#wrongful execution

[kittywritesfic]

Remember Marcellus Williams! A black Muslim man falsely accused. Remember that he's innocent. Remember that the governor of Missouri, mike Parson who had the opportunity to save this man's life, decided not to. Remember all but three supreme court justices decided his life wasn't worth saving either. Remember his face. Remember his Last words. And remember how fucked up this country is

Rest in peace Marcellus

[czolgusszy]

Please, if you are from Missouri, please call the Governor and urge him to stay the execution of Marcellus. Your leverage as a voter will be more impactful than those from other states. This case is undergoing appeals as high as the Supreme Court and if Marcellus is executed before his appeal is heard, he will have lost ever chance to vindicate his innocence.

Please call Governor Mike Parsons at (417)373-3400 and urge him to reconsider the execution of Marcellus Williams. There are scripts and more imformation available on innocenceproject.org

[ghostboyravenight]

Chappell Roan: Some of my so-called “fans” have been acting really creepily towards me, crossing some major boundaries to the point of sexually harassing me and invading my personal life when I’ve explicitly told them not too. Please don’t interact with me outside of my work hours, as I’d like to maintain my privacy.

The internet: oh my god chappell roan literally JUST said that she hates all of her fans and that they should all DIE can you fucking believe that??

Chappell Roan: I am going to vote in the presidential election and I think everyone should vote against Donald Trump, but I’m not going to endorse Kamala Harris as my personal candidate because her policies on Israel are not going to lead to effective change for Palestinians, nor hold Israel accountable for their war crimes, and I want a candidate who reflects my policies before I endorse theirs.

Everyone: did you hear chappell roan just said she’s not voting?? like she literally just said that she’s going to abstain from voting and she’s encouraging all of her fans to do the same. she must be a republican in disguise and is actually going to vote for Trump. did you know her uncle is a republican.

Chappell Roan: I think you all should stop getting your political opinions from fucking pop stars and stop expecting me to tell you how to think.

Everyone: WOOOOWW chappell roan is now saying that she’s not political. like she literally JUST said she’s not going to get involved with politics. what a privileged and selfish bitch.

Everyone: anyway now let’s talk about how doechii is literally holding gotye hostage in her basement to steal his music and she won’t let him go until every straight man has been executed.

Everyone: I support women by the way.

[hearthmistress]

i'm sure this has been articulated before and probably better, but i can't stop thinking about the fact that the main reason buddie fans hate Tommy (outside from the fact he is blocking their ship from becoming "canon") is because Tommy is getting the Eddie storyline they want. Or rather, the fandom idea of Eddie is being played out with Tommy's character arc.

This really clicked with me after I watched a nearly 4hr 9-1-1 recap youtube video created by a buddie fan. I genuinely think (the buddie of it all and their view of Tommy aside) it's a great video and worth a watch! Really articulates what makes 9-1-1 fun and lovable, the issues the show has (especially with copaganda), the bad writing with certain characters and character plot arcs, and genuinely had a lot of points I agree with/have been saying myself since I started watching 9-1-1. Even the buddie of it all, I could get on board with because I like watching people argue why they ship something - I don't have to agree with it or like the ship to be interested.

My main issue with the video (and why I can't stop thinking about it) is how the creator viewed Tommy and how (perhaps purposefully) bad-faith they have interpreted his actions towards Buck. Again, I don't care if someone doesn't like Tommy or has no strong opinions of him, but I prefer people's dislike to be based on reality and/or what the character actually did, and not through the rose-coloured glasses of a shipper lens.

When the creator of the video brought up Tommy as Buck's love interest, they mostly said they were rather cool on him and that we don't know a lot about him yet to really know the character (and given that this was published before S8, that's fair). However, they bring up the cafe scene in S7E05 and Tommy's "mmmm, not like that" line as "evidence" that Tommy's indifferent to Buck and this is where buddies and general audiences separate into different realities, because this moment is a) clearly supposed to be funny/romcomsque and b) demonstrates Tommy's dry wit and, dare i say, sassiness - a trait applauded by buddie fans with Eddie (and they use as proof as his "queerness") but condemned when a canonically gay character does it. The video creator themselves mentions numerous times Eddie's sassiness as a positive trait (and to be fair, they also mention that it's sort of Eddie's default trait because he's a nothingburger character - which I agree with), but when Tommy does it, it suddenly demonstrates that a character doesn't really like/care for their love interests (which given what we know about S8.... hilarious in hindsight, holy projection batman).

