Snuff this SOB

[Boxlicker101]

Hopefully, the state of Texas willhave sense enough to do the right thing tonight.

http://law.rightpundits.com/?p=1009

ETA: Okay, my bad. Texas did the right thing over four months ago.

 

[stephen55]

Why waste the money....?

Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976. The last execution in Canada was carried out on December 11, 1962. Technically, the Canadian military retained the death penalty for a number of military offenses, including treason and mutiny until 1998 when the last vestiges of the death penalty in Canada were abolished with the passage of legislation removing all references to capital punishment from the National Defence Act.

Without going into the legalities, morals, ethics and the occasional wrongful use of capital punishment (more than a few have been put to death for crimes later proved to have been committed by others), what those American states that still execute people might want to consider is the economic cost of capital punishment.

http://law.jrank.org/pages/5002/Capital-Punishment-COSTS-CAPITAL-PUNISHMENT.html

It costs very little to execute the condemned. At first glance, the costs involved in the execution of an inmate appear simple and minuscule. As of 2003, the state of Florida paid $150 to the executioner, $20 for the last meal, $150 for a new suit for the inmate's burial, and $525 for the undertaker's services and a coffin. In Florida, the cost of an execution is less than $1,000.

The cost of arriving at that execution is enormous.

In 1989, the state of Florida executed 42-year-old Ted Bundy. Bundy confessed to 28 murders in four states. During his nine years on death row, he received three stays of execution. Before he was put to death in the electric chair, Bundy cost taxpayers more than $5 million.

In a country where some 70 percent of the population favors the death penalty, many people may feel that Bundy got what he deserved. A further question, however, is whether U.S. taxpayers got their money's worth. When a single sentence of death can cost millions of dollars to carry out, does it make economic sense to retain the death penalty?

According to a 1990 study, the total cost to build a maximum-security prison cell is $63,000, which breaks down to approximately $5,000 a year in principal and interest. The annual cost to maintain an inmate in this cell is approximately $20,000 a year. Together, these costs mean an annual expenditure of $25,000 to incarcerate an inmate. Based on a sentence term of 40 to 45 years, one inmate would cost the taxpayer only slightly more than $1 million—less than a third of what it would take to pay for the process that culminates in execution. A twenty-five-year-old woman convicted of first-degree murder would need to serve a life term to the age of 145 before the costs of incarcerating her would surpass those of executing her.

Keeping those convicted of first degree murder in prison makes sense. It removes any threat they pose to the public. It denies them the public platform they often seek and achieve. Think of life in prison with zero chance of parole as being tossed into the black hole of the justice system. Nothing gets out. And you save a bundle in the process.

 

[oggbashan]

When the UK still had capital punishment, the time between sentence and execution, including all appeals, was about three weeks.

We didn't have a Death Row. We had a condemned cell that the prisoner went to for the last few hours.

The cost of executing a convicted criminal was far less than that of keeping that criminal in prison of three months.

It is not the cost of execution that is the problem, it is the cost of the appeals process. If a sentence of death is passed, then, unless there are real doubts about the validity of the trial, one appeal only should be allowed within days of the sentence. If that appeal is rejected, execution should be almost immediate.

However that doesn't solve the recurring problem - what if new evidence later shows that the convicted person was innocent? You can't bring someone back to life if the legal system makes a mistake.

Og

 

[Boxlicker101]

Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976. The last execution in Canada was carried out on December 11, 1962. Technically, the Canadian military retained the death penalty for a number of military offenses, including treason and mutiny until 1998 when the last vestiges of the death penalty in Canada were abolished with the passage of legislation removing all references to capital punishment from the National Defence Act.

Without going into the legalities, morals, ethics and the occasional wrongful use of capital punishment (more than a few have been put to death for crimes later proved to have been committed by others), what those American states that still execute people might want to consider is the economic cost of capital punishment.

http://law.jrank.org/pages/5002/Capital-Punishment-COSTS-CAPITAL-PUNISHMENT.html

It costs very little to execute the condemned. At first glance, the costs involved in the execution of an inmate appear simple and minuscule. As of 2003, the state of Florida paid $150 to the executioner, $20 for the last meal, $150 for a new suit for the inmate's burial, and $525 for the undertaker's services and a coffin. In Florida, the cost of an execution is less than $1,000.

The cost of arriving at that execution is enormous.

