Crazy, tragic story. My wife sobbed through a lot of it, so maybe plan to watch it during shark week or some other non-festive time as it's obviously a downer. [Reply]
Horrible story. I haven't watched this yet, but I remember when it happened and watched the PBS documentary not long ago. Everybody was against them, with some people remaining vocally so after their release. It's really sad. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Deberg_1990:
At the time,Trump called for the death penalty and used many hateful words against these guys. Wonder if he ever apologized?
Originally Posted by listopencil:
I'm still not convinced that they were innocent.
That's the thing, people are BOTH so polarized and so addicted to narratives, that an accurate picture will never emerge without a lot of carnage.
The authorities overstepped procedurally and thus the individuals were entitled to absolution and recompense for the failures of the state in the administration of justice. But in the course of that, absolution in fact, or factual innocence, was not established as the present-day hagiographers would have people believe.
It was a group of individuals acting lawlessly in concert that resulted in some heinous crimes. The state failed to do the hard work to explicitly establish who did what and overused the acting in concert aspect to convict them all. It was sound strategy at the time, when the heinousness of the criminal acts were the focus, but it left holes in the evidentiary record when the focus shifted to racial politics and convict rights.
I'm saddened by this overall, from almost every angle. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Baby Lee:
That's the thing, people are BOTH so polarized and so addicted to narratives, that an accurate picture will never emerge without a lot of carnage.
The authorities overstepped procedurally and thus the individuals were entitled to absolution and recompense for the failures of the state in the administration of justice. But in the course of that, absolution in fact, or factual innocence, was not established as the present-day hagiographers would have people believe.
It was a group of individuals acting lawlessly in concert that resulted in some heinous crimes. The state failed to do the hard work to explicitly establish who did what and overused the acting in concert aspect to convict them all. It was sound strategy at the time, when the heinousness of the criminal acts were the focus, but it left holes in the evidentiary record when the focus shifted to racial politics and convict rights.
I'm saddened by this overall, from almost every angle.
Originally Posted by Deberg_1990:
At the time,Trump called for the death penalty and used many hateful words against these guys. Wonder if he ever apologized?
Just finished it last night. Then went on a an informational tear to read more about the case.
Such a sad and tragic story. Hard to watch for sure. But also very well done. It's clear that there were racial motivations for their incarceration and that the DA was more interested in a conviction than finding the truth. It's unforgivable that given the evidence and that the rapist had a recent history AND was already incarcerated, that they couldn't connect the dots.
Some of the formerly accused have used their settlement money to support others in prison, potentially wrongly accused. I think that certainly supports how deeply their self-convictions of innocence indeed are.
Even if you're not "convinced" they are innocent, the only way they should've been convicted is "beyond a shadow of a doubt" - clearly not the case. [Reply]