Anyways, that really clicked into place for me that the (outsized) outrage buddies have towards Tommy is because he is canonically demonstrating traits they want to see in Eddie/how they view (fandom) Eddie.

Tommy as a character is:

-a deeply closeted gay man when we first meet him, who participates in toxic masculinity as a means to protect himself and/or because he can't (or is unable to) fully articulate himself as a queer person.

-alluded to have been raised in an environment where he had to hide his queerness (as discussed specifically in S7E10 with 118 being a "regressive place" when he was there). Is pressured by both his biological family and his work "family" to maintain a certain idea of manhood, and by extension, stay closeted. Also served in the army, an institute infamous for being homophobic, and undoubtedly influenced his ideas around duty and manhood.

-unable to maintain relationships with women, even serious long-term ones as with Abby, and uses these relationships (either subconsciously or not) to maintain the illusion of his heterosexuality.

-tied with "traditional" masculine interests/hobbies/institutes. He was in the army, he likes monster trucks, fighting, craft beer, flies a helicopter, etc. He seems, on the surface, a guy's guy.

-now canonically out and was/is in a relationship with Buck and has served, vitally, as a closet key to Buck, ensuring that two firefighters on the silly weewoo show are, in fact, together.

-very clearly invested in Buck's well-being, both within and outside of relationship. Has demonstrated numerous times "going out" of his way to put Buck's emotional needs first and to value Buck in way others (Eddie) do not.

-one half of a groundbreaking queer relationship. Cannot be repeated enough, the fact that the show has a main character (beloved by fandom and the general audience alike) come out as queer in a long-running mainstream show is groundbreaking. The fact that Tommy is one half of this ship is so important both to the show and Buck's entire arc. It is important and groundbreaking.

These are almost all things/traits that buddie fans argue make Eddie queer and/or why buddie would be a groundbreaking ship. Which sure, but the reality is the showrunners, the actors, the show itself have maintained Eddie is straight, and (as articulated by the creator themselves in the video) most of what they project onto Eddie comes from the fact he is poorly written rather than because the show was planning on making Eddie gay in the first place.

I read through numerous comments for the recap video and for a following video from the same creator about whether they had been queerbaited (I wish buddies learned the term "ship-tease" because if one half of your ship is canonically queer, no you cannot be queerbaited and dismissing Buck's canonical queerness just because your ship is not happening is, uh, a problem), and numerous times buddies have mentioned how "groundbreaking" buddie would be as if all the things they mention about the ship hasn't already happened with Bucktommy on the show. Their issue is not that the show refuses to do this (and the amount of comments I read that said things like 'they'll never make buddie happen because the network is too conservative'.... for a show with a black lesbian relationship from season 1 and has already made half of your ship queer and made him fuck nasty on screen with his male love interest.... the mental gymnastics is too much), but the fact that the show HAS already done this, just not with their blorbo of choice.

My closing thoughts (for now, I have MANY!) is that in the follow up video about being "queerbaited by 9-1-1", numerous comments asked "if Eddie isn't gay, that would mean he's just emotionally immature, terrible to women, and not a great friend or parent. He would be the worst character on the show".... and like yes, that's the real character you are choosing to stan, not the fanfic one! I fully understand that Eddie is blank canvas for most buddies to pin their hopes and dreams onto (again, because he is poorly written and is essentially a nothingburger character), but no matter how you twist each bucktommy interaction, make bad-faith interpretations, project things that never happened onto Tommy, in the end, Eddie is still a straight boring character. And Tommy is the one who is canonically living out the character-arc you so desperately want to see on the show.

[nightqueens-world]

[busylazy]

"In the last decade, 60% of executions in the state (of Texas) are people of color."

What? You afraid of little different opinions from your own? The reason you didn’t answer back is because you have no argument carols wasn’t innocent he deserved to die. He had prior criminal records to rape so um you wept for a rapist.

First of all, I was asleep and this is a case I feel strongly about so wanted to give a proper reply. Secondly, he was charged with attempted rape when he cornered his friend’s mother and opened her shirt before running away. Not that that’s okay, I just thought I’d mention the exact charge.