In 1989, the state of Florida executed 42-year-old Ted Bundy. Bundy confessed to 28 murders in four states. During his nine years on death row, he received three stays of execution. Before he was put to death in the electric chair, Bundy cost taxpayers more than $5 million.

In a country where some 70 percent of the population favors the death penalty, many people may feel that Bundy got what he deserved. A further question, however, is whether U.S. taxpayers got their money's worth. When a single sentence of death can cost millions of dollars to carry out, does it make economic sense to retain the death penalty?

According to a 1990 study, the total cost to build a maximum-security prison cell is $63,000, which breaks down to approximately $5,000 a year in principal and interest. The annual cost to maintain an inmate in this cell is approximately $20,000 a year. Together, these costs mean an annual expenditure of $25,000 to incarcerate an inmate. Based on a sentence term of 40 to 45 years, one inmate would cost the taxpayer only slightly more than $1 million—less than a third of what it would take to pay for the process that culminates in execution. A twenty-five-year-old woman convicted of first-degree murder would need to serve a life term to the age of 145 before the costs of incarcerating her would surpass those of executing her.

Keeping those convicted of first degree murder in prison makes sense. It removes any threat they pose to the public. It denies them the public platform they often seek and achieve. Think of life in prison with zero chance of parole as being tossed into the black hole of the justice system. Nothing gets out. And you save a bundle in the process.

The real expense is the almost interminable cost of the multitude of appeals, most of them with no validity, granted to the convicted. As you say, the actual expense of the execution is minor, and the marginal cost of keeping a person on Death Row is probably less than keeping them in the general inmate population.

As for nothing leaving prison, what planet do you live on? There are escapes, rare, but they do happen. Ted Bundy, for example, escaped from prison at least once. Plus, there are crazy parole boards or governors who sometimes release a person who should have stayed incarcerated. Charles Manson, to use an extreme example, is currently eligible for parole, although he will probably never get it.

Killing the worst of the worst, such as Bundy or the subject of this thread, makes even more sense. Bundy will never rape and murder another woman, and this other man will never murder another child.

There was a time when Justice moved much more swiftly. Charles Starkweather went on a murder-rape-abduction spree in Kansdas and Missouri in the late fifties. He was caught, convicted and sentenced and, less than a year later, he was hanged. That was the way it should always be, once guilt of truly heinous crimes has been proven beyond any doubt.

 

[stephen55]

One of how many thousand cases............

I wasn't aware that Ted Bundy had escaped from prison. It does happen but as you said, it's rare.

It's said that justice delayed is justice denied. You could make the argument that justice swift might frequently be justice denied. In Canada there have been several high profile cases where people have spent decades in prison for murder, after having their death sentence commuted to life in prison, only to be exonerated by DNA evidence, the real murderer being found or simply because convictions based on shoddy or fraudulent police work, not to mention incompetent defense lawyers, have finally been brought to the light of day.

Steven Truscott is a Canadian man who was sentenced to death in 1959, when he was a 14-year old student, for the alleged murder of classmate Lynne Harper. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he continued to maintain his innocence until 2007, when his conviction was declared a miscarriage of justice and he was formally acquitted of the crime. On August 28, 2007, after review of nearly 250 fresh pieces of evidence, the court declared that Truscott's conviction had been a miscarriage of justice.

He was found guilty on Sept. 30, 1959, purely on circumstantial evidence and was sentenced to death by hanging, at the age of 14. Truscott was scheduled to be hanged on December 8, 1959, only 69 days later. A temporary reprieve on November 20, 1959 postponed his execution to February 16, 1960 to allow for an appeal. On January 22, 1960, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

On October 21, 1969, Truscott was released on parole at the age of 24 after spending a decade behind bars.

What the court refused to do was declare Truscott factually innocent. Truscott's defence team had originally asked for a declaration of factual innocence, which would mean that Truscott would be declared innocent, and not merely unable to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Although they issued the acquittal, the court said it was not in a position to declare Truscott innocent of the crime. "The appellant has not demonstrated his factual innocence," the court wrote. "At this time, and on the totality of the record, we are in no position to make a declaration of innocence."

(We railroaded you on woefully inadequate circumstantial evidence, refused to look for the real killer and never will. We came within days of executing you when you were 14. We ruined your life, and we're seriously PO'd that you never admitted your guilt. Why should we say you were innocent? Isn't an acquittal good enough for you? Isn't not guilty good enough for you? What the fuck do you want from us? What's ten years in the clink, when you were just a snot nosed teenager anyway?)

