News

23376 readers

2959 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

362

Virginia Prosecutors Fight to Uphold Life Sentence for Man Found Not Guilty (theappeal.org)

submitted 1 month ago by gAlienLifeform to c/news

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

When police arrested Richardson in 1998, he was facing the death penalty. Afraid of potentially putting his life in the hands of a white jury in the South, Richardson, who is Black, took a guilty plea for involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in state prison. Claiborne, who is also Black, took a plea deal on a misdemeanor charge, as an accessory to Richardson’s crime.

But after outcry over what Gibson’s family viewed as a lenient sentence, federal prosecutors brought additional charges against the pair, accusing them of selling crack cocaine and murdering a police officer during a drug deal gone wrong.

In 2001, Richardson and Claiborne went to trial in the federal case. A jury found them not guilty of Gibson’s murder, but guilty of selling crack. In an unusual move, federal judge Robert Payne sentenced Richardson and Claiborne to life in prison using “acquitted conduct sentencing,” a legal mechanism approved in a 1996 Supreme Court ruling, which allows judges to sentence defendants based on charges for which they were acquitted.

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/zjFXZ

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Fortunately it looks like the federal courts don’t allow this any more: https://www.ussc.gov/about/news/press-releases/april-17-2024

But of course the state courts have their own separate rules.

[–] gAlienLifeform 9 points 1 month ago

Yeah, the federal government changed their rules just in time to make sure Trump can't be sentenced for something our supreme court decided he should be immune for, but meanwhile in this case

The innocence claim centers around three pieces of evidence... [one of which is] a photo lineup [that was] administered to a 9-year-old witness.

...

The photo lineup, meanwhile, did not appear in the case files of the county prosecutor, state police, or county police, according to the investigation by Herring’s office. The lineup was referenced during the federal case against Richardson and Claiborne, indicating that federal agents had a copy of it. Richardson’s counsel said they obtained the lineup through a public records request to federal investigators.

During the May hearing, the confusion surrounding the lineup led to conflicting interpretations by Richardson’s legal team and state prosecutors.

...

There is one individual who might be able to clear up the confusion around the lineup: ATF agent Michael Talbert, an architect of the 2001 federal case against Richardson and Claiborne. But Talbert did not testify at the May hearing because the federal government declined to make him available, citing his busy schedule.

Ultimately, Sussex County Circuit Judge William Tomko decided not to allow the photo lineup to be admitted as evidence.

“You’re not going to apparently ever be able to get the federal government to assist you with regards to establishing these documents, but that’s the unfortunate position that you’re in,” said Judge Tomko. “I can’t help that.”

Though Talbert did not testify at the May hearing, he spent an entire day in the courtroom watching proceedings.

“I am not permitted to ask questions of Agent Talbert because the federal government has refused to make him available, though he’s clearly available to testify,” said Hensley.