Irony: the real killer was arrested 2 days later and had the murder weapon on him, but it was never matched against the Austin murders. He killed himself in 1999.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Eugene_Brashers
doomspork 1 days ago [-]
I had heard about this case but I didn't realize they had finally identified the perpetrator. What an awful human being he was.
arjie 1 days ago [-]
Fascinating history. 3 years for a 12 year sentence as the result of good behavior, huh. Amusing. I suppose if someone were to attempt to murder you or someone you love, your best shot is to kill them after their release and then behave well. Then you will have likely saved society from a repeat offender and perhaps you’ll serve a few years. A sacrifice well worth it.
dyauspitr 24 hours ago [-]
Three years is a long time. Three years in an American prison and you’re not coming out the same person.
MyHonestOpinon 23 hours ago [-]
It blows my mind when I read comments online. People very lightly talk about sentences of decades like it is nothing.
arjie 15 hours ago [-]
Ah, but eternity in a grave is somewhat less preferable. When you leave that, you are much less recognizable.
porkshoe 1 days ago [-]
And I suppose their loved ones should then kill you, to save society from another killer...
And I suppose your loved ones should then kill their loved ones...
And so it goes..
lotsofpulp 23 hours ago [-]
Why would you suppose that? Presumably, arjie’s murder-in-response tactic is only for the first “unjustified” murder.
castwide 21 hours ago [-]
In arjie's mind, perhaps. In the minds of the murdered person's family, perhaps not.
arjie 15 hours ago [-]
Well, evidently he’s going to kill me without retribution or they’re going to kill me with retribution. The latter scenario leaves society better off. The convex hull of our two killer sets can then leave society through short-term targeted violence and everyone can else can live. It’s not a bad idea. I don’t think the graph goes particularly far to be honest.
Your world is a perfectly coherent world. Under those circumstances, I accept those outcomes.
I would prefer sequestration for murderers, but if it's not available, killing the first unjustified murderer is fine, and if that's not available I accept the convex hull.
1 days ago [-]
steve-atx-7600 1 days ago [-]
Turns out I work a couple blocks away from the strip model where that shop was. One day I walked by and saw a memorial placard in the ground and started googling to find out what happened there. Pretty nuts. There’s been so much gentrification since the time of the murders that it’s hard to understand what kind of neighborhood it was back in the day.
jefflinwood 23 hours ago [-]
That part of Austin (I lived in North Shoal Creek for about fifteen years) is pretty slow to change. Most obvious change on Anderson would be part of Northcross Mall becoming the Walmart.
hughw 1 days ago [-]
It's honestly not all that different today. The Shoal Creek neighborhood behind it was well established then, and the mall buildings were the same. North of Anderson has changed a bit more, but not radically.
thefourthchime 24 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. The strip mall's basically the same. The shops have changed. Some of the stuff around there has been changed, but it's actually not that different.
I've been in Austin for 25 years. It's actually one of my favorite parts of town. What has completely changed is the people.
Used to be kind of a slow college town with kind of a counterculture, some hippies. Now it's a buzzing urban area. Fancy cars, a lot of tech money.
thefourthchime 24 hours ago [-]
Weirdly, and I'm I guess I'm a little embarrassed about this, but after I saw the documentary about what happened, I saw him interviewed at some bar. I used ChatGPT to figure out which bar it was. And then on a lazy Sunday I drove down there and just hung out and soaked in the atmosphere.
He was there, he works there. I didn't even want to look because it felt weird. But there he was, doing his job, living his life.
csbrooks 23 hours ago [-]
Probably the bar in the article that he owns, I guess.
comrade1234 1 days ago [-]
Another example of why the death penalty should not exist. One of the boys spent five years on death row for a crime he didn't commit.
drcongo 1 days ago [-]
The HBO documentary about this case was excellent and you really feel for Forrest and his family. Highly recommended watch.
xvxvx 3 days ago [-]
No disciplinary action for the cops involved in trying to convict innocent boys, and harassing one to the extent that he’s now dead. If their own freedom was on the line, they’d not be so motivated. Time to hold the police accountable:
emdash 24 hours ago [-]
The legal system is literally incapable of holding cops accountable
mc32 19 hours ago [-]
The error condition is then the system is incapable of dealing with overly aggressive prosecution as well as overly lenient prosecution where repeat violent offenders are let off with light sentences, no sentences or commutation where offenders go on to re-commit serious crimes.
boston_clone 23 hours ago [-]
Why do you feel this is the case? There are many examples of cops being both held accountable and getting away with literal murder.
