The question to ask is of the net harm on society would be higher if cops were hesitating at every move.

The stories against the police are incredibly damning, but the statistics are pretty tame.

The legal system is literally incapable of holding cops accountable

Dont forget that the whole police qualified immunity was a fiction created out of nothing from SCOTUS. Its not federal law. Not state law.

Pierson v. Ray (1967) is the start of this farce.

And these police, due to non-law SCOTUS making shit up, are able to hound an innocent person for decades and suffer absolutely no punishments for that.

In America are police essentially literally immune from the law?

I had heard about this case but I didn't realize they had finally identified the perpetrator. What an awful human being he was.

Fascinating history. 3 years for a 12 year sentence as the result of good behavior, huh. Amusing. I suppose if someone were to attempt to murder you or someone you love, your best shot is to kill them after their release and then behave well. Then you will have likely saved society from a repeat offender and perhaps you’ll serve a few years. A sacrifice well worth it.

That part of Austin (I lived in North Shoal Creek for about fifteen years) is pretty slow to change. Most obvious change on Anderson would be part of Northcross Mall becoming the Walmart.

It's honestly not all that different today. The Shoal Creek neighborhood behind it was well established then, and the mall buildings were the same. North of Anderson has changed a bit more, but not radically.

Probably the bar in the article that he owns, I guess.

False convictions are much easier to stomach for the public when the punishment isn't final, irreversible and impossible to compensate.

The rate of such false convictions is just too high. This study estimates it at over 4%: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1306417111

You can't be killing people for justice when 1 in 25 are statistically innocent, that's just not gonna fly anymore.

40 years and death aren't the only two options. You can't see the future, he could be exonerated after 2 years of the 40 year sentence but if he'd been murdered by the state there would be no coming back.

If someone is falsely convicted we may not be able to rewind time but we can publish their innocence widely and give them monetary compensation, and whatever portion of their life remains is returned to them.

We cannot resurrect a dead person.

Millions of dollars isn't a reversal of 40 years in jail or 40 years of humiliation, but it's a heck of a lot better than nothing.

I think it's very obvious why your argument is incorrect. All you have to do is apply it assuming it happened to you, then you'll understand the difference.

How does that work? Was he indicted and put on trial?

> If you put someone in prison for 40 years, you can't reverse that either.

If I walk past you on the street and accidentally sneeze at you, I can't reverse that either. But sneezing at you is less of a harm than putting a person in prison for 40 years, which, you know, is less of a harm than murdering a person.