Posted on 08/22/2019 6:44:57 AM PDT by Ennis85
As expected, these “innocent” stories leave out important details considered by the jurors...
(1) The accused had three prior convictions for violence or violent threats against women (evidence presented during the penalty phase of the trial).
(2) The first two times the Police spoke to him about his whereabouts the day the victim disappeared, he lied to them.
(3) When he thought he was about to be arrested for murder, he tried to flee the state in a stolen truck.
(4) The U.S. Supreme Court voted against hearing the case, which requires just 4 votes.
Does this mean we should do what’s best for the gene pool? They harvest organs in China.
[I have chanegd my mind as well and for the same reason. Government simply can’t be trusted. ]
Beware of leftist or libertarian exoneration “experts” who want to see the death penalty ended. Not so long ago, a bunch of them got a teen wolf pack out of jail for a NYC Central Park rape when they were clearly guilty. See Ann Coulter’s book.
At one time I thought that capital punishment was moral and ethical, with the State exercising its right to self-protection. I still think that, in principle, the State retains that right.
But the penalty is not applied fairly. Prosecutors look for an easy conviction. Generally someone who is not politically connected, or who no one cares about because of his race or other characteristic, and who will not put up much of a fight. Once he’s dead, the prosecutor has one more conviction on his slate, and can claim to be fighting for law, justice, and order or some such thing.
Prosecutors who convict unfairly are guilty of a serious crime, and will never be punished.
I oppose the death penalty.
He was clearly guilty. The original article in the anti death penalty agenda magazine intentionally left out all the evidence against the murderer.
The possibility of corrupt prosecution is no reason to
Stop the death penalty.
The solution is to clean up the prosecution process, not let murderers enjoy getting away with it. Obviously most prefer life sentences to death. That’s why they fight it so.
We have lots of checks and balances in our system. Fair trials are performed, juries have to be a hundred percent, there are several appeals available.
Death penalty is a great deterrent and true justice.
Exactly. Its an agenda piece. The guy was overwhelmingly guilty. Victims property found in suspects trailer, etc etc etc. not even close.
Anti death penalty leftists always twist the facts or leave out evidence of guilt.
There’s always the other side of the story that articles like this fail to mention.
In this case, the evidence was there and it spoke for itself. Anti-death penalty crusaders ignore it, and focus on imperfections in DNA issues, and this autopsy claim, as if that’s all there was, to create the impression of injustice. The killer met the girl at a college they both attended. Among the evidence that ties this guy is telephone data that puts him at the obscure place the body was dumped at the time it was dumped. He also created a letter in Spanish, using a Spanish-English dictionary, purporting to be from the “real” killer. False convictions happen, but I’m pretty sure this was not one.
This part doesn't make a lot of sense. From reading about the case, they said they knew he wrote it because it was written in his handwriting. If it was copied how could it have been in his handwriting?
First thing you learn in a jail is that everyone is innocent!
Having served on a jury in a 1st degree murder case, I can tell you that it is very difficult to get a guilty verdict. We had our perp dead to rights (he had the body in his car for a year and a half) and one guy still wanted to acquit.
I see this claim bandied about, but something like 40% of those murders are committed by young black males who make up about 3% of the total population.
When demographic differences are factored out, our murder rate is much lower than most nations of the world.
[Melissa Trotter, 19, went missing on Dec. 8, 1998, in Willis, Texas, north of Houston. She was an outgoing college student last seen alive at the student center at Lone Star College Montgomery County campus. Swearingen at that time was a 27-year-old electrician. He was driving a stolen red pick-up truck and had a history of problems with the law.
“I was a screw up. I was a violent screw up. Two plus two and you get the wrong conclusion. ‘Hey, he’s done these things before. Look over here; yeah we have a good suspect here,’ ” Swearingen said.
Swearingen immediately became the suspect in the Melissa Trotter missing persons case. They had been seen together at the college the day she went missing. Three days after her disappearance, Swearingen was arrested on outstanding traffic warrants. He’s been behind bars ever since.
While being questioned by investigators in 1998, he told them he didn’t know Melissa Trotter and had never spoken to her.
“I don’t even know the girl. Up until that point I didn’t even know that the girl existed,” Swearingen told officers.
“Then why would she have your pager number?” an officer asked.
“She asked me if there was a way to get hold of my sister,” Swearingen responded. “When I walked up to the marina she asked me, ‘Aren’t you Becky’s brother?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’”
“You ain’t never talked to her before?” an officer asked.
Swearingen responded, “No, never.”
On Jan., 2 1999 — 25 days after her disappearance — hunters found the body of Melissa Trotter in a remote location in the Sam Houston National Forest. She was partially clothed. Investigators determined she had been strangled with a leg segment cut from a pair of pantyhose.
It was now a murder investigation. And the evidence against Swearingen was piling up. Police searched his truck and found strands of Melissa Trotter’s hair.
Swearingen now admits she had been in his truck many times.
“We were dating. We were friends with benefits. We went out and had a good time. I enjoyed being with her, and she enjoyed being with me,” he said. “What we did or didn’t do is nobody’s business. There has to be some chivalry in the court system where you don’t degrade someone who can’t be here to say, ‘Yes, that’s true,’ or ‘No, that’s not true.’ ”
While Swearingen was in the county jail, there was a strange twist in the case. A letter written in lousy Spanish claimed that Swearingen was innocent. In the letter, there were details about the case that had not been in the news — about the position of the body and the color of Melissa Trotter’s underwear. This letter could exonerate Swearingen, except for the fact that he wrote it.
“When they started printing in the paper that they were going to kill me — that’s what prompted the Spanish letter,” Swearingen explained. “I was scared to death about it.”
Swearingen said he knew those incriminating details because he had the autopsy report and crime scene photos.
Prosecutors argued they had plenty of evidence that tied Swearingen to the Melissa Trotter murder: a cell phone tower “pinged” him near where the body was found, a match of the murder weapon pantyhose was found at Swearingen’s trailer. Polyester fibers from his truck were on Trotter’s coat.]
Damn, he sure sounds innocent! /s
Too bad he didnt have a jury of “experts”
Too bad he didnt have a jury of “experts”
Thank God this guy was white or every Democrat candidate would claim he was innocent. But the facts say otherwise:
https://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/swearingen-larry.htm
Fiber evidence showed that Trotter (the victim) had been in Swearingen’s trailer, on the floor and perhaps on the bed, and in the cab of his pickup truck. And evidence in the truck cab showed that some of her hair had been pulled from her head. Although neither Swearingen nor his wife smoked, a pack of cigarettes, Trotter’s brand, was found in Swearingen’s trailer. A piece of hosiery, the companion to the piece used to strangle Trotter, was found in a trash heap beside Swearingen’s trailer. Hair evidence linked the hosiery to Swearingen’s wife. Cell phone records showed that on the day that Trotter disappeared, Swearingen traveled from his trailer to the area where the body was found. After Trotter disappeared, Swearingen told friends that he was in trouble and that the police would be after him.
While in jail awaiting trial, Swearingen, using a Spanish-English dictionary, composed a letter in crude Spanish, purportedly written by an individual named “Robin.” In the letter “Robin” identified Trotter’s killer as an individual named “R.D.” The prosecution alleged that Swearingen composed the letter, arranged for it to be hand-copied by a cellmate, and had the letter delivered to authorities, to deflect blame from himself.
Were he innocent, then God will have mercy upon his soul.
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