Tête-à-Tête-Tête

Isn’t this, in one sense, the justice system working. While not perfect, it is the best we have and most of the time those involved make a sincere effort to see that justice is carried out. They all have a perspective that those on the outside do not have.

One lesson that I wish all young people would take from this. It matters what you do. Where you go, how you conduct yourself, the kind of life you live is important. There are certain lifestyles that will lead you into trouble. When you are not guilty by involvement, often you will be thought ‘guilty by your association’. “Be careful, little feet where you go…”

I still do not know about these young men, but I do know that how we choose to live our lives, matters.

No - I’d say it is an example of the justice system *not* working. If the state, instead of the high-dollar lawyers gotten through high-profile celebrity involvement had pushed this re-evaluation of the evidence, then we might say that the justice system was at least, in some sense, self-correcting.

But, no, it was the rare happenstance of an alert journalist writing a book that got picked up by a producer & turned into a film and boosted by the likes of Eddie Vedder that started the process of correcting this miscarriage of justice. This appeal wouldn’t have even been heard if it hadn’t been for the media and celebrity involvement.

As to being an object lesson for teenagers that they shouldn’t wear their favorite band’s tee-shirt or read the literature they are intereseted in? I don’t see it. Maybe it could be taken as an object lesson for adults that they should not to listen to people like Hal Lindsay so much that they can prosecute and convict kids like these in absence of any evidence against them in the first place. That is a lesson that surely needs learning.

I mean, sure there are things kids are better off doing… and some of them are things they should avoid or be careful about simply because they live in a world full of fools. But, really, to make this into a “lesson for the children” smacks too much of blaming the victim.

I suspect that if you were to go back to Memphis 1996, you would find that these young men were involved in a lot more than wearing tee shirts that were not socially acceptable AND we have to remember that guilt or innocence has not been determined. IF DNA had been available at the time, evidence would probably have been collected differently. We may never know for sure who committed this horrendous crime. Wouldn’t you expect to find a father’s DNA there? You have read much more about this than I have, but I suspect there are definitely two sides to this story and there had to be ample evidence that led a jury of 12 to convict them. I hope justice will be done, but we may never know for sure.

You really ought to read the book. I think you’ll be horrified. I think you’ll be horrified at how the case was (not) investigated, how the prosecution built the case, that they took it to court in the first place, and by the fact that the jury chose to convict, despite everything. Were you aware that the biggest thing the prosecution had in their favor was a heavily redacted, coerced, coached confession from a mentally retarded seventeen year old boy?

As to the DNA - Only the victim’s DNA is identifiable from what was left at the scene, aside from a strand of Terry Hobbs’ hair that was found in the ropes used to bind the victims. Hobbs was the stepfather of one of the victims.

Pamela Hobbs, one of the victims’ mothers, Mark Byers, one of the victims’ stepfathers, and Rick Murray - the biological father of that victim - all now believe these three are innocent, after reviewing the case more thoroughly and seeing some of the new evidence. They all initially believed the three to be guilty.