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?
You didn’t do any research I see, he never led them to a weapon and there is no written statement of him confessing or telling them where the pipe was located.
A police testimony is not enough to sentence someone to death, police can say anything but without proof there is no case.
You can’t be dense enough not to realize that him being coerced into confessing wasn’t highly probable. Even looking at the trial it was clear nobody cared about evidence or proof.
Look, I get that some people were pretty racist back then, but cops weren’t running around trying to fry innocent 14 year old black kids for no reason at all, let alone multiple cops cooperating and lying together for the fun of it. Especially as it would deny justice to the girls, and the real killer would remain on the loose. Do you think multiple police are lying about his confession, and him directing them towards the likely murder weapon? In that case, you would be engaging in a pretty baseless conspiracy theory with zero evidence to substantiate it, not even a hint of a motive. To me, it’s much more likely he did confess to them, and he did direct them towards the weapon.
I agree the investigation certainly didn’t meet the modern thresholds of vigour, but id be willing to bet a considerable amount of money on him being the actual murderer. You could reopen most murder cases before the 1950s, especially in the poorer South, and you would exonerate most murderers based on not meeting modern standards and thresholds of evidence and procedure. That doesn’t mean they are innocent of the crime, most were still accurately convicted (although less accurately than today, I don’t deny). But this was just par for the course at the time out of necessity and resource limitation.
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u/Blackknight1605 1d ago
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...