The court must have dismissed the impossibility of Truscott proving he didn't do it as being none of their concern. Seeing as the only way Truscott could have pulled that off is by proving the guilt of someone else, 48 years after the fact...again, not the court's problem but Truscott's.

On July 7, 2008, the government of Ontario awarded him $6.5 million in compensation. They've made it clear that he will never be declared innocent.

Oh...the only real piece of evidence against Truscott presented at his original trial? Truscott was seen giving Harper a ride on the crossbar of his bicycle after school on the day she disappeared.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

STEPHAN

Florida newspapers once boasted that we could convict, sentence, and execute a criminal in a week. It was true.

Executions are expensive because lawyers make the laws and make criminal defense profitable.

The best argument for death is murderers have no incentives to let victims and witnesses live in places where executions are illegal. Killers have perfect immunity from death.

 

[Huckleman2000]

[...]The best argument for death is murderers have no incentives to let victims and witnesses live in places where executions are illegal. Killers have perfect immunity from death.

You think most killers understand "incentives"? That, if they do, theirs are the same as everyone else's?

I don't think being a murderer is anything like selling financial products.

 

[MzDeviancy]

The real expense is the almost interminable cost of the multitude of appeals, most of them with no validity, granted to the convicted. As you say, the actual expense of the execution is minor, and the marginal cost of keeping a person on Death Row is probably less than keeping them in the general inmate population.

As for nothing leaving prison, what planet do you live on? There are escapes, rare, but they do happen. Ted Bundy, for example, escaped from prison at least once. Plus, there are crazy parole boards or governors who sometimes release a person who should have stayed incarcerated. Charles Manson, to use an extreme example, is currently eligible for parole, although he will probably never get it.

Killing the worst of the worst, such as Bundy or the subject of this thread, makes even more sense. Bundy will never rape and murder another woman, and this other man will never murder another child.

There was a time when Justice moved much more swiftly. Charles Starkweather went on a murder-rape-abduction spree in Kansdas and Missouri in the late fifties. He was caught, convicted and sentenced and, less than a year later, he was hanged. That was the way it should always be, once guilt of truly heinous crimes has been proven beyond any doubt.

Nothing is ever perfectloy free of doubt. There will always be wrongful convictions.

What the issue of capital punishment comes down to is do you believe that executing some wrongfully convicted people is a reasonable price to pay for permanently getting rid of the real murderers.

 

[Goldie Munro]

Has the death penalty stopped murders? Do people still murder in counties which have the death penalty?

Shouldn't Texas have nobody on death row because of the death penalty?

get some sense people

 

[Pure]

nice going box.

definitely people need to be whipped up to "snuff" this fellow, who was executed last Dec 3. one wouldn't want him to get pardoned, now, would we? bleeding libs probably want him pardoned after he's dead.

hey, if you're beating the drum, there's this killer down in Florida prison named Ted Bundy, and the bleeding hearts are saying 'don't execute." would you be willing to organize a letter writing campaign, here, to write the Dept of Corrections in Fla, insisting that they hold firm, and snuff the bugger?

 

[Pure]

hmmm

The best argument for death is [that, without it,]murderers have no incentives to let victims... live.

true enough, but in the asphalt jungle, here, few murderers let their victims live, anyway.

 

[stephen55]

The best argument for death is murderers have no incentives to let victims and witnesses live in places where executions are illegal. Killers have perfect immunity from death.

Which explains the lack of murders in Texas. Sometimes I'm just not with the program....damn....

 

[Boxlicker101]

Nothing is ever perfectloy free of doubt. There will always be wrongful convictions.

What the issue of capital punishment comes down to is do you believe that executing some wrongfully convicted people is a reasonable price to pay for permanently getting rid of the real murderers.

No, I believe that "Guilty beyond any reasonable doubt" should mean that. The prosecution must prove guilt, or the defendant gets acquitted. Stephen55 described an example of a miscarriage of justice, and there have been others. There is a man in CA Death Row who, as far as I can see, was convicted with no substantial evidence against him.

 

[Huckleman2000]

No, I believe that "Guilty beyond any reasonable doubt" should mean that. The prosecution must prove guilt, or the defendant gets acquitted. Stephen55 described an example of a miscarriage of justice, and there have been others. There is a man in CA Death Row who, as far as I can see, was convicted with no substantial evidence against him.

