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I've read the entirety of both this thread and the previous (2014?) one; do we have any even earlier versions in archives? Link them in the OP maybe? We have a lot of incidents we love to revisit (particularly Franklin's Expedition and Dyatlov Pass) but I remembered a really unnerving one I don't think we've had in the last two huge threads. In 1944, South Carolina executed 14yr old black kid George Stinney for double-murder; the whole timeline from "found two bodies" to "kid dead in the electric chair" took 83 days total, and he was so small at 5'1" and 90lbs that the mask for the chair didn't fit him right and slipped off mid-jolt. Per wiki he was "convicted in less than 10 minutes, during a one-day trial, by an all-white, all male jury".  Basically, two white girls (8yrs and 11yrs) were out picking flowers and disappeared, and were later found dead in a ditch, beaten with a blunt object but not sexually assaulted. They'd crossed paths with 14yr old George Stinney and his sister earlier that day and asked directions. George was arrested and questioned without either his parents or an attorney present (the latter wasn't required for questioning in those days), and the only written record of his "confession" is from one deputy who interrogated him. During the trial, the prosecution presented two contradictory versions of his confession, one that he tried to help one girl as she fell into the ditch and was mistakenly attacked by the other, and the other story that he stalked and killed them. Despite the medical examiners explicitly saying that sexual assault hadn't occurred, the court allowed speculation about the "possibility" of rape. When we say the trial took a single day, that's the whole shebang, from jury selection to death verdict; deliberation took 10 minutes. Stinney's assigned counsel was a tax commissioner who didn't challenge any of the police witnesses to his confession, and at no point was any physical evidence tying Stinney to the scene provided. There's no written transcript of the trial, and no appeals were filed. I can't figure out exactly what day he was convicted, but suffice to say with only 83 days in the entire window it's not likely he had much time between conviction and execution. Here's the full wiki, worth a read. If it makes you feel any better, he was the youngest person executed in the US in the 20th century, so at least this terrible story is the rock-bottom for the previous century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stinney TapTheForwardAssist has a new favorite as of 06:46 on Nov 21, 2016 |
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Nov 21, 2016 05:39
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I'm pretty sure the Jim Crow era is a fertile field of horrible stories that this thread has not explored in much depth yet. That kid is the size of my sixth grader. 
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Nov 21, 2016 06:38
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False accusations don't happen though
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Nov 21, 2016 06:46
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*sees story about dead kids* lol time to put those man hating sjws in their place
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Nov 21, 2016 06:49
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:When we say the trial took a single day, that's the whole shebang, from jury selection to death verdict; deliberation took 10 minutes. Stinney's assigned counsel was a tax commissioner who didn't challenge any of the police witnesses to his confession, and at no point was any physical evidence tying Stinney to the scene provided. There's no written transcript of the trial, and no appeals were filed. I can't figure out exactly what day he was convicted, but suffice to say with only 83 days in the entire window it's not likely he had much time between conviction and execution. Looks like the trial was either April 23 or 24 1944. pookel posted:I'm pretty sure the Jim Crow era is a fertile field of horrible stories that this thread has not explored in much depth yet. Just find some old southern newspaper archives and look for lynching articles. Lynching wasn't uncommon in any part of the country, but the south lusted for it.
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Nov 21, 2016 07:58
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They looked over the trial and voided it, but apparently the surviving family of the victim weren't so happy with that. quote:Family members of both Betty Binnicker and Mary Thames expressed disappointment at the ruling. They said that, although they acknowledge his execution at the age of 14 is controversial, they never doubted his guilt. The niece of Betty Binnicker has said she and her family have extensively researched the case, and argues that "people who [just] read these articles in the newspaper don't know the truth." Binnicker's niece said that, in the early 1990s, a police officer who had arrested Stinney had contacted her and said: "Don't you ever believe that boy didn't kill your aunt." These family members said that the claims of a deathbed confession from an individual confessing to the girls' murders have never been substantiated.
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Nov 21, 2016 08:03
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That cop probably built up an extremely powerful delusion to live with being responsible for what happened and avoid facing the fact that (a) they murdered a child out of blind racism and (b) the real killer was free as a bird. The family members too, I imagine. That's the only way I can conceive of someone genuinely believing he was guilty.
