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Comment by song | Hacker News Reader

Quote from the attorney for the county

> The attorneys for the county argued that the six should get no more than three hundred thousand dollars each in damages, and suggested that it was Winslow’s fault that he had been repeatedly raped while he was serving his sentence. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think anybody should be abused like that in prison,” one of the attorneys said. “But you saw him testify here. You saw his video. Mr. Winslow is effeminate in nature.”

I can understand that it's his job to downplay the damages but this is despicable.

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That is beyond downplaying damages. That is literally "he deserved it because he is not man enough". This being used as a serious argument is just wow-level of highly wrong.

> That is literally "he deserved it because he is not man enough".

Or more obviously: "Look at him, he looks like a queer! Probably liked it and all. Probably led them on."

Attorneys who represent states often make perverse and reprehensible arguments to mitigate the state's liability.

I don't way to go too far afield but I would recommend the Paradise Lost documentaries. In the third one, the lawyer for the state of Arkansas argued that maintaining a conviction was more important than determining actual guilt.

For good or ill, that's actually a pretty widely accepted legal principle in the American justice system.

Jury trials are used to determine guilt or innocence, and judges are extremely hesitant to second guess a jury decision under any circumstances. Appeals aren't for relitigating guilt, they are for ensuring that the original trial was conducted fairly and properly. Furthermore, there's a strong bias in all circumstances against reopening closed legal matters. In general, the US court system prioritizes consistency and finality above correctness.

On paper at least, the proper legal remedy for someone who was convicted, who does not argue that their trial was conducted properly, and who nevertheless maintains their innocence is a pardon or commutation from the governor.

This undeniably sucks, but the alternative is to have the court system essentially DDoSed by felons demanding frivolous retrials.

The "Justice System" isn't really about justice.

There was witness tampering by the police and jury misconduct. Either of those should have been enough to generate a new trial on procedural grounds.

I do not know if you're familiar with the case in those documentaries but more than a decade after their conviction, new material was discovered and a DNA test linked a new and different suspect to the crime and under the Arkansas DNA statute, the convicted men should have received a hearing on the matter.

The state's attorney argued that the legislative intent of the statute was only to use DNA evidence to prove the guilt of people who had already been found guilty at trial and that no new evidence should be admitted to the hearing.

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendants.

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