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Death Penalty - Execution method poll
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<blockquote data-quote="Billybob" data-source="post: 2364583" data-attributes="member: 1294"><p>The link in the article below doesn't work but google "corruption of a noble cause". </p><p></p><p>Texas Civil Rights Review </p><p></p><p>[I teach ethics and enjoy analyzing these sorts of cases with my students. One response I initially get is the "bad apple" response: There are some bad people in every profession. But I tell the students that it is not adequate ethical thinking to simply point out the bad apples and say everything will be better after we get the bad ones out of the barrel. Look, rather, at the whole criminal justice culture. If we can change the culture, we will get rid of most of the bad apples -- not the other way around.</p><p></p><p>Jocye Gilchrist was a problem -- surely. But how does someone like her function smoothly (receiving commendations) for twenty years? Doesn't that imply a wider problem than just one bad apple in the police crime lab? Was not something wrong with the prosecutors who were so anxious to get their "magic" Gilchrist on the stand to testify, case after case, year after year? (There were plenty of signs her work was too good to be true.) And here is another clue that there is a wider culture problem: True, she was fired, but she was never prosecuted for a crime. Perhaps "overzealousness" like hers was institutionally tolerated, even though it meant someone like McCarthy would spend years on death row.</p><p></p><p>A book I am re-reading, Police Ethics: The Corruption of Noble Cause, tries to look at the barrel and not each apple separately. The author thinks most police and criminal justice misconduct is not rooted in money scams, but in a strange cultural problem: a strong certitude that police work is a "noble cause." It is such a noble cause that one can bend the rules, lie, use any means, to serve it. Look at Joyce Gilchrist in the police lab. No one bribed her to fudge evidence. She would never take a bribe from a criminal. But she apparently could lie to put "bad guys" in jail and help the "good guys." Our side is noble; why fuss about tactics?</p><p></p><p>This noble cause tradition is handed down to new recruits from older officers and other leaders in the criminal justice world decade after decade, building a sort of culture that second-guesses ethics in order to achieve grand purposes. The values of the whole system start changing, even if the written rules do not.</p><p></p><p>The book I'm reading makes an excellent point on institutional acceptance of misconduct. It references a study by the Chicago Tribune, "Break rules, be promoted." (The title reflects the Joyce Gilchrist story well: she was promoted to be head of the lab.) The Tribune examined 381 cases of prosecutor misconduct in homicide cases since 1964.</p><p></p><p>These were serious cases of misconduct that ended with convictions being overturned. For instance, one prosecutor won convictions against two Afro-Americans and did not tell the defense about one witness who said the perpetrators were white. Another prosecutor knew evidence was planted. But in these 381 cases, not one of the prosecutors was convicted of a crime. And many went on to be district attorneys or judges...]</p><p></p><p><a href="http://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1035" target="_blank">http://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1035</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Billybob, post: 2364583, member: 1294"] The link in the article below doesn't work but google "corruption of a noble cause". Texas Civil Rights Review [I teach ethics and enjoy analyzing these sorts of cases with my students. One response I initially get is the "bad apple" response: There are some bad people in every profession. But I tell the students that it is not adequate ethical thinking to simply point out the bad apples and say everything will be better after we get the bad ones out of the barrel. Look, rather, at the whole criminal justice culture. If we can change the culture, we will get rid of most of the bad apples -- not the other way around. Jocye Gilchrist was a problem -- surely. But how does someone like her function smoothly (receiving commendations) for twenty years? Doesn't that imply a wider problem than just one bad apple in the police crime lab? Was not something wrong with the prosecutors who were so anxious to get their "magic" Gilchrist on the stand to testify, case after case, year after year? (There were plenty of signs her work was too good to be true.) And here is another clue that there is a wider culture problem: True, she was fired, but she was never prosecuted for a crime. Perhaps "overzealousness" like hers was institutionally tolerated, even though it meant someone like McCarthy would spend years on death row. A book I am re-reading, Police Ethics: The Corruption of Noble Cause, tries to look at the barrel and not each apple separately. The author thinks most police and criminal justice misconduct is not rooted in money scams, but in a strange cultural problem: a strong certitude that police work is a "noble cause." It is such a noble cause that one can bend the rules, lie, use any means, to serve it. Look at Joyce Gilchrist in the police lab. No one bribed her to fudge evidence. She would never take a bribe from a criminal. But she apparently could lie to put "bad guys" in jail and help the "good guys." Our side is noble; why fuss about tactics? This noble cause tradition is handed down to new recruits from older officers and other leaders in the criminal justice world decade after decade, building a sort of culture that second-guesses ethics in order to achieve grand purposes. The values of the whole system start changing, even if the written rules do not. The book I'm reading makes an excellent point on institutional acceptance of misconduct. It references a study by the Chicago Tribune, "Break rules, be promoted." (The title reflects the Joyce Gilchrist story well: she was promoted to be head of the lab.) The Tribune examined 381 cases of prosecutor misconduct in homicide cases since 1964. These were serious cases of misconduct that ended with convictions being overturned. For instance, one prosecutor won convictions against two Afro-Americans and did not tell the defense about one witness who said the perpetrators were white. Another prosecutor knew evidence was planted. But in these 381 cases, not one of the prosecutors was convicted of a crime. And many went on to be district attorneys or judges...] [url]http://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1035[/url] [/QUOTE]
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