Sunday

Debunking the Death Merchant...

Been a long blogging break, in part because I've been busy with book stuff and in part because I was working on This piece for The Boston Globe.

This one has been long overdue. It debunks the nonsense Joshua Marquis, has been spewing about how the criminal justice system actually works.


Marquis

In fact, Marquis has been using numerological trickery to support his absurd claims that there are a negligible number of innocent people wrongly convicted. Remember Marquis is the guy who wants to execute juveniles and fry the mentally retarded. So far as I can tell, he has yet to come out and acknowledge anyone as actually innocent. The piece takes him apart.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"It offends my conscience to execute someone who was under 18 at the time of the crime," said Joshua Marquis, a member of the board of the National Association of District Attorneys, the district attorney in Astoria, Ore., and a supporter of the death penalty.

August 22, 2000,
NEW YORK TIMES

Indefensible said...

Anny seems to be absolutely correct, and as you can see, the post is ammended. My recollection (wrong it appears) was that Marquis had a hand in the pro-death Amicus brief filed by a crime victims group called the "Justice for all alliance".

My bad.

Anonymous said...

BRILLIANT piece in the Globe. I am thrilled you took the time to respond to that absurd NYTimes op-ed. I was waiting for someone to take appart his lousy math.
So glad you're out there!

Anonymous said...

Finally...thank you, for the "brilliant" article on Marquis's "justice"

Anonymous said...

Consider these two passages from Feige:

From the Boston Globe:
"Marquis's most glaring error is his failure to acknowledge the fact that most felony arrests aren't contested. In fact, 95 percent of them are resolved by plea rather than trial. Thus in 19 out of every 20 felony cases, there is no contested issue of guilt and no real claim of error."

Contrast that to the "Forced to Plea Bargain" section of the Gotham Gazette article when Feige writes about innocent defendants being routinely railroaded by the system.

When it's convenient to him, Feige praises the plea bargaining system ("no contested issue of guilt and no real claim of error"). But at other moments he's ready to bury it.

I guess that's what being an advocate is about?

Anonymous said...

David is still on the money what he says about Marquis... exposing his MATH problems. A "brilliant" advocate for JUSTICE FOR ALL>