Are You In Favor Of The Death Penalty? Then, Think About This...
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DENVER (Reuters) - A man sentenced to life in prison for raping a Colorado woman and strangling her to death with a dog leash could be freed on Monday based on advanced DNA testing that is believed to exonerate him of the crime.
Robert "Rider" Dewey, 51, who has been imprisoned since his 1996 conviction,
is scheduled to appear before a Colorado judge on Monday in Grand
Junction for a post-conviction hearing in his case, according to the
county's court docket.
The DNA testing, which was requested by Dewey's current
lawyer, exonerates him and he is expected to be released from prison, a
legal source who said he had seen a memo related to the case told
Reuters on condition of anonymity. Local media also reported his release
was likely.
Dewey was convicted and sentenced to life without parole for the rape and murder of Jacie Taylor,
19, in the western Colorado town of Palisade. Taylor's partially
clothed body was found in her bathtub in June 1994. She had been beaten,
sexually assaulted and strangled with the leash.
Dewey's lawyer, Danyel Joffe, would not comment on what the DNA tests may have revealed ahead of Monday's hearing.
She said she submitted the case to the Colorado Justice Review Project,
a program established in 2009 with a $1.2 million federal government
grant that allows convicted felons to apply for DNA testing in their
cases.
The program is administered by the office of Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, who lauded it as a way for advanced DNA techniques to affirm convictions or clear the innocent.
A spokesman for Suthers referred questions about the
Dewey case to the Mesa County District Attorney's Office, which couldn't
be reached for comment over the weekend.
Dewey has maintained his innocence throughout the case.
Questions arose during his trial about whether blood on
his shirt belonged to the victim, according to local news accounts. A
defense expert disputed the prosecution's contention that the blood
matched Taylor's, the reports said.
The semen found on the victim did not match Dewey at
the time of his conviction, but no other suspect was ever arrested for
the crimes.
Under Colorado law, a first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole.
At Dewey's sentencing, then-Mesa County District Judge
Charles Buss was quoted in local media as telling the defendant that, "I
am happy to impose it (a life sentence) on you."
Dewey replied: "There's still a killer out there."
The hearing on Monday is before a different judge, who is expected to rule on whether to release Dewey.
Post-conviction DNA testing has exonerated nearly 290
people in the United States since 1989, according to the Innocence
Project, which works to reverse wrongful convictions.
This is just one of the reasons I am against the Death Penalty!
So, are you really in favor of the Death Penalty???
Top Opinion
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CUDDLY BUT STILL CRABBY 2012/05/02 15:57:15Undecided
You should believe everything the government tells you.
I dont
Sheriff Joe, Maricopa county Ar. puts em in pink jump suits, and tosses em in tent city, no hbo, no air conditioning, no fancy spancy high rise jail,,
Sheriff Joe, he knows how to deter them from coming back...
Under those circumstances, going with the least common denominator, I would rather have someone kill me before I choose to judge that fellow human being who murdered me.
You've basically advocated anarchy. Your statement: "I would rather have someone kill me" - I would rather be murdered, "before I choose to judge that fellow human being" - than have anyone face justice. You're advocating that murder is better than the judicial system.
The judicial system of all nations deal with many crimes in many different ways. The crimes for which death is the penalty has no common guidelines at all and are intensely subjective and driven by sociological phenomena such as culture, tradition and religion. The only difference between death (and a few other forms of physical mutilation) for a crime and other forms of punishment for the same crime is that one simply cannot undo them. Since the reasons why a person is judicially executed or damaged beyond repair are dubious with no commonalities /denominators, I simply do not subscribe to them.
What then is left for me is an individual take on it - not a systemic response. I will expand the matter here.I shall rather have someone kill me than choose to judge that fellow human being who murdered me and insist on his execution. I would rather someone steal from me than have that person's hands cut off. I would rather that someone sexually assault me than have that person's genitalia mutilated.
This is not tantamount to anarchy. Judicial systems take their course. If I live in a country that has a system that does any of the above, I will abide by it. However, I shall not subscribe to it. My best option would be to live in a country that do not have such judicial systems. More by chance than design, that is exactly what I am doing now :)
as to death penalty.. what a deterent against future crime .. only deterent that is 100 %
The death penalty is a serious deterrent I agree but not a bullet proof one. The same goes for cutting off the hands of a man who steals or lopping off the head /penis of a man who rapes. People will always kill, steal and rape so for me, the deterrent argument is relatively weak.
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This brings to mind this piece by Khalil Gibran that shows the utter subjectivity and ultimate futility of "reasoned laws":
Ages ago there was a great king, and he was wise. And he desired to lay laws unto his subjects. He called upon one thousand wise men of one thousand different tribes to his capital and lay down the laws.
And all this came to pass.
But when the thousand laws written upon parchment were put before the king and he read them, he wept bitterly in his soul, for he had not known that there were one thousand forms of crime in his kingdom.
Then he called his scribe, and with a smile upon his mouth he himself dictated laws. And his laws were but seven.
And the one thousand wise men left him in anger and returned to their tribes with the laws they had laid down. And every tribe followed the laws of its wi...
The death penalty is a serious deterrent I agree but not a bullet proof one. The same goes for cutting off the hands of a man who steals or lopping off the head /penis of a man who rapes. People will always kill, steal and rape so for me, the deterrent argument is relatively weak.
--------------------
This brings to mind this piece by Khalil Gibran that shows the utter subjectivity and ultimate futility of "reasoned laws":
Ages ago there was a great king, and he was wise. And he desired to lay laws unto his subjects. He called upon one thousand wise men of one thousand different tribes to his capital and lay down the laws.
And all this came to pass.
But when the thousand laws written upon parchment were put before the king and he read them, he wept bitterly in his soul, for he had not known that there were one thousand forms of crime in his kingdom.
Then he called his scribe, and with a smile upon his mouth he himself dictated laws. And his laws were but seven.
And the one thousand wise men left him in anger and returned to their tribes with the laws they had laid down. And every tribe followed the laws of its wise men.
Therefore they have a thousand laws even to our own day.
It is a great country, but it has one thousand prisons, and the prisons are full of women and men, breakers of a thousand laws.
It is indeed a great country, but the people thereof are decendants of one thousand law-givers and of only one wise king.
But I do not trust the judicial system enough to wield such final power over human lives.
death penalty is a deterent for that criminal to never commit an other crime again...
they rob, steal, kill , rape each other , the crimes continue, it is just that we are not the victims ...
but , I feel they earned that right ...
But the economic concerns are valid, a person sentenced to 25 years in prison will cost the taxpayer $1.9 Million. But that's why I'm for atleast decriminlizaion of drugs, because it will significantly lower prison populations.
I have never been in favor of the Death Penalty.
I believe that only God has the final judgement.