#miscarriages of justice

[thoughtlessarse]

Paddy Hill spent more than 16 years in prison for murders he did not commit. One of the so-called Birmingham Six who were wrongfully convicted for the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974, he was proof that exoneration and financial compensation do not fix a miscarriage of justice. When I met him in July 2023, more than 30 years after his release from prison, his ordeal continued to haunt him. He was in his late 70s, looking frail and far from the “12 and a half stone” man he was in Parkhurst Prison. He had very little appetite and was in poor health. The little sleep he was able snatch was marred by screaming nightmares. Neither of us knew it at the time, but this was to be his final interview. He died aged 80, on December 30 2024. I sat down to talk with Hill in his living room. Struggling to control his emotions, he told me: “Sometimes I sit in the bedroom … and I’m crying my eyes out like a child and I don’t know what the fuck happened … I’ve been so fucking screwed up.” The ITV docudrama Mr Bates vs the Post Office thrust wrongful convictions into mainstream consciousness in January 2024 – a quarter of a century after the Post Office began prosecuting sub-postmasters and mistresses for fraud, theft, and false accounting and 15 years after Rebecca Thomson’s Computer Weekly article exposing the Horizon IT system as the potential culprit. Now the public could finally see the human impact of miscarriages of justice on these upstanding – and, more importantly, innocent – members of their communities. Public outrage followed.

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[canichangemyblogname]

Women in the “Global South” are at the forefront of experiencing the worst of climate change and they are facing the gravest of consequences due to global inaction on this catastrophe.

[beardedmrbean]

[destiel-news-network]

(Source)

[littledemon55]

Making Millie get pregnant out of the blue and as a character arc is so disgusting I legit felt like throwing up when I found out. If she was a man this wouldn't have happened, but since she was unfortunate enough to be a woman in this shitshow that's apparently all she'll ever get.

Vivziepop is so deeply misogynistic it's insane.

[bitchesgetriches]

To be clear... this didn't all happen ON the girls' trip...

[grenade-cephalopod]

Marcellus Williams is dead.

Our justice system failed him.

Please take a moment of silence.

Rest in Power Marcellus. I wish we could have saved you. I wish we could have done more.

Do not let this be the end of your fight. Keep pushing for the thousands of other innocent incarcerated people of color.

Divided we beg. Together we bargain. But united, we demand.

[soapywankenopy]

the way they are prosecuting the alleged united health shooter is so indicative of where the us government's priorities lie, no, not to protect their citizens, to protect their dear ceos and billionaires. thank you capitalism, it's so worth being dehumanized so i can buy cool stuff i don't need.

[aspd-culture]

Aspd culture is being friends with the shittiest people ever for so many years just because they were fun and didn’t question any of my shitty behaviour until they pissed me off. Like why should i care that she lied about someone having a miscarriage (because she had already fabricated that she was pregnant in the first place lmaoo) if it doesn’t affect me? Its a little funny imo. Why should i care if he uses slurs and hates people like me? He’s fun to be around. Why should i give a fuck that he’s a “horrible, disgusting addict”? He gives me free drugs. Why should i care that he’s a bully? Some people are too sensitive and need to be put down a little. Who gives a shit if he threatened to shoot up a school and is a juvenile delinquent? This is the most fun i’ve had with anyone else. Idk man, “problematic” people are usually the only ones i can stand being around. Its much more fun being around people who set shit on fire and steal stuff with you than people who constantly need attention from authority and can’t handle jokes.

aspd-culture-is

[rapeculturerealities]

(8) Why Are Georgia Cops Investigating A Miscarriage?

What happened to Watts is exactly how criminalization happens, and followed a familiar pattern: A Black woman was turned in by a health care provider, targeted by a zealous misogynist prosecutor, and villainized by press outlets.

I’m sorry to say it appears there might be a similar case unfolding in Georgia, where police are investigating a fetus found in Grovetown.

[goldenmisfits]

absolutely incredulous @ the penalty call

[scotianostra]

On May 25th 1909 Oscar Slater was found guilty of murdering Marion Gilchrist in Glasgow.

In December 1908 83-year-old spinster Marion Gilchrist was beaten to death in a robbery in West Princes Street. The robber was disturbed when her maid returned and fled with just a brooch, although there was jewellery worth £3000 - £280,000 today – hidden in her wardrobe.

Slater left for New York five days later but earlier had allegedly tried to sell a pawn ticket for a brooch. Because of this – or because he was the most convenient suspect – police applied for Slater’s extradition. And although Slater was told that this application would almost certainly fail, he voluntarily returned to Glasgow.

At his trial, defence witnesses provided Slater with an alibi and confirmed that he had announced his visit to America long before the murder. Despite this he was convicted by a majority of nine to six (five not proven and one not guilty) and in May 1909 was sentenced to death. Scottish juries have fifteen, rather than the 12 in lots of other countries.

However, his lawyers organised a petition, signed by 20,000 people, and the Scottish secretary was forced by public opinion to issue a conditional pardon, commuting the sentence to life imprisonment.

He served 19 years in Peterhead prison.

Most who have looked at the case believe in Slater’s innocence, including a subject of a recent post, Arthur Conan Doyle who, in 1912, published The Case of Oscar Slater and argued for a full pardon. To no avail.

In 1927 a book by William Park led the Solicitor General, a year later, to quash the conviction on the ground that the judge had not directed the jury about the irrelevance of Slater’s previous character.

Oscar received £6,000 (£300,000+ today) in compensation. He died in 1948.

Although not cleared of the murder many eminent people through the years have put weight behind the theory that this was a miscarriage of justice.

The last photo is Oscar walking free at Westminster London.

There is avery detailed account of the case here https://randomscottishhistory.com/2022/10/03/oscar-slater-verdict-aftermath-podcast/

[pro-birth]

There have been many news articles implying or outright claiming that abortion bans have made doctors afraid to manage miscarriage. Often the articles are about (1) women in states with abortion bans who (2) have a missed or incomplete miscarriage (their body does not fully pass the remains of their child on its own) and then (3) don’t quickly receive medical interventions (usually referencing D&C). Sometimes the story ends there. Other times it goes on to explain (4) the woman experiences a medical emergency and has to have emergent intervention.

The issue is not that these stories are false. Some may be, but many are certainly true. The issues are that the stories often incorrectly assume (1) delays in intervention are nonstandard and always inappropriate and (2) insufficient medical care can only be attributed to abortion bans…

…The case of Neveah Crain is an infuriating example of this problem. ProPublica tried to blame Crain’s death on Texas abortion laws, despite the obvious evidence of unforced, egregious medical malpractice. About a week after ProPublica published their story, Neveah Crain’s family told a local news agency that Crain’s death was “being used for politics” and that they want the hospitals to pay for negligently killing her.