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WHO RULES: THE ISRAEL LOBBY
OR UNCLE SAM?
The answer
at last! Uri Avnery, former Knesset member, assesses the Lobby's
power. "If the Israeli government wanted a law tomorrow
annulling the 10 Commandments, 95 U.S. Senators (at least) would
sign the bill forthwith." But, yes, in the end the dog wags
the tail.Fifty
years ago Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" blew the cobwebs
out of millions of young minds and drove a stake through the
heart of Eisenhower's America. Lenni Brenner remembers Ginsberg
in the East Village.Dr Mengele died in exile, in disguise. Dr Ishii
died rich and recognized, in his own Tokyo home. Christopher
Reed on Japanese WW2 medical tortures and how the U.S. covered
them up.CounterPunch
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Now!
There are enough injustices in our society
without innocent people being convicted of heinous crimes. Yet,
it turns out that happens with far greater frequency than we
ever imagined. DNA testing, a relatively new phenomenon, has
already exonerated 175 people convicted of crimes.
Then the more amazing part:
one fifth of them had confessed to the crime! And when it comes
to false confessions, this is only the tip of the iceberg. One
study by two law professors documented 125 proven false confessions
these include people exonerated before or during trial.
And these are only the cases we /know/ about.
Why would anyone confess to
a crime he didn't commit? A new website/blog, created by my sometime
co-author Alan Hirsch, notes many reasons. But, Hirsch says,
"In most cases, it's a function of interrogation tactics
geared to break people down. These tactics succeed too well :
they break down innocent people."
Some of the tactics are obviously
deplorable. For example, interrogators exaggerate or fabricate
evidence -- for example, falsely telling a suspect that eyewitnesses
saw him commit the crime. They often imply that the suspect will
receive lenient treatment if he confesses and the most severe
punishment if he refuses. Many false confessors are young or
borderline mentally retarded, but the interrogation tactics taught
to police could break down anyone. (In one social science experiment,
students at Williams College falsely confessed to misconduct
when confronted with bogus evidence.)
The Fifth Amendment to the
United States Constitution protects a person from being a "witness
against himself." All too often that is what happens
not on the witness stand but in the police station, and even
after a person has been read his rights. The spirit and sometimes
letter of the Fifth Amendment are violated routinely as such
police cajole and bully innocent people to confess. Prosecutors,
judges, and juries usually ratify the error because they can't
believe the confessor innocent only adding to the suspect's
Kafkaesque nightmare.
Why would the police engage
in outrageous tactics that implicate the innocent? For the same
reason that prosecutors, judges, and juries play their roles
in this tragedy they are convinced that no one would actually
confess if he were innocent. Since we now know that this intuition
is false, we need to take measures that guard against false confessions.
Hirsch's website proposes a range of reforms, including mandatory
taping of interrogations. But, he suggests, the most important
reform is education.
Everyone must recognize that
false confessions can and do occur. The realization is particularly
important among law enforcement and judges -- but also everyday
citizens. This is partly because everyday citizens comprise juries,
and it is typically juries who convict false confessors. Ordinary
citizens also elect representatives, and some of the necessary
reforms require legislation.
Again, nothing will happen
until we overcome the intuition that innocent people don't confess.
How strong is that intuition? Even /after/ DNA exoneration, many
defendants remain incarcerated or have to face another trial,
because prosecutors or judges still refuse to believe that the
confession was false. Sometimes prosecutors concoct an entirely
new theory of the case (for example, that the defendant was an
accomplice rather than the actual perpetrator) supported by zero
evidence.
False confessions are far from
the only cause of wrongful conviction. Other common sources include
mistaken identification, false accusations (a cousin of false
confessions), government misconduct, junk science, and poor defense
lawyering. Some of these problems are particularly acute, such
as the unreliability of eyewitness identification and the inadequacy
of many over-worked and under-funded public defenders and court-appointed
attorneys.
The reality of wrongful convictions
has many ramifications, including for capital punishment. Some
people who do not object to the death penalty in principle recognize
that it will inevitably result (and no doubt already has) in
the execution of some innocent people. Indeed, some of the wrongfully
convicted exonerated by DNA were only days away from execution.
We cannot possibly accept putting
people to death without knowing that they are guilty. The false
confession phenomenon is a powerful reminder that we often /think/
we're certain of guilt without an adequate basis. After all,
what could be more reliable than a defendant's own admission
that he committed the crime? That's what we used to think. Now
that we know better, it should give people pause about many aspects
of our criminal justice system, including the death penalty.
For serious insight into these
problems, for laymen and lawyers alike, and a sense of what you
can do to help, www.truthaboutfalseconfessions.com
is a good place to start.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
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