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Nov 21, 2016 08:15
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WickedHate posted:That cop probably built up an extremely powerful delusion to live with being responsible for what happened and avoid facing the fact that (a) they murdered a child out of blind racism and (b) the real killer was free as a bird. The family members too, I imagine. That's the only way I can conceive of someone genuinely believing he was guilty. The point's not really whether Stinney was guilty or not; it's not inconceivable that one kid killed some other kids, it happens today and it happened then. The same way nobody's saying (or should be saying) that everyone who got lynched was innocent of wrongdoing. Lynching wasn't wrong because everyone was innocent, it was wrong because it was a tacit admission that some people "deserved" a fair and impartial trial based on their race and/or class, and other people didn't. If Stinney had gotten the exact same treatment that the teenage son of a wealthy white man would've gotten, this would be a whole different debate. Not to harp on this issue, I'm just aware that it's a rightist smug argument that bleeding-heart liberals deliberately overlook all the people who were lynched for legitimately committing crimes. So I think it's important to emphasize that it's not their guilt or innocence that's at issue, it's that society just shrugged and opined that they didn't have the same human rights that others did.
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Nov 21, 2016 08:27
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I dunno, I think it's a pretty important part of this particular case that the only evidence was a brief interaction, the jury took ten minutes, and the lawyer didn't even try. Sure, theoretically it's not impossible that he did it, but if not for the overwhelming railroading I don't think it'd be particularly noteworthy. After all, this technically wasn't a lynching. In any case it's pretty much impossible to look at it and say "he def did it" without having to convince yourself that to rationalize away the death of a child you were involved in, which is more what I was getting at. WickedHate has a new favorite as of 08:41 on Nov 21, 2016 |
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Nov 21, 2016 08:38
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DogonCrook posted:It would take far more than 5k to prove someone intentionally fell in a hole in court. Like now you'll have a dead guy, ruined geyser, and a 50 to 100k legal fees of which they can recoup 5k. And as you pointed out even animals have the sense to not die in them, so if you are somehow dumber than a bison we should just put on a sign on that person to remind them to stay home. a sign saying "look at this idiot who fell into the boiling acid pool and died" with their face in a massive photo might help definitely make fun of whoever is stupid enough to die though
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Nov 21, 2016 10:05
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I don't even know why you would want to warn people social Darwinism gets a bad rap but do you really want a David Kirwan going on to pollute the gene pool instead of polluting a hot spring?
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Nov 21, 2016 10:23
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between "hey maybe some people who got lynched were guilty" and people unironically talking about social darwinism we're an asses' hair away from eugenics approval up in here
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Nov 21, 2016 10:24
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You guys talking about the bad pr of suing a dead guy are fundamentally misunderstanding the psychology of the American tourist. You show him a sign that says "Don't do this, you will die", the American tourist says "gently caress that, hold my beer." He does not believe it will happen to him. You show that same dude a sign that says "Don't do this, we will sue you" and he will hesitate.
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Nov 21, 2016 14:25
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Despite the medical examiners explicitly saying that sexual assault hadn't occurred, the court allowed speculation about the "possibility" of rape. He COULD have raped them and that's good enough evidence for us! Let's wrap this up and go home, I'm missing lunch here. Another horrifying story: Emmett Till. A black kid is visiting the south from Chicago and doesn't really understand how blacks are treated there, apparently whistles or says something to a white woman and is beaten to death by a couple of white guys. The white guys are found innocent and go brag about their crime to a magazine not long after. Till's mother didn't want any work done on her son, so that the world could see what those guys did as Till lay in his coffin.
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Nov 21, 2016 14:52
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About David Kirwan, too. I get it's amusing to laugh at people who die in stupid ways. But - sometimes people do crazy dangerous heroic things, and when someone says afterwards 'what were you thinking, you could have been killed!' they say 'I didn't think about that'. People yanking open the doors of burning vehicles to rescue the occupants, that kind of thing. And maybe 'was a stupid idiot' isn't a reason to abandon all compassion for the family of that idiot.
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Nov 21, 2016 15:28
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HopperUK posted:About David Kirwan, too. I get it's amusing to laugh at people who die in stupid ways. But - sometimes people do crazy dangerous heroic things, and when someone says afterwards 'what were you thinking, you could have been killed!' they say 'I didn't think about that'. People yanking open the doors of burning vehicles to rescue the occupants, that kind of thing. Somebody who does this...http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-01-05/news/sfl-meth-blast-0120105_1_shake-and-bake-meth-driver-crash...deserves all the howls of derision in the world however.
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Nov 21, 2016 15:34
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bean_shadow posted:He COULD have raped them and that's good enough evidence for us! Let's wrap this up and go home, I'm missing lunch here. The murderers never showed any remorse for their crime either, and later were upset because they kept getting harassed over it. Because being inconvenienced is way worse then being loving murdered. Oh, and let's not forget that someone shot up the Emmett Till memorial sign about a month ago. Heritage not hate indeed.
