The Case

In the early hours of a cold November morning in east Texas, five people piled in a car for a short trip to Longview. Twenty four hours later, two men were dead and three men were in custody for murder.

Two best friends and one teenager just four months after his 18th birthday, who had only known these people a few short months were the three in custody. The two best friends made deals (unsigned at trial time) to name the teenage acquaintance the ringleader of the murders.

There are two things that motivate a prosecutor to leave deals unsigned at trial. The most important motivation, disclosure. A deal must be disclosed to the jury. By leaving the deal unsigned the testimony that no deal existed is "truthful", therefore the testimony can be trusted.

The second and least spoken about is the obvious control the prosecutor has over the testimony. The teenager was Mr. Young, and the compelling evidence that lead to his conviction was the testimony of the best friends, a police chase, and juvenile records from a time when this young man was tossed from parent to parent, facility to facility.

"Proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is the standard for conviction. The prosecution achieved this by soliciting lies from one of the co defendants. This co defendant failed a lie detector test, in front of his own attorney and the investigator for the prosecution. The prosecution still called him as a witness and incited his less than truthful testimony. This is called prosecutorial misconduct. As an ethical question, it is unethical for an attorney to solicit testimony that is known to be false.

"Preponderance of evidence" is the standard for the death penalty question of future dangerousness. Somehow, Texas believes it has a crystal ball, and can determine whether or not someone will be dangerous in the future. When a jury believes in the punishment phase of a trial that the convicted will commit more crimes from behind bars, a death sentence is warranted.

Clinton's Case Files

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