Before we speak about Carlos Hernandez, I’d like to point that the crime scene was completely mishandled. It was a particularly bloody scene with blood throughout the store and out on the forecourt. Inside, Wanda’s flipflops which had come off during the struggle were found behind the counter and a folding knife with its blade exposed was abandoned on the floor nearby. They found shoe prints, a cigarette butt, chewing gum and clumps of hair but these were all overlooked Three fingerprints were found – two on the front door and another on the telephone. However, they were all such poor quality that they were allegedly unusable. There were no fingerprints on the knife. No samples of blood were taken or tested despite the fact that it was probably likely that the killer sustained an injury himself during the frenzied attack. It took less than an hour for the crime scene to be processed. The reason? They were so adamant they had already arrested the killer that they felt there was no need.

There is an abundance of evidence against Carlos Hernandez, who DeLuna named as the killer. He wasn’t identified until after DeLuna was executed but when he was, they decided to come forward and relay their own beliefs that their family member was the killer of Wanda. In fact, Hernandez was well known to police and prosecutors at the time of the trial and had a lengthy police record. He had a long history of violence which included stabbings committed with a knife that was very similar to the one found at the crime scene.

He was in and out trouble with the law throughout his life. In 1971, he was convicted of negligent homicide after he killed his sister’s fiancé while driving drunk. His sentence was suspended and he received no jail time. The following year, he received a 20 year sentence for holding up several gas stations. After just five short years, he was paroled. Then in 1979, Hernandez was arrested for the brutal murder of Dahlia Sauceda, who was found beten an strangled to death in her van. A crude X had also been carved into her body. Hernandez was tied to the crime when his fingerprints were discovered on a beer can inside the van alongside a pair of his boxers. While being held for this crime, Hernandez somehow managed to point the blame towards another man. Prosecutor Ken Botary – who would later be the co-prosecutor in the DeLuna trial – interviewed Hernandez. Furthermore, Hernandez was taken to the interview by Detective Olivia Escobedo, the lead investigator in Lopez’ murder who claimed Hernandez didn’t exist!

Astonishingly, Hernandez was once again released while the other man was acquitted. In 1986, he was re-arrested for the murder of Sauceda after new evidence surfaced. However, the evidence was somehow misplaced and the charges were dropped. Hernandez was once again a free man.

Two months after Lopez’ murder, Hernandez was arrested outside a convenience store with a knife and then several months later, he attacked his wife, Rosa, with an ax handle. During the attack, he smashed a window, shattering glass onto Rosa’s sleeping children. He threatened to kill her and the kids. He was sentenced to just 30 days in jail during which Rosa filed for divorce. In 1989, Hernandez attacked Dina Ybanez with a 7-inch lock-blade buck knife. While he received a ten year sentence, he was paroled after just a year and a half. Then in 1996, he attacked his neighbour with a 9-inch kitchen knife. Three years later, Hernandez died in prison.

The Chicago Tribune not only interviewed Hernandez’s friends and family, but also reviewed thousands of court records. Their findings indicated that the case was compromised by unreliable eyewitness identification, lazy police work and a complete failure to pursue Hernandez as a potential suspect. After all, the police and prosecutors flat out denied he even existed.

The investigation also uncovered that Hernandez had bragged to at least five people about the murder of Lopez as well as the murder of Fahlia Sauceda. Janie Adrian, a neighbour of Hernanfez, told The Chicago Tribune that she had overheard Hernandez talk about stabbing Lopez on at least three occasions.

Dina Ybanez also told the newspaper that Hernandez had confessed to killing Lopez to her and her husband. Both women said that they were too afraid to come forward earlier, particularly Dina, who had been stabbed by Hernandez in the past. She said that during that attack, he had threatened that “he was going to kill me like he did her.” Two other women – Beatrice Tapia and Pricilla Jaramillo – were just young girls when they heard Hernandez confess to the murder. Jaramillo was Hernandez’ cousin and she had been living at Hernandez’ mothers house.

One afternoon, she and Tapia overheard Hernandez speaking to his brother about the murder shortly after it happened. Jaramillo was too terrified to tell anybody about what she had heard because Hernandez had molested her in the past and she was scared of him. The Chicago Tribune also managed to track down Miguel Ortiz, an acquaintance of Hernandez. HE told the newspaper that Hernandez had openly confessed to the murder to him.

The Chicago Tribune even spoke with a former detective named Eddie Garza who said that before the trial, he received tips about Hernandez.

He said that he had heard from informants that Hernandez was openly bragging about the murder. As a detective, Garza knew both DeLuna and Hernandez and said that the crime seemed more like something Hernandez would do, not DeLuna. Garza said that he passed the information on to Olivia Escobedo, the detective leading the investigation. Escobedo, however, claimed she never received such tips. While Garza claims he knew about Hernandez, he still testified at DeLuna’s hearing and told the jury that DeLuna had a bad reputation.