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Nov 21, 2016 17:20
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E: whoops should have checked the initial post
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Nov 21, 2016 17:36
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Henker posted:The murderers never showed any remorse for their crime either, and later were upset because they kept getting harassed over it. Check out the documentary The Act of Killing. Its a perfect example of how society and culture can override basic humanity and allow people to live with having participated in horrific acts because they've convinced themselves they were doing the right thing. It features one particular guy who has very obviously been living multiple decades without ever allowing himself to see things from any other perspective but the one that allows him to sleep at night. (Ending spoilers)As soon as someone enters his life that throws the other perspective into his face and forces him to see it, the guy emotionally implodes.
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Nov 21, 2016 17:43
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I am perfectly cool with the idea of sterilizing or vigilante justice killing the guys who murdered people like Emmett till and Vincent chin. The guys who beat Vincent chin to death are whining right now about how they have to pay a lien on their house to chin's mom, you do not want these monsters in your society
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Nov 21, 2016 18:41
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Marijuana Nihilist posted:The guys who beat Vincent chin to death are whining right now about how they have to pay a lien on their house to chin's mom, you do not want these monsters in your society I'd like to think that this guy(Ebens is his name according to Wikipedia) is at least subject to regular harassment because apparently he just lives openly and has the balls to actually file to have the lien vacated? I always assumed people like that who get away with horrible crimes usually change their name to avoid public attention, like those two kids who did a school shooting and then were released years later.
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Nov 21, 2016 19:33
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Basebf555 posted:Check out the documentary The Act of Killing. Its a perfect example of how society and culture can override basic humanity and allow people to live with having participated in horrific acts because they've convinced themselves they were doing the right thing. It features one particular guy who has very obviously been living multiple decades without ever allowing himself to see things from any other perspective but the one that allows him to sleep at night. (Ending spoilers)As soon as someone enters his life that throws the other perspective into his face and forces him to see it, the guy emotionally implodes. This is a fantastic documentary and I encourage everyone to watch it.
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Nov 21, 2016 19:36
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:On lynching I write about this horrible poo poo as part of my job, and the best (recent) resource on lynching comes from the Equal Justice Initiative. Here's a link to their list of lynching deaths. Check to see if one happened in your back yard! Link: http://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-second-edition-supplement-by-county.pdf And here's a New York Times map using much of that data: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/10/us/map-of-73-years-of-lynching.html The EJI was mailing out copies of their report for free about two years ago. Not sure if you can any more, but for those of you interested, here's the link to the report home page: http://eji.org/reports/lynching-in-america
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Nov 22, 2016 04:28
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Lynching wasn't limited to the South: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Thurber ETA: I didn't mean this to dispute that it was largely a Southern phenomenon - just "good lord, it even happened way up here." pookel has a new favorite as of 18:52 on Nov 22, 2016 |
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Nov 22, 2016 17:03
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pookel posted:Lynching wasn't limited to the South: True, but just like biscuits and gravy the south took more pride in it.
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Nov 22, 2016 17:51
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pookel posted:Lynching wasn't limited to the South: no, just overwhlemingly concentrated there. 
chernobyl kinsman has a new favorite as of 18:33 on Nov 22, 2016 |
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Nov 22, 2016 18:29
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I thought I knew a lot about the racial history of the U.S., but there is always more (and it is always worse). In the so-called Red Summer, white mobs across the country started "race riots" that mostly killed black people, although blacks were frequently portrayed as the instigators in contemporary press accounts. Notably, this was the first time in which the black population, bolstered by black veterans recently returned from WWI, fought back in significant numbers. The worst incident of the Red Summer was the Elaine massacre in Elaine, Arkansas, which killed at least 100 people and probably more (EJI puts the number at 237). On a cheerier note, the 12 black men who were sentenced to death after the massacre ended with a mass arrest were all eventually set free., thanks in great part to a lawyer named Scipio Africanus Jones, who is a pretty interesting guy in his own right. He was born to a 15-year-old slave girl and her rapist/owner in about 1863, learned law while working as a janitor at a law office and reading books in his spare time, and ended up playing an instrumental role in (temporarily, anyway) keeping the Republican Party integrated. (He also has the blackest name I've ever heard in my life; I don't mean that as an insult. He sounds like he should be some kind of avenging black superhero.)
