Is Virginia part of Texas? (Criminal Justice System)

[wakeme2008]

:hide:

From this Sundays Roanoke Times http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/50382

Recanted testimony often seen as suspect
Some states more readily overturn convictions if testimony changes. Virginia does not.
By Laurence Hammack

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When a young girl recanted her testimony against Aleck J. Carpitcher, saying he did not molest her in 1998, it took nearly six years for the justice system to respond.

The result: Carpitcher is still in prison.

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But in Virginia, the Supreme Court has noted that "the opportunity for fraud and temptation are so obvious that courts look with suspicion" on recantations -- language that was cited in last week's decision to deny Carpitcher a new trial.

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For four years, Carpitcher was barred from making an innocence claim by Virginia's 21-day rule,For Carpitcher to win a new trial, he had to show that his newly discovered evidence -- the recantation -- was material, or that it would have affected the outcome of his trial. By failing to prove that the girl's trial testimony was false, the court ruled, he failed to meet the law's high burden for overturning his conviction. which was once the nation's most restrictive time limit for presenting newly discovered evidence.

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When Aleck Carpitcher's accuser -- who was 11 at the time of his trial and is now 17 -- first recanted nine months after his trial, no one invited her into the prosecutor's office to listen to her story.

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A polygraph test appeared to indicate that she was being truthful when she said the crimes she described to a jury never happened. She even wrote a letter to then-Gov. Jim Gilmore, pleading that Carpitcher be set free.

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Just unbelievable, 9 months after a person goes to jail, the only piece of evidence against trys to tell ppl that she was mad at him for being her mother's new BF and wanted him out of the house and made up the sexual abuse story. But still that is NOT enough in Virginia to free him.

It will be interesting to see what Kaine will do with this issue!!!!

[China_cat]

1. And SCOTUS agrees

“Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached”...Anton Scalia

If being innocent can't keep you from being executed, why should it let you out of a jail sentence.

[Jara sang]

2. Scalia is a death monger.

The world wil be better off when he is not in it.

[demosincebirth]

3. Ahhh, I just think about those that were executed and were probalbly

innocent. I also think about those over zealous prosecutors who are presented with evidence that might exonerate a person and will not even consider presenting it.

[napi21]

4. This kind of thing in our justice system is inexcuseable!

This case is the worst I've ever heard.

I try to listen to Len Tilliian on KGO radio on the weekends. He's a lawyer and takes all kinds of calls. A few months ago, a woman called to say her son 18, was accused of rape of a 16 year old girl and arrested. He spent several days in jail, and when he went to court for his hearing, the girl admitted she made the accusation falsely because she was mad at him. The charges were dropped, BUT he was in fact arrested for a sex offense WHICH CANNOT EVER BE REMOVED FROM HIS RECORD!

I was sooo upset hearing that, and that the attorney confirmed it! Every job he ever applies for, he will have to explain this mess...IF HE'S GIVEN A CHANCE TO EXPLAIN! Many employers will just write him off and never ask.

I don't understand how this kind of thing can continue for all these years without ever being corrected in the law!!!!

[pop goes the weasel]

5. why the gratuitous swipe at Texas?

Laboring under a delusion that other states can't be idiotic on their own?

[wakeme2008]

7. I was born in El Paso

:) I am a true Texan. Not a Conn. born "Texan" .

[pop goes the weasel]

11. OK

But I was expecting, from the subject heading, some sort of actual connection in the article. Texas has plenty of problems, but its process for re-trying a case seems to have fewer hurdles than the Virginia system. Bringing Texas into what is a Virginia problem only serves to distract Virginians from their own responsibility. It's the "thank God for Mississippi" mindset--it can't be that bad *here* because it is worse someplace else.

[Virginia Dare]

6. God forbid....

We got our own wing-nuts here, we don't need Texas'

[ContraBass Black]

8. In Virginia, guilt is not necessary for conviction.

Welcome to the Commonwealth.

[wakeme2008]

9. Like the title of this thread

Had I read this about Texas, Georgia or Repug states, I would have believed it, but I thought Virginia was more progressive than that.

:shrug:

[ContraBass Black]

10. What Virginia are you talking about?

Certainly not this one.