In 2012, The Columbia Human Rights Law Review released a 400-page report which detailed the events of DeLuna’s trial and stated that he had been wrongfully convicted executed. Columbia Law School professor James Liebman and his students had conducted the study as a contribution towards a public debate on the death penalty. They specifically argued that it is an ineffective form of punishment. The group decided on covering the DeLuna case after Liebman did a study on courts across the United States and how they handled legal error.

They tracked down the witness that identified DeLuna while he was sat in the back seat of a dark police car later confessed he was less than 50% sure because “all Hispanics look the same.” He later said he only said DeLuna was the man because officers told them he was. His statement is recorded. There was no evidence against him found inside the store. It was a bloody crime scene yet there was no blood on him.

The Columbia study asserted that it was Hernandez who committed the murder, not DeLuna. “On evidence we pulled together on this case, there is no way a jury could have convicted De-Luna beyond a reasonable doubt, but they could’ve convicted Hernandez beyond a reasonable doubt,” Liebman said.

The Columbia study, which was called “Los Tocayos Carlos,” took five years of investigation to complete. Liebman said that his findings not only show that DeLuna was innocent but that Hernandez was a real person and was guilty of the murder DeLuna was executed for. He wrote that every single thing that could’ve went wrong in a case, did, and that the wrongful arrest of DeLuna was made specifically to avoid departmental embarrassment for the 911 operator not responding to Lopez’s first call for help. The Columbia Study went on to turn their findings into a book named “The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Conviction.”

You should read the book and read through all of the evidence that is readily available instead of basing your opinion on the fact that somebody had an attempted rape conviction. If that’s what you’re basing your opinion on then you should look at Hernandez’ history. It’s pretty widely accepted that Carlos DeLuna is innocent and his wrongful execution even led to laws being changed. I would also like to point of if even if DeLuna WAS guilty, I still wouldn’t agree with somebody with an intellectual disability, with the mindset of a child, executed never mind a botched execution.

This isn’t isolated case, either. Three decades have passed since DeLuna was executed but the flaws that condemned him still reverberate in the criminal justice system today - faulty eyewitness testimony, a quick to convict police force, lousy legal representation and withholding of evidence. American is the outlier among industrialized nations and it is the only country in the New World that continues to execute prisoners… Whether or not we agree with it, the death penalty is an extremely flawed system (and racist, biased, hypocritical and archaic) and one that I don’t support.

[maslinych]

No one can choose who they are in this world.

[cubbihue]

Vhnemdkjf purble irep! Can we see more fairy irep and anti-fairy peri?

Yup!! During their schooling, where the most amount of swaps happened, the two would end up swapping in more than just color palettes!

Sometimes Peri would get caught scheming and plotting Irep's demise (Revenge for Ruining his Science Project). Or Irep will get caught doing something very nice and wholesome for another Fairy (Helping a new student find their way around school).

Just as Anti Cosmo and Cosmo has a bit of each other's personalities mixed up, Peri and Irep has a bit of an overlap in behaviors, haha. They both love to monologue, for example. The more swaps a pair does, the more mixed they get!

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[jessetheanarchist]

Texas is going through with an unethical execution

which is pretty par for the course for the US as a whole but i digress.

On October 10, Texas is set to execute Jedidiah Murphy, and man whose trial was marked by the use of warped evidence. He also had DID, PTSD, and depression, which don't excuse his actions but it is supposedly unconstitutional to execute severely mentally ill prisoners. Murphy is remorsefully for his actions and has been a model prisoner.

You can read more about the details of his case and exactly why this execution is so flawed in the links below, but CW for discussions of child abuse, violence, drug use, and CSA.

Here are the petitions to stop his execution:

And if you live in texas you can contact the governor's office and the pardon and parole board with this fill in form

https://catholicsmobilizing.org/action/2023-09/stop-execution-jedidiah-murphy

or using this information from the Texas Colition to Abolish the Death Penalty:

[flickersofart]

You've heard of rock star, now get ready for star rock

[stars-obsession-pit]

Hello! Can do a chapter fic off this fic prompt Danny phantom x dc: https://www.tumblr.com/corkinavoid/767516270934556672/dpxdc-legal-power?source=share

This isn’t a one-to-one recreation of that dialogue but it’s based on that as a framework/premise

Batman dropped down into the room behind a pair of figures—a teenage boy and a slumped adult—letting his landing create an audible thump to alert them of his presence.