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Nov 22, 2016 18:47
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pookel posted:(He also has the blackest name I've ever heard in my life; I don't mean that as an insult. He sounds like he should be some kind of avenging black superhero.) Well yeah, he's named after an avenging Roman superhero.
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Nov 22, 2016 18:54
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Did Utah actually have 0 lynchings or is that a "lack of data" indicator.Bobby Digital posted:Well yeah, he's named after an avenging Roman superhero.
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Nov 22, 2016 19:03
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Terrible Opinions posted:Did Utah actually have 0 lynchings or is that a "lack of data" indicator.
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Nov 22, 2016 19:10
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Terrible Opinions posted:Did Utah actually have 0 lynchings or is that a "lack of data" indicator. Slight tweak.
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Nov 22, 2016 19:24
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Back to serial killer chat a second. Borderline retarded guy is enabled by parents, ends up killing several little boys, eventually executed a few miles from where I'm sitting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Frederick_Goode_III http://charlotte.floridaweekly.com/news/2009-11-19/Top_News/THE_ULTIMATE_PERSONIFICATION_OF_EVIL.html
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Nov 22, 2016 19:24
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whiteyfats posted:Back to serial killer chat a second. Reading his statements, I now have an archetype to apply to channers and GBS posters.
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Nov 22, 2016 20:09
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whiteyfats posted:Back to serial killer chat a second. drat, I used to work at Spring Grove, the facility where he was committed in the late 70's. I always knew it had seen its fair share of dangerous people but this is the first time I've heard about a specific case that horrific. The wiki article doesn't mention his exact IQ, but some of his statements suggest to me that the execution was totally justified(if you think any ever are). He repeatedly bragged about his crimes, and at one point said that he was purposely rebelling against society when he committed the murders. He knew what he was doing. Basebf555 has a new favorite as of 20:26 on Nov 22, 2016 |
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Nov 22, 2016 20:22
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Basebf555 posted:The wiki article doesn't mention his exact IQ, but some of his statements suggest to me that the execution was totally justified(if you think any ever are). He repeatedly bragged about his crimes, and at one point said that he was purposely rebelling against society when he committed the murders. He knew what he was doing. Wikipedia posted:On being arrested, Goode told the officers: "You can't do nothing to me. I'm sick." That bit kind of gives it away. Just sharp enough to try and work the system?
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Nov 22, 2016 20:29
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TotalLossBrain posted:That bit kind of gives it away. Just sharp enough to try and work the system? I mean yea I'm sure he did have a low IQ, it sounds like he was tested probably a bunch of times. It doesn't take much intelligence to know that abducting and killing kids is wrong though, and he seemed to understand that just fine. The article mentions that he once expressed an opinion that pedos should be given lighter sentences so that they'd have less incentive to murder their victims. That's not the kind of complex thought that a severely mentally disabled person would have.
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Nov 22, 2016 20:35
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Basebf555 posted:I mean yea I'm sure he did have a low IQ, it sounds like he was tested probably a bunch of times. It doesn't take much intelligence to know that abducting and killing kids is wrong though, and he seemed to understand that just fine. There is definitely a difference between having low IQ and not knowing right from wrong.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:09
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Atticus_1354 posted:There is definitely a difference between having low IQ and not knowing right from wrong. Absolutely, but it wouldn't take much looking around to find some examples of people being executed that wouldn't know the difference. Didn't Texas execute a guy with the IQ of a 5 year old. If I'm remembering correctly he asked for a slice of pecan pie as part of his last meal and didn't eat it because he wanted to "save it for later." edit: It was Arkansas and Bill Clinton was on hand for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Ray_Rector A little different than what I was remembering though. Dude lobotomized himself in a suicide attempt after killing two people. I don't know how I feel about the death penalty in a case like that to be honest. Solice Kirsk has a new favorite as of 21:20 on Nov 22, 2016 |
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Nov 22, 2016 21:16
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Solice Kirsk posted:A little different than what I was remembering though. Dude lobotomized himself in a suicide attempt after killing two people. I don't know how I feel about the death penalty in a case like that to be honest. If the person undergoes a legit neuropsych exam and a doctor says he's not legally competent, I'm fine with life in prison. I go back and forth about whether the death penalty should ever be used at all though.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:37
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Atticus_1354 posted:There is definitely a difference between having low IQ and not knowing right from wrong. Yea, please correct me if I am wrong but having a low IQ does not automatically allow someone into an insanity plea, and just because someone has a low IQ doesn't immediately mean that they don't know right from wrong (as opposed to the idea of an insanity plea).
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Nov 22, 2016 21:40
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