I hope folks reading this do not conflate my statement to mean any kind of support for police violence. However, the fatalistic thinking of "there is no accountability" excludes any sort of nuance and examples to the contrary. Does it happen less often, yes of course. But let's be intellectually honest with ourselves here. Another example in which I fully support the outcome of the judicial system:
Law enforcement is held accountable for anything so rarely that it's silly and disingenuous to bring up a couple high-profile examples as if they actually matter.
Even after these cases you mention, for example, that 1 year old was shot by a police officer somewhere in Missouri or Mississippi I think, within like the last year, right
boston_clone 16 hours ago [-]
I do agree with you, and can admit that the position was weak from the get-go. However, I do strongly oppose the fatalistic mindset as it - in my opinion - lulls people into complacency and acceptance instead of fighting for change (e.g., civic oversight boards, external audits of misconduct cases, collaboration with local government officials for reform, etc.).
Thanks for your reply though, it did help me see I’m arguing from a charged and unequal assertion. Maybe not an outright fallacy, but I suppose fairly close.
nekusar 1 days ago [-]
Dont forget that the whole police qualified immunity was a fiction created out of nothing from SCOTUS. Its not federal law. Not state law.
Pierson v. Ray (1967) is the start of this farce.
And these police, due to non-law SCOTUS making shit up, are able to hound an innocent person for decades and suffer absolutely no punishments for that.
parineum 23 hours ago [-]
The right to an abortion was also a legal fiction "created out of nothing".
soperj 22 hours ago [-]
So was woman's right to vote?
What's your point.
seizethecheese 22 hours ago [-]
You can probably assume they’re using this as an example of an “invented” right that many here would agree with, to say it’s not necessarily a bad thing for courts to “invent” a right.
nekusar 21 hours ago [-]
Part of it is also congress won't do their job. So it leaves the courts legislating from the bench. And precedents can change as the wind blows.
If anything, it's problematic. Like, why do cops have immunity? Why do they deserve it, and why does SCOTUS get to invent 'qualified immunity'?
Of course, yet another person brings up Roe v Wade, and didn't read the briefs. The crux of that was that states had a patchwork of laws, and some of those laws required violating privacy laws. Abortion rights were predicated upon doctor-patient privacy. The briefs also stated that first trimester should be no issue for abortion, second is not recommended, and 3rd was at threat of life of mother. That's a pretty decent and well thought standard.
And....
> So was woman's right to vote?
Are you for fucking serious? Have you not heard of the 19th amendment? This isn't legislating from the bench. This is 'passes constitutional muster and is part of the constution'
soperj 18 hours ago [-]
Actually hadn't (not American). Why weren't black women allowed to vote at that point?
nekusar 17 hours ago [-]
Honestly, cause the North chose to "reach across the aisle" and "let bygones be bygones", instead of mass hanging of all traitors. Hell, even the Southern senators and house members GOT THEIR SEATS BACK. And in the 1880-1890s, white slaveowners got reparations for "lost property".
The North may have won the war, but the South effectively won. And then Jim Crow took hold with anti-black laws everywhere. Wasn't illegal to discriminate. And discriminatory practices took hold everywhere, even in the North. It's why bridges out of NYC were sized too small, to keep out black people from the beaches.
It took to 1964 to get the Civil Rights Act, 100 years after we supposedly won. Shitty win.
And even now, sure the laws are in parity, but so many things aren't. Black babies die at 3x their white baby counterparts. Black pregnant women die 4x as often in childbirth than whites. And parity in wages is a massive thing. And schooling.
WarmWash 21 hours ago [-]
The question to ask is of the net harm on society would be higher if cops were hesitating at every move.
The stories against the police are incredibly damning, but the statistics are pretty tame.
teachrdan 21 hours ago [-]
> The question to ask is of the net harm on society would be higher if cops were hesitating at every move.
We have to draw the line somewhere. How about, "Cops shouldn't harass people once charges against them have been dropped"?
> The stories against the police are incredibly damning, but the statistics are pretty tame.
Every minute wasted harassing an innocent person is a minute better spent pursuing actual criminals. There are numerous cases (like the Central Park 5) where the police prematurely focused on suspects of convenience while the real criminals walked free and killed again. Stronger rules would protect us.
andrewstuart 23 hours ago [-]
In America are police essentially literally immune from the law?
parineum 23 hours ago [-]
The answer is no.
It's complicated because the District Attorney is usually responsible for seeing cases against police and deciding to bring charges but they rely on having a good relationship with the police.
The high profile stuff you see on the news are the hard cases. Most of the time the instances where people say they got away with something are very biased takes that leave out a lot of context rather than a successful cover-up, though both do happen.