The people who are on death row, by definition, have all been proven "Guilty beyond any reasonable doubt", and yet, dozens have been acquitted with later evidence.

The reason there are so many expensive appeals and everything else for these cases is because the State so often gets them wrong.

What are you proposing? That there should be a higher standard of proof for death penalty cases? That we should only execute the extra-guilty murderers? Well, you know what? That's what we do. We give death-row convicts that expensive, lengthy, dis-associative-from-the-crime appeals process. And people are still put to death under dubious prosecutions.

If you're really concerned about spending money trying to execute "obviously" guilty people, the solution is to stop trying to execute them.

 

[JackLuis]

While I am actually for the death penalty, I have had enough experience to know that the Justice system isn't always right, or fair or even on the level!

If the Government can't run a Justice Department, how the hell are they going to run a Health Care System?

What we really need is a Justice Department that will prosecute DA's and Police that fail to do their jobs, or plant evidence. We need a Justice System that will prosecute traitors, liars and murders who occupy high offices, not just incompetent indigents, 'cause it's easier.

I'd still rather deal with the American Justice System than almost any other.

 

[SeaCat]

Oh this could be a fun thread to play in, but I'm not going to do that.

Yes I am an advocate for the Death Penalty, but I have extremely stringent standards for it. (This coud be why I'm never called for Jury Duty.)

Evidence? Okay give me the evidence. Do we have pictures of the crime? Do we have multiple witnesses? Show me the chain of evidence, who did what with it. I want everything because I don't believe people.

I have this thing about circumstantial evidence. To me it is fiction.

Then again I'm like this with everything. Show me the proof. (My boss sometimes hates me because of this but I have had a couple of S.O.P.'s changed in work because of this attitude.)

Maybe it's because I'm the son of an engineer but I believe in proof.

That being said, if you can prove to me that a person has commited a crime that should be punished in a drastic manner, and I do mean proved, then I will willingly pull the trigger or otherwise punish the crime. (Think of my views n the punishment for Rape.)

Cat

 

[Jagged]

To be perfectly honest I'm not going to be upset about the death of a child killer.

 

[Boxlicker101]

The people who are on death row, by definition, have all been proven "Guilty beyond any reasonable doubt", and yet, dozens have been acquitted with later evidence.

The reason there are so many expensive appeals and everything else for these cases is because the State so often gets them wrong.

What are you proposing? That there should be a higher standard of proof for death penalty cases? That we should only execute the extra-guilty murderers? Well, you know what? That's what we do. We give death-row convicts that expensive, lengthy, dis-associative-from-the-crime appeals process. And people are still put to death under dubious prosecutions.

If you're really concerned about spending money trying to execute "obviously" guilty people, the solution is to stop trying to execute them.

No, I think that an accused should need to proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in any case. If jailhouse snitches claim accused persons confessed to them, their testimony should be tossed out, unless it can be proven by the prosecution that no benefit could have been possibility expected by the snitches. If a cop or DA employee claims the accused admitted guilt, we need to see a videotape, or hear an audiotape of that confession, or forget it. I do not trust the cops and I wouldn't take their word for much of anything, especially if it is something contrary to the defendant's interests. This would especially be so in a high profile case.

The case I mentioned in my previous post was the Scott Peterson case. He was convicted of killing his wife and their unborn child, but there was not a shred of evidence against him. Apparently, the jury decided something like: Well, somebody killed this woman and, in this kind of case, it's usually the husband or SO and nobody else has been found, so it must have been Peterson. One reason there was no evidence against anybody else was that the cops only looked for evidence against Peterson, and still didn't find any.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Oh this could be a fun thread to play in, but I'm not going to do that.

Yes I am an advocate for the Death Penalty, but I have extremely stringent standards for it. (This coud be why I'm never called for Jury Duty.)

Evidence? Okay give me the evidence. Do we have pictures of the crime? Do we have multiple witnesses? Show me the chain of evidence, who did what with it. I want everything because I don't believe people.

I have this thing about circumstantial evidence. To me it is fiction.

Then again I'm like this with everything. Show me the proof. (My boss sometimes hates me because of this but I have had a couple of S.O.P.'s changed in work because of this attitude.)

Maybe it's because I'm the son of an engineer but I believe in proof.

