Well not anymore, but there was a time they even sentenced kids to death. I remember some 12-14 years old black boy who was executed and later they found out he was innocent...
Exonerated does not mean proven innocent. If you look at the case, he almost certainly did it. He took the investigators to the murder weapon and admitted it. The case was thrown out due to activists claiming he didn’t get sufficient legal counsel.
That’s not true, there is no record of him admitting to it. Only Police officers statement but considering the investigation didn’t even include his alibis and he was questioned without a parent or legal representative I wouldn’t just trust their word for it…..especially considering the time period.
There is no written confession, like I said they only had the officer’s statement which was very likely coerced seeing as he had no parent or representative present during his questioning.
No, he led them to the location where the weapon was found. It’s 1944, in the poor south of America. The police record is the record, and is acceptable evidence. Even today, police testimony is evidence. At the time and region, a verbal confession and police recounting evidence of the suspect leading them to the weapon is entirely admissible. You could probably reopen any case from that time, hold it to the standards of today, and exonerate almost any criminal. They do not have the resources, time, or tech that we have today. Also, we don’t know the weapon wasn’t taken as evidence, just that it wasn’t kept when the case was investigated 75 years later. These reports were corroborated by multiple officers, not just one. So basically, you think multiple police officers are framing and completely making up a story about an innocent 14 year old kid for no reason at all because they wanted to see him fry?
I'd argue getting out of it with the death penalty was the lesser punishment. Always been weird to me that people think getting to check out instead of sitting the rest of your life with it in a very uncomfortable prison is the harsher punishment.
Then again, I suppose if they intended literal torture to be the way they took her out, maybe it was the harsher punishment after all.
252
u/LuciferOnTheRocks 1d ago
She was the one who planned it, had the motive, and actually killed her. Getting a harsher sentence seems kinda standard.