Tuesday, February 11, 2003

If Only Medicaid Would Provide A Prescription Drug Benefit . . . We Could Execute Prisoners Without a Hitch State Can Make Inmate Sane Enough to Execute. A federal appeals court ruled that officials in Arkansas can force a prisoner on death row to take antipsychotic medication to make him sane enough to execute. By Adam Liptak. [New York Times: National] Yet another example of the "insanity" of the never-ending pursuit of "justice" through the imposition of the ultimate penalty. 8:56:51 PM    comment [] How Appealing Brings Us Conservative 7th Circuit Jurist Frank Easterbrook's View on Eye Witness Testimony -- Thanks Howard Circuit Judge Frank H. Easterbrook examines the problem of eyewitness testimony: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit today affirmed a $15 million verdict against the City of Chicago, and in favor of an individual who was wrongfully convicted of the crime of murder. On the issue of eyewitness testimony, Circuit Judge Frank H. Easterbrook's opinion for the court explains: Most persons have difficulty remembering or describing the features of strangers. A person who sees a criminal for only a brief time takes away a vague sense of appearance and behavior--and that sense may be focused by a sketch, photograph, showup, or lineup after the events. Sometimes the witness zeroes in on the correct person, sometimes not; there is an element of chance and an opportunity for manipulation. Once the witness decides that "X is it" the view may be unshakable. Psychological research has established that the witness's faith is equally strong whether or not the identification is correct. We described these findings in Krist v. Eli Lilly & Co., 897 F.2d 293 (7th Cir. 1990): "An important body of psychological research undermines the lay intuition that confident memories of salient experiences . . . are accurate and do not fade with time unless a person’s memory has some pathological impairment. . . . The basic problem about testimony from memory is that most of our recollections are not verifiable. The only warrant for them is our certitude, and certitude is not a reliable test of certainty. . . . [T]he mere fact that we remember something with great confidence is not a powerful warrant for thinking it true." 897 F.2d at 296-97 (citations to the scholarly literature omitted). See Elizabeth F. Loftus & James M. Doyle, Eyewitness Testimony: Civil and Criminal (3d ed. 1997); Elizabeth F. Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony (1979; rev. ed. 1996); Daniel L. Schacter, The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers 112-37 (2001). See also United States v. Hall, 165 F.3d 1095, 1118-20 (7th Cir. 1999) (concurring opinion). Jurors, however, tend to think that witnesses' memories are reliable (because jurors are confident of their own), and this gap between the actual error rate and the jurors' heavy reliance on eyewitness testimony sets the stage for erroneous convictions when (as in Newsome's prosecution) everything depends on uncorroborated eyewitness testimony by people who do not know the accused. You can access the complete opinion at this link. [How Appealing] A problem well known to criminal defense lawyers gets some deserving attention!! 8:51:44 PM    comment [] The War on Drugs -- Almost as Ubiquitous as Pop Culture It Seems After Arrest in Drug Buy, 'Dell Dude' Gets a Cell. After a night in jail, Benjamin Curtis, 22, who plays Steven, the Dell dude, faced a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession. By Marc Santora. [New York Times: Technology] 8:38:38 PM    comment []

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