That being said, if you can prove to me that a person has commited a crime that should be punished in a drastic manner, and I do mean proved, then I will willingly pull the trigger or otherwise punish the crime. (Think of my views n the punishment for Rape.)

Cat

Moron. Circumstantial evidence is all evidence but a confession. THINK!

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by SeaCat
Oh this could be a fun thread to play in, but I'm not going to do that.

Yes I am an advocate for the Death Penalty, but I have extremely stringent standards for it. (This coud be why I'm never called for Jury Duty.)

Evidence? Okay give me the evidence. Do we have pictures of the crime? Do we have multiple witnesses? Show me the chain of evidence, who did what with it. I want everything because I don't believe people.

I have this thing about circumstantial evidence. To me it is fiction.

Then again I'm like this with everything. Show me the proof. (My boss sometimes hates me because of this but I have had a couple of S.O.P.'s changed in work because of this attitude.)

Maybe it's because I'm the son of an engineer but I believe in proof.

That being said, if you can prove to me that a person has commited a crime that should be punished in a drastic manner, and I do mean proved, then I will willingly pull the trigger or otherwise punish the crime. (Think of my views n the punishment for Rape.)

Moron. Circumstantial evidence is all evidence but a confession. THINK!

No it isn't. "Evidence" as opposed to circumstantial evidence, includes things such as fingerprints, eye-witnesses, possession of the victim's property by the accused, DNA left on the crime scene, tire tracks that match somebody's vehicle, footprints, videotape taken by observation cameras and other objective items. A confession is not usually good evidence, because of all the false confessions that some cases attract and because of the methods sometimes used by interrogators.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Quote:
Originally Posted by SeaCat
Oh this could be a fun thread to play in, but I'm not going to do that.

Yes I am an advocate for the Death Penalty, but I have extremely stringent standards for it. (This coud be why I'm never called for Jury Duty.)

Evidence? Okay give me the evidence. Do we have pictures of the crime? Do we have multiple witnesses? Show me the chain of evidence, who did what with it. I want everything because I don't believe people.

I have this thing about circumstantial evidence. To me it is fiction.

Then again I'm like this with everything. Show me the proof. (My boss sometimes hates me because of this but I have had a couple of S.O.P.'s changed in work because of this attitude.)

Maybe it's because I'm the son of an engineer but I believe in proof.

That being said, if you can prove to me that a person has commited a crime that should be punished in a drastic manner, and I do mean proved, then I will willingly pull the trigger or otherwise punish the crime. (Think of my views n the punishment for Rape.)




No it isn't. "Evidence" as opposed to circumstantial evidence, includes things such as fingerprints, eye-witnesses, possession of the victim's property by the accused, DNA left on the crime scene, tire tracks that match somebody's vehicle, footprints, videotape taken by observation cameras and other objective items. A confession is not usually good evidence, because of all the false confessions that some cases attract and because of the methods sometimes used by interrogators.

Another moron.

All evidence except eyewitness testimony. From www.justice.gov

 

[stephen55]

Another moron.

All evidence except eyewitness testimony. From www.justice.gov

JBJ should know enough to write in complete sentences. I'm not sure about what he's getting at here. As for his link, it simply goes to the United States Department Of Justice.

The use of circumstantial evidence has been seriously restricted in Canada. Simply because someone had the motive, means and opportunity to commit a crime has been used to convict many a poor soul. That such convictions are often later shown to be wrong by finding real evidence, is reason enough to hold circumstantial evidence to be spurious at best and disingenuous at worst.

Confessions are reliable only if real evidence links the confessor to the crime. As Jesse Ventura remarked, "Give me Dick Cheney, a waterboard and one hour and I'll have him confessing to the Sharon Tate murders." Now if Cheney's bloody fingerprints were found at the scene and witnesses saw him go in with the Manson cultists and later come out brandishing a bloody weapon, that would be evidence. The confession would be still crap.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by JAMESBJOHNSON
Another moron.

All evidence except eyewitness testimony. From www.justice.gov

JBJ should know enough to write in complete sentences. I'm not sure about what he's getting at here. As for his link, it simply goes to the United States Department Of Justice.

The use of circumstantial evidence has been seriously restricted in Canada. Simply because someone had the motive, means and opportunity to commit a crime has been used to convict many a poor soul. That such convictions are often later shown to be wrong by finding real evidence, is reason enough to hold circumstantial evidence to be spurious at best and disingenuous at worst.

