Posted on 03/15/2013 10:43:41 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A federal appeals court overturned the convictions of an Arizona woman who was sentenced to die after being found guilty of orchestrating a gruesome plot to murder her 4-year-old son for insurance money in 1989.
The court ruled Debra Jean Milke's case was tainted by a detective with a history of lying under oath.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If the detective lied to put her on death row, justice requires that he be punished by the same fate that would have befallen her if his lies had stuck: death.
The two other perps confessed but what did they have to gain without her collecting the insurance money and distributing a cut to them?
Unbelievable.
Firstly, she wasn’t executed. So at worst it’d be attempted murder on the part of a a perjurous detective. I don’t think you can get death even if you try to kill the president. Unless they considered it treason.
Secondly, the story doesn’t say the detective deliberately lied with intent to fry this woman. It just says he has a history of lying.
The conviction was based on the detective’s claim that Milke confessed. The detective had a history of lying under oath. That’s a “technicality”?
I don’t know if this lady is guilty or innocent.
I will say this. Had I sat on this jury it had to be excrutiating.
And had I later found out that there was a known liar as a “witness”, I would be devastaed by the verdict and sentence I might have arrived at.
Well I just don’t see a mother dressing her 4 year old up to go see Santa and sending him off with 2 men and no going along herself. And the two men confessed to the deed.
So I suppose it’s circumstantial but she sure sounds guilty to me. And I have to wonder what this history of lying is. Over zealousness?
Scott confessed during a police interrogation and led detectives to the boy's body, but neither Scott or Styers would testify against Milke.
I bet at least one of them will now.
what she did isn’t changed by the detective’s bad history.
that said, this guy should never have been allowed to have a second incident of lying under oath. fired, tried and jailed the first time it was discovered.
Valid questions, and I’m certainly not convinced she’s innocent. The process and the outcome are two separate considerations, both important — and even if the outcome is the right one, the process cannot accept anything other than a full and fair hearing of the evidence. Because if it’s allowed to railroad the guilty, the innocent will get caught under that train.
If the detective lied to put her on death row, justice requires that he be punished by the same fate that would have befallen her if his lies had stuck: death.
The story lumped "lying" together with "failure to read Miranda right", so I wonder how much of a "liar" this detective actually is? Did he slightly exaggerate something against a real scumbag once, or did he totally fabricte stories? Cops are routinely accused of lying. If indeed the detective is a liar, show me the conviction(s) for perjury.
Man, my spelling is so poor on this post..I’m not even going to try to correct it.
Time to leave.....
The detective ‘HAD a history’ in a past case or cases- however, Did the judge find that he infact lied under oath in this case? If not, then there shoudl have been a retrial- not an aquittal
There was no recording of the interrogation, no one else was in the room or watching from a two-way mirror, and Saldate said he threw away his notes shortly after completing his report.
...
Specifically, the judge noted that the detective had been suspended five days for taking "liberties" with a female motorist and lying about it to his supervisors; that judges had tossed out four confessions or indictments because Saldate had lied under oath; and that judges suppressed or vacated four confessions because Saldate had violated a person's constitutional rights.
If there's enough suspicious behavior and circumstantial evidence to put Milke to death, there's certainly enough suspicious behavior and circumstantial evidence on Saldate's part to cast doubt on his testimony. After he'd been slapped down eight previous times by judges, I'm not buying that he "failed to read Miranda right"; how many lessons does that take? He was either a compulsive liar or irredeemably stupid, and had no business still being a detective.
Cops are accused of lying all the time because they can and do lie all the time.
It’s legal for a cop to lie to you while investigating, it’s illegal for you to lie to them.
It’s only perjury when they do it under oath.
This is why you never talk to the po-po.
There was not an acquittal. The verdict was vacated. The prosecutor has 30 days to decide whether to bring the charges again.
How would you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the detective lied in this case? What he allegedly lied about was a confession with no one else in the room, no one observing, no recording, and he destroyed his notes. Because of his own actions, there is no evidence other than his word of the alleged confession.
Yes, intellectually I can understand your point. Emotionally my instinct is she had her child murdered. Beyond unthinkable for me.
Why didn’t the judge order a new trial? if the witness is unreliable, isn’t that for a jury to decide? It seems like there wasn’t any proof he lied in this case.
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