The concept of justice gets prison-raped again.
An Arkansas judge has OK’d a plea-bargain agreement to release from prison three men who raped and murdered three eight-year-old Cub Scouts in 1993.
JONESBORO, Ark. (al-AP) — Three men convicted of killing three 8-year-old Cub Scouts and dumping their bodies in an Arkansas ditch changed their pleas Friday, resolving a year-long effort to win their freedom.
Under a plea bargain, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were being freed immediately. The boys’ families were notified about the pact ahead of time but were not asked to approve it.
The defendants, known by their supporters as the West Memphis 3, agreed to a legal maneuver that lets them maintain their innocence while acknowledging prosecutors have enough evidence against them.
“I am innocent of these charges but I am entering an Alford guilty plea,” Echols told the judge. Baldwin and Miskelley also reasserted their innocence.
“Although I am innocent, this plea is in my best interest,” Misskelley said.
The three were credited with time served, and Echols is being freed from Arkansas’ death row. They were placed on 10 years’ probation and if they re-offend they could be sent back to prison for 21 years, Prosecutor Scott Ellington said.
“I believe that it would be practically impossible after 18 years to put on a proper trial in this case,” Ellington said.
“I believe this case is closed and there are no other individuals involved,” he said.
Coming on the heels of the miscarriage of justice in the Casey Anthony case, allowing the women who murdered her own daughter then partay while authorities searched for her, is it any wonder why any Americans believe in the concept of justice any more?
Three murdered allowed to walk away scot-free. Sure, they maintain they were innocent, but what convicted felon doesn’t? They admitted prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them. They were convicted by a jury. They should be forced to serve their sentences like other convicted felons.
Of course, you get idiot celebrities involved:
A 1996 HBO documentary, “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills,” drew the attention of celebrities including [Eddie]Vedder [lead singer of Pearl Jam] and Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks. They and other celebrities helped fund a legal team that worked to win the three a new trial.
“Why are they innocent?” Vedder said in an interview with The Associated Press last year. “Because there’s nothing that says they’re guilty.”
I guess now, in addition to being a foreign policy expert, Maines is also an expert on criminal justice. Facepalm.
