zlacker

>>YeGobl+(OP)
The way death row inmates are treated is arguably a reason to be against death row. There was also a case where a person on death row couldn’t present exculpatory evidence to prove his innocence because his last appeals lawyer didn’t do it. The Supreme Court literally decided you can prove you have evidence that proves your innocence, that you were done dirty by an incompetent lawyer, it doesn’t matter, you should still be killed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinn_v._Ramirez

>>Samoye+Eg
One of the other death row inmates mentioned in the article as having failed the junk science law, Kosoul Chanthakoummane, was partly convicted for hypnosis induced testimony. The appeal response on calling it junk science was, paraphrased, "hypnosis induced testimony was known to be bogus in ~2005, when your trial was. You should have argued it then."

That alone is terrible. But to make that bullshit even worse, Texas continued to use hypnosis induced testimony until 2021.

It makes me wonder when the last death penalty sentence for "shaken baby syndrome" was in Texas.

>>boombo+8j
Why? Shaken Baby Syndrome is a real thing.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shaken-baby-s...

[UPDATE] To those of you downvoting me, would you kindly explain why? It seems like a reasonable question to me.

>>lisper+cE
It is, but those claiming psedoscience aren't even claiming that the set of symptoms aren't "real", just that they don't deserve their own label because of the implication.

"We can't explain this trio of internal head/brain/eye trauma with lack of corresponding external trauma, but don't you dare make the reasonable claim that shaking a baby can/does nominally cause the symptoms we see when a baby is, in fact, shaken."

>>beeran+7K
That's not how it goes. Shaking was proposed as an explanation for the triad, not observed as the cause. Then the syndrome was named after the proposed explanation and used as a justification to assume shaking whenever the triad was observed. The Guardian article makes this timeline clear.

Moreover, the Syndrome was used to justify suspicion of deliberate harm in cases where the triad was not observed at all, as I think in Roberson's case, if you read between the lines - no article about the case mentions the triad, only generic injuries that could, allegedly, only be caused by shaking.