grigson had violated the organization's ethics code by "arriving 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"

 

And when findings were given to prove the original conclusions were wrong or flawed good old Governor Rick Perry dismissed them as "junk science" and refused a stay of execution. Later, post execution, a panel was called to look at everything to see if mistakes were made. Good old Governor Rick Perry replaced 3 panelists when it appeared things were going to come back in a way he didnt like.

[papasmurfbell]

Well look at the West Memphis 3 or the 80's "satanic worshipers" who tortured children.

[Spen]

Yeah, sad and scary stuff.