Xanga Archive

All right, as to my last post, several people have asked what incited me to write it. There was no paticular event or anything that did, though I made references to a couple events. It is just after seeing so much of it for awhile I just had something to say about it, and so I did.

I also made another post yesterday, which was up for a few hours. It was seen and commented on by one person, I dunno if anyone else saw it or not. Anyway, I decided it had served it’s purpose at that point, and that it stood enough chance of upsetting some people that I should remove it. For anyone who saw it, my reply to the comment that asked what the point of it was, was this:

“the point was just to comment on it. you said a lot of things that i had something to say about, and i felt it was too big of a thing to just put in a comment thing underneath your post…. if you found it interesting, then the point was achieved. It was simply to impart my views on said topic. Oh, and the point of putting in your post in between what i was talking about… wasn’t so much to “review” your entry… it was just to make my comments on what you said easier to follow. otherwise it would have been just kind of a jumble of thoughts i think.”


That is mostly just for the person who asked, because otherwise she won’t be able to see my reply to her comment ;).

Several of you know of my interest in the West Memphis Three, which I learned of through Zao, but didn’t really get too interested in until one day when I got bored and went to www.wm3.org. For the past couple weeks I have been reading a book called Devil’s Knot, which is about the investigation and trials and so forth. It is a very interesting book, because of all the insight and stuff it gives you into the american court system. It really kind of pisses you off at it. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the case, I will give you a brief overview. You will probably VAGUELY remember it, at least, as I vaguely remember hearing about the crime.

“On the evening of May 5, 1993, in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas, 3 8 year old boys disappeared. The next afternoon, the naked bodies of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore were found submerged in a nearby stream. The boys had been bound from ankle to wrist with their own shoelaces and severely beaten. Christopher had been castrated.
The crime scene had yielded few clues, and despite Christopher’s castration, there was a remarkable absence of blood. The police were stymied, and citizens’ alarm mounted as weeks passed without an arrest. Finally, a month after the murders, detectives announced 3 arrests- and a startling theory of the crime: that the children had been killed by members of a satanic cult.”

That is from the inside cover of this book. Anyway, the 3 that were arrested were Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Miskellie, jr.

Anyway, there is a lot of stuff in this book that has upset me that people would do (such as questioning Jessie, who is mildly retarded, without his parents or a lawyer present or giving him his rights, yelling at him to tell the truth, telling him that the polygraph machine is telling them that he is lying to them when there is no indication that he was (except on one question, which was if he had ever used drugs, and was in no way related to the crime), etc, etc, in order to produce a confession out of him, which was wildly inconsistent with the facts of the case…)

Anyway, the thing that I read yesterday that I really wanted to post about is this…. This is shortly after Jessie recieved a sentance of life + 40 years in prison:

“Outside the courthouse, Jessie’s lawyer stood talking to resporters on the building’s icy steps. “Mr. Misskelley made a decision last night that he is not going to testify against his codefendants,” Stidham announced. Reporters hollered questions. Had Jessie been offered a reduced sentence if he testified- one that would give him an opportunity for parole, as Damien’s lawyers claimed? Or had no such dealbeen offered, as Fogleman contended? Stidham decline to answer but did say tellingly, that the decision Jessie had reached the nbight before had been “the most difficult decision he will ever make.” Stidham said that as he spoke, Jessie was being driven back to the prison at Pine Bluff.
Years later, in an interview in the prison, Jessie described the pressure he’d been under. He said that when he was brought back to northeast Arkansas after his own conviction, he was told that if he did not testify against Damien and Jason, they would not be convicted, and that while he rotted in prison, they’d go after his girlfriend. “They told me that if I didn’t testify, Damien and Jason would walk free,” he recalled, “and they were going to go see Susie; they was going to get to her. That’s when they told me: talk or Damien and Jason are going to walk free and IU was going to be locked up.” Jessie credited his father and stepmother with helpiong him to understand the situation. They told him that if he lied at Damien and Jason’s trial, “That’s somthing I’d have to live with the rest of my life.” That, he said was when he decided not to testify. “This way, if I ever do get out, he explained, “my name will be clear, and IO can live pretty much a decent life.””

Hmmmm…. interesting thing to tell a mildly retarded person in order to get them to testify….

But it doesn’t stop there, because as several of the defence lawyers put it, the first of which was Jessie’s lawyer, as Jessie’s trial was seperate, and before Jason and Damien’s, the prosecution had developed “Damien Echols tunnel vision”. They were determined that he was to blame for the crimes, and wanted soley to convict him. And so a deal was offered to Jason…

“Instead of asking the jury to sentence Jason to death, they would seek a sentence of forty years-a term that would allow for his eventual parole-if he would plead guilty and testify against Damien. If Jason accepted the deal and exhibited good behavior in prison, he could expect to be out in 10-15 years…..
,,,”They (his lawyers) said, ‘j=Just say something. Save yourself,'” Jason recalled. “Ford was encouraging me to do it. But I was, like, ‘Nah. This isn’t right.’ I made the decision on my own, right then and there. It was a flat-out no. For said, ‘Well, I still had to ask.'”
Like much about Jason’s role in the trial, the drama played out quietly and was ultimately ignored. But the episode was revealing. It showed a lot about the prosecutors- and about the character of the 16 year old who, in turning them down, risked being put to death.””

To me, it seems like, if you honestly feel like 3 people are guilty of murder, you would not offer 2 of them the chance to be out on the street again in 15 years, for the sake of getting one of them the death penalty. And why so focused on Damien? Why not make the same offer to Damien so as to get Jason? I just think that it is wrong that Jason even had to hear that he had that option. That is not justice to me.

Anyway, just something to think about.

Free the WM3!

Godspeed.