Professional lunatic Ann Coulter spreads her special brand of idiocy during a televised discussion about the death penalty, wrongful convictions and the possibility that innocent men may have been executed. Coulter and others discuss the trial and execution of Joe O'Dell.
During this television broadcast, Ann Coulter laughing dismisses virtually all of the important points in the debate regarding O'Dell's execution. She resorts to the same tried and tired arguments used by those who blindly defend capital punishment - the absolutely baseless claim that no innocent person has ever been executed. In truth, common sense alone dictated that at least one innocent person had been killed since the country began executing the convicted. Several studies, including a 1987 study conducted by Stanford University, concluded that at least 23 innocent men may have been executed. Since the advent of DNA technology, more than 100 men have been exonerated and released from prison - many were serving on death row and some even came close to being executed. In most instances, these individuals had been convicted using weak circumstantial evidence, suspect eyewitness testimony, and other problematic evidence. DNA and other direct evidence often proved that witnesses were wrong when they had identified the suspect, and, in some instances, DNA evidence has not only exonerated the wrongfully convicted but also identified the real killer. Based on these statistics, the aforementioned studies, and other relevant information, any reasonably intelligent person would be forced to conclude that, prior to DNA testing, many other innocent men had no means to prove their innocence and that some of these men were executed. Coulter may wish to defend capital punishment yet to do so by claiming that no evidence exists to indicate that any innocent person had ever been executed was intellectually dishonest, at best.
Coulter said, "I'm not even a lawyer in this case and I know enough to think he's guilty." She obviously has low standards for concluding guilt, as the evidence used in the trial was questionable at best. Coulter's argument that the jury found O'Dell guilty is also a familiar broken record - the jury said so, don't question the jury. O'Dell represented himself and failed to mount a proper defense, a critical issue in any case, let alone a death penalty case. The weapon allegedly linked to O'Dell, and the testimony of the state's expert, was also questionable. Appeals are designed to address such issues because juries are often misinformed, misled, or mistaken.
Coulter also repeats the familiar excuse that prisoners have too many rights and too many appeals in order to avoid the real issue at hand - the evidence that an appeal may have been an appropriate course of action and that DNA evidence remained untested. As one of O'Dell's attorneys states during the broadcast, O'Dell simply pursued the normal appeals to which he was legally entitled, and had not been abusing the law or filing prolific appeals.
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4:22Ann Coulter "jews perfected" responseby PoliticalZachG15,554 views
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