People talk about qualified immunity like it's a personal shield for police but it's much more nuanced than you'll read about most places. Qualified immunity just says that the individual police officer has immunity from prosecution or liability in cases where they genuinely believe they are doing their job correctly.
colejohnson66 22 hours ago [-]
Not quite. The way courts have applied QI is: a cop can't be held liable if there's no legal precedent that what they did would violate one's rights. The specific wording is "clearly established". So if there's no legal precedent that punching an innocent bystanding (who's recording them) is a violation of their rights, then it's not "clearly established" that their rights were violated. Ergo, QI applies and the bystander's on the hook for his/her hospital bill.
The absolutely absurd wrinkle is: courts often skip the rights question entirely. Since Pearson v. Callahan (2009), they can decide either "prong" first, but many decide only that the right wasn't "clearly established". As such, the underlying violation goes unruled on and precedent is never established.
Rarely, courts hold the conduct so obviously unconstitutional that no precedent is needed and that QI doesn't apply. Those rulings are rare and often reversed on appeal, including by the Supreme Court. Even if they survive appeal to the circuit level, courts are under no obligation to "listen" to a ruling from a different circuit (it's how "circuit splits" happen).
gus_massa 21 hours ago [-]
> has immunity from prosecution or liability in cases where they genuinely believe
Why does it apply only to cops? If I'm drivind at 60mph in a 50mph zone but I genuinely believe the max speed is 60mph, do I get a fine?
parineum 31 minutes ago [-]
It only applies to the police officer as an individual. If you want to sue someone because your rights were violated, qualified immunity just changes who you can sue, the officer or the department. It'd be like if your boss told you that the speed limit was 60, you drove 60 and got a ticket. Your company/boss would be liable not you.
So it doesn't erase that a violation happens, it just changes who's responsible.
tough 23 hours ago [-]
Who watches the watchers?
thaumasiotes 1 days ago [-]
> In February, Forrest was officially declared innocent, and a few months later he was granted millions of dollars in compensation from the City of Austin. In August, he turned fifty, and his mom and the patrons of the Manchaca Springs Saloon threw him a big party. Sixty friends—many of whom he didn’t even know two years ago—toasted him, hugged him, and gave him raucous high fives. You would think Forrest would, finally, be happy.
I see the argument thrown around a lot that it's unethical to impose the death penalty because it can't be reversed.
This has never made any sense to me. If you put someone in prison for 40 years, you can't reverse that either. If you spread baseless rumors about someone being a murderer, never charge him with anything, and just quietly let everyone in the state shun and despise him for 40 years...
td521534f12 1 days ago [-]
If someone is falsely convicted we may not be able to rewind time but we can publish their innocence widely and give them monetary compensation, and whatever portion of their life remains is returned to them.
We cannot resurrect a dead person.
myrmidon 23 hours ago [-]
False convictions are much easier to stomach for the public when the punishment isn't final, irreversible and impossible to compensate.
You can't be killing people for justice when 1 in 25 are statistically innocent, that's just not gonna fly anymore.
thaumasiotes 16 hours ago [-]
Look, the entire content of my comment above you is that other punishments are also final, irreversible, and impossible to compensate. What are you trying to say?
bryanlarsen 1 days ago [-]
Millions of dollars isn't a reversal of 40 years in jail or 40 years of humiliation, but it's a heck of a lot better than nothing.
deltoidmaximus 22 hours ago [-]
40 years and death aren't the only two options. You can't see the future, he could be exonerated after 2 years of the 40 year sentence but if he'd been murdered by the state there would be no coming back.
glitchc 1 days ago [-]
I think it's very obvious why your argument is incorrect. All you have to do is apply it assuming it happened to you, then you'll understand the difference.
sidewndr46 1 days ago [-]
How does that work? Was he indicted and put on trial?
td521534f12 1 days ago [-]
Two of the other boys were tried, convicted, and one given the death sentence. The death sentence was later commuted, and eventually they were freed due to the violations of their sixth amendment rights.
baobabKoodaa 1 days ago [-]
> If you put someone in prison for 40 years, you can't reverse that either.
If I walk past you on the street and accidentally sneeze at you, I can't reverse that either. But sneezing at you is less of a harm than putting a person in prison for 40 years, which, you know, is less of a harm than murdering a person.
Rendered at 16:10:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
And I suppose your loved ones should then kill their loved ones...
And so it goes..
Your world is a perfectly coherent world. Under those circumstances, I accept those outcomes.
I would prefer sequestration for murderers, but if it's not available, killing the first unjustified murderer is fine, and if that's not available I accept the convex hull.
