West Memphis 3 freed

[tazber]

West Memphis 3 freed#1

Posted: 8/19/11 at 2:18pm

I've seen both of those documentaries on this case, and there is some compelling evidence for their innocence.


But this is the "loophole" that caught my eye:

The defendants, known by their supporters as the West Memphis 3, agreed to a legal maneuver that lets them maintain their innocence while acknowledging prosecutors have enough evidence against them.

"I am innocent of these charges but I am entering an Alford guilty plea," Echols told the judge. Baldwin and Miskelley also reasserted their innocence.

I get what loophole does, but I don't understand it at all.

Link

....but the world goes 'round

[madbrian]

West Memphis 3 freed#2

Posted: 8/19/11 at 2:36pm

I think that plea is also known as 'no contest', and the legal/Latin term is 'nolo contedere'. Not sure why it was used in this case, but it could be used for someone to accept a plea bargain without admitting guilt, sometimes to avoid civil culpability.

"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson

[AC126748]

West Memphis 3 freed#2

Posted: 8/19/11 at 2:40pm

A "no contest" plea means that you neither plead guilty nor innocent. This seems to be a different kind of plea all together.

"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

[thetinymagic2]

West Memphis 3 freed#3

Posted: 8/19/11 at 7:55pm

This is why people hate lawyers.

[strummergirl]

West Memphis 3 freed#4

Posted: 8/19/11 at 10:09pm

The first Paradise Lost documentary was incredible. Paradise Lost 2 seemed more like service paid to debunk some of the possible people of interest in the case. Like one of the victims' fathers came off as a real weirdo in the first documentary and in the PL2 they went out of their way to show he was just simply an odd guy who was not a suspect. In fact, I think that guy had been vocal about the West Memphis Three's innocence. But I also remember PL2 contained some compelling evidence about a father/stepfather of another victim that included shoelaces, hair, etc. near the crime scene.

I doubt there is ever resolve for the case of the kids having their real murderer getting tried and convicted. This plea deal is almost an avoidance of the state getting sued once the West Memphis Three got out.