Confessions are reliable only if real evidence links the confessor to the crime. As Jesse Ventura remarked, "Give me Dick Cheney, a waterboard and one hour and I'll have him confessing to the Sharon Tate murders." Now if Cheney's bloody fingerprints were found at the scene and witnesses saw him go in with the Manson cultists and later come out brandishing a bloody weapon, that would be evidence. The confession would be still crap.

You're right, including where the link leads. Circumstantial evidence is enough to cast suspicion on somebody, but it should NEVER be enough for a conviction. Eye witness testimony is better, but even that can be doubtful. A witness can lie or can make an honest mistake. Confessions should only be valid if they are signed statements in the suspect's own handwriting or videotapes that show there is no duress. Cops have been known to beat confessions out of suspects and snitches can lie in hopes of getting lenient treatment.

The best kind of evidence is the kind that was found in the case that is the subject of this thread. The victim's blood was found on the killer's knife and his DNA was in her underwear and the victim's brother, whom had been left for dead, testified against the man he knew quite well.

 

[sr71plt]

Circumstantial evidence is enough to cast suspicion on somebody, but it should NEVER be enough for a conviction. Eye witness testimony is better, but even that can be doubtful. A witness

Never? (Those sweeping generalizations again.) Isn't what counts for conviction in a Jury trial the votes of the Jurers based on what they actually took into account, regardless of what they were told to take into acount/or not?

 

[Pure]

capital crimes; circumstantial evidence.

i'm afraid 'be extra stringent as to evidence' or 'reject circumstantial evidence' are not plausible ways to insure the 'right man' is executed, and these sorts of notions, as proposed by seacat and boxliker have no real basis in the law and its practice:

seacat: I have this thing about circumstantial evidence. To me it is fiction.

apparently agreed to by boxliker, reciting a wild[ly] inaccurate account of the Scott Petersen affair.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article3883297.ece
From The Times [United Kingdom ]
May 6, 2008

Circumstantial evidence enough to convict Nat Fraser, judges rule
===
US Law Encyclopedia
http://www.answers.com/topic/circumstantial-evidence

Books, movies, and television often perpetuate the belief that circumstantial evidence may not be used to convict a criminal of a crime. But this view is incorrect. In many cases, circumstantial evidence is the only evidence linking an accused to a crime; direct evidence may simply not exist. As a result, the jury may have only circumstantial evidence to consider in determining whether to convict or acquit a person charged with a crime. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that "circumstantial evidence is intrinsically no different from testimonial [direct] evidence" (Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 75 S. Ct. 127, 99 L. Ed. 150 [1954]). Thus, the distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence has little practical effect in the presentation or admissibility of evidence in trials.
==
http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/1938/1938scr0-396/1938scr0-396.html

Supreme Court of Canada
The King v. Comba, [1938] S.C.R. 396
Date: 1938-06-23

It is admitted by the Crown, as the fact is, that the verdict rests solely upon a basis of circumstantial evidence. In such cases, by the long settled rule of the common law, which is the rule of law in Canada, the jury, before finding a prisoner guilty upon such evidence, must be satisfied not only that the circumstances are consistent with a conclusion that the criminal act was committed by the accused, but also that the facts are such as to be inconsistent with any other rational conclusion than that the accused is the guilty person.

see also,

http://books.google.ca/books?id=LH8...mstantial evidence conviction canada&f=false

A distinguished stateman and orator [Burke]... has advanced the unqualified proposition that when circumstantial evidence is in its greatest perfection, that is, when it is most abundant in circumstances, it is much superior to positive proof. (Canada Law Journal, Vol V, p. 34

It has been truly said... that, though in most cases of circustantial evidence, there is a possibility that the prisoner may be innocent., the same often holds in cases of direct evidence, where witnesses may err as to the identity of a person, or corruptly falsify....the testimony of the senses cannot be implicitly dependend upon, even where the veracity of the witness is unquestionable. Thomas Davenport, an eminent barrister... swore positively to the persons of two men, whom he charged with robbing him in the open daylight. But they positively proved an alibi, and the men were acquitted: Rex v. Wood and Brown, 28.... Many of the cases where conviction was had upon evidence which was indirect or or circumstantial illustrate the assertion of Burke [that the best circumstantial evidence is superior in probative value, to direct evidence]....