I've been in Austin for 25 years. It's actually one of my favorite parts of town. What has completely changed is the people.
Used to be kind of a slow college town with kind of a counterculture, some hippies. Now it's a buzzing urban area. Fancy cars, a lot of tech money.
He was there, he works there. I didn't even want to look because it felt weird. But there he was, doing his job, living his life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Breonna_Taylor#Depa...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Chauvin#Arrest_and_charg...
Even after these cases you mention, for example, that 1 year old was shot by a police officer somewhere in Missouri or Mississippi I think, within like the last year, right
Thanks for your reply though, it did help me see I’m arguing from a charged and unequal assertion. Maybe not an outright fallacy, but I suppose fairly close.
Pierson v. Ray (1967) is the start of this farce.
And these police, due to non-law SCOTUS making shit up, are able to hound an innocent person for decades and suffer absolutely no punishments for that.
If anything, it's problematic. Like, why do cops have immunity? Why do they deserve it, and why does SCOTUS get to invent 'qualified immunity'?
Of course, yet another person brings up Roe v Wade, and didn't read the briefs. The crux of that was that states had a patchwork of laws, and some of those laws required violating privacy laws. Abortion rights were predicated upon doctor-patient privacy. The briefs also stated that first trimester should be no issue for abortion, second is not recommended, and 3rd was at threat of life of mother. That's a pretty decent and well thought standard.
And....
> So was woman's right to vote?
Are you for fucking serious? Have you not heard of the 19th amendment? This isn't legislating from the bench. This is 'passes constitutional muster and is part of the constution'
The North may have won the war, but the South effectively won. And then Jim Crow took hold with anti-black laws everywhere. Wasn't illegal to discriminate. And discriminatory practices took hold everywhere, even in the North. It's why bridges out of NYC were sized too small, to keep out black people from the beaches.
It took to 1964 to get the Civil Rights Act, 100 years after we supposedly won. Shitty win.
And even now, sure the laws are in parity, but so many things aren't. Black babies die at 3x their white baby counterparts. Black pregnant women die 4x as often in childbirth than whites. And parity in wages is a massive thing. And schooling.
The stories against the police are incredibly damning, but the statistics are pretty tame.
We have to draw the line somewhere. How about, "Cops shouldn't harass people once charges against them have been dropped"?
> The stories against the police are incredibly damning, but the statistics are pretty tame.
Every minute wasted harassing an innocent person is a minute better spent pursuing actual criminals. There are numerous cases (like the Central Park 5) where the police prematurely focused on suspects of convenience while the real criminals walked free and killed again. Stronger rules would protect us.
It's complicated because the District Attorney is usually responsible for seeing cases against police and deciding to bring charges but they rely on having a good relationship with the police.
The high profile stuff you see on the news are the hard cases. Most of the time the instances where people say they got away with something are very biased takes that leave out a lot of context rather than a successful cover-up, though both do happen.
People talk about qualified immunity like it's a personal shield for police but it's much more nuanced than you'll read about most places. Qualified immunity just says that the individual police officer has immunity from prosecution or liability in cases where they genuinely believe they are doing their job correctly.
The absolutely absurd wrinkle is: courts often skip the rights question entirely. Since Pearson v. Callahan (2009), they can decide either "prong" first, but many decide only that the right wasn't "clearly established". As such, the underlying violation goes unruled on and precedent is never established.
Rarely, courts hold the conduct so obviously unconstitutional that no precedent is needed and that QI doesn't apply. Those rulings are rare and often reversed on appeal, including by the Supreme Court. Even if they survive appeal to the circuit level, courts are under no obligation to "listen" to a ruling from a different circuit (it's how "circuit splits" happen).
Why does it apply only to cops? If I'm drivind at 60mph in a 50mph zone but I genuinely believe the max speed is 60mph, do I get a fine?
So it doesn't erase that a violation happens, it just changes who's responsible.
I see the argument thrown around a lot that it's unethical to impose the death penalty because it can't be reversed.
This has never made any sense to me. If you put someone in prison for 40 years, you can't reverse that either. If you spread baseless rumors about someone being a murderer, never charge him with anything, and just quietly let everyone in the state shun and despise him for 40 years...
We cannot resurrect a dead person.
The rate of such false convictions is just too high. This study estimates it at over 4%: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1306417111
You can't be killing people for justice when 1 in 25 are statistically innocent, that's just not gonna fly anymore.
If I walk past you on the street and accidentally sneeze at you, I can't reverse that either. But sneezing at you is less of a harm than putting a person in prison for 40 years, which, you know, is less of a harm than murdering a person.