If the teen noticed, he didn’t react. Even as Bruce approached, he continued to stare impassively at the wheezing figure on the ground, an old wooden bat with flaking green paint on its side loosely held in his right hand. Bruce had already suspected who the figure would be since he arrived, but seeing the Joker so broken was still bizarre. No laughing, no schemes. He didn’t even seem to be attempting to escape his binds, just… lying there, almost as if pinned in place.

Bruce paused a step behind the teen. “I don’t know what the Joker did to you, but this isn’t the right way to go about this.”

The teen scoffed, and Bruce felt a painful lurch in his chest as he was reminded oh so strongly of his son Jason. “And what, let him go kill more people?”

“I know he deserves to face justice, but not like this. Everyone deserves a right to fair trial. No one person should be judge, jury, and executioner.”

The teen turned to look at him with glowing green eyes, and Batman felt himself freeze. He had faced gods before, yet even using that as a comparison felt like an understatement. The boy’s eyes belonged to someone far older than his teenage form implied, and they radiated power. Inevitability.

When the teen—no, the entity—spoke again, his words carried an unearthly echo. “Perhaps, but I’m not acting for just myself.” He paused, glanced down at the Joker, then asked almost conversationally, “Do you know how many people he’s killed?”

Another pause, but before Bruce could even try to answer, the entity continued, “Eight hundred and fifty-six. He’s ended the lives of eight hundred and fifty-six human souls. I can tell you about every single one, if you want. About who they were, what their dreams were before he killed them. About the pain they felt at his hands.”

He punctuated the word ‘pain’ by raising up the wooden bat in his hands and ramming its end down onto the Joker’s arm. He let out a wheeze, muffled by the gag in his mouth.

“I have a duty to my people. I am the King of the In-Between and of all the souls that pass through it—even ones whose stays were as brief as his. I am the rightful arbiter of his fate. And with that power, I sentence him to death.”

He raised the bat again, adjusting his grip so he’d hit with the side rather than the end this time, then paused and let out a chuckle. “Of course, just because it’s based on some justice doesn’t mean I can’t have a bit of fun with it too.” He swung the bat down, slamming it into the Joker’s side, then hooked it under the clown’s torso and flicked him up through the air to slam into the wall. “We all really hate this guy.”

With the entity’s attention fully turned away from him as he sauntered towards the Joker’s slumped figure, Bruce could finally unfreeze himself.

Even if the Ghost King did have the right to pass judgement on Joker, Bruce still couldn’t let torture go on like this. He wouldn’t win a direct fight, but he could hopefully at least grab the Joker and bring him over to the police. Carefully, he reached for some of the smoke bombs and batarangs on his belt and readied his grapple. He’d have to do this very, very fast.

But before he could move, another figure entered the scene. Red Hood, emerging from the shadows on the far side of the room, an unexpected bit of a pep to his step.

“Nice to see someone else who gets that that bastard needs to die. But if I may make a suggestion, how ‘bout you use a crowbar instead of that old bat? It’d be a bit more… fitting.”

[bad-comic-art]

Clearly they meant a subDURAL hematoma not subDERMAL. A subdural hematoma is a pretty serious brain bleed which is in line with a fractured skull while a subderman hematoma is.... a bruise (subderman = under the skin hematoma = bleeding).

All of that is unimportant though as Steven is incredibly durable (surviving FTL travel at one point) and in Growing Pains they literally say Steven can heal instantly from fractured bones.

submitted anonymously

[reverentwormpriest]

jet and zuko toxic yaoi is so real idk how i never saw it . when the hot buzzcut burn scar badboy with a past he doesnt talk about wont join your emo band and youre really upset but its all good cuz you saw his uncle firebending so you just decide to go fucking kill him instead

[utilitycaster]

I think in media analysis and just like, engaging with art of any form, you can focus on being right all the time or you can focus on enjoying yourself, and people who do the latter often end up being pretty good at predicting things (and are often delighted by being wrong in an interesting way) and people who do the former usually end up being not just miserable, but also not very good at being right in the first place.

[lordgeneralsix]

I can't be the only one who thinks it's so lame that spite ultimately had 0 effect on lucanis whereas the writers made anders suffer for just wanting to live.

[hizeman]

Not to be a bootlicker but i find i am fond of that old man