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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   32064 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025

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Without knowing specifics of a case, what the hell would DNA prove in a murder case? Did some guy shoot his own hand splattering the wall then shoot the victim?

This is why these sorts of appeals and objections are such BS. People just seize upon any possible avenue to delay an execution. Usually in such cases its not like there was a semen sample in the deceased vagina and he was convicted without testing done. Its obviously going to be some other thing.

Um, I dunno, suspect's blood found at the crime scene. Victim's blood found on the suspect's clothes, or in his apartment. I could go on but I don't have a decade to list all the scenarios where DNA evidence could be relevant in a murder case.

I think testing finding DNA evidence under the victim's fingernails that matches a guy convicted of rape would probably be fairly weighty evidence. Of course, to be weighed against everything else. Of course, that's a just-so manufactured scenario.

In this case, the perp confessed he was there to rob the victim and his co-conspirators went inside and murdered her instead. This appeals doesn't challenge his overall guilt for what happens, only whether he actually killed the victim or not. And that's relevant because the TX legislature (not a federal judge) specifically made that a precondition for the death penalty.

In other words, there is an actual factual question about what exactly this guy did.

But DNA can't solve that factual question. The jury already answered that question without DNA, which can only further implicate him. He can only go from 100% guilty to 100% guilty.

I understand and agree to that.

I don’t think it materially changes my point about the types of claims raised on appeal. His claim is weak, or even very weak, but it’s at least the right kind of claim.

Problem in this case is that it's possible that any DNA under the victim's fingernails match one of the Gutierrez's compatriots, and Gutierrez still entered the trailer and participated in the murder -- just without being scratched. Indeed, because one of his compatriots lived with the victim and had 'found' the victim's body, some of the samples should be reasonably expected to be not-Gutierrez's even if he was totally guilty as can be.

There's been fact-based determinations before focusing on guilt (even, rarely, ones that raised serious nontrivial questions of guilt: McCollum is pretty embarrassing to Scalia). I'm hard-pressed to see how that'd happen here.

Indeed. I don't disagree.

But at the very least the core of his appellate claim is on a relevant (to the TX legislature) factual matter about what happened. It might be weak, but at least he's arguing the right actual thing.

That alone puts it far ahead of the majority of far-less-defensible capital appeals that are about everything else.

That's fair; it's definitely better than the parade of 'well, you can't kill me this way' or 'oh, but I got bad advice from a defense attorney that I ignored anyway'.

my lawyer was ineffective for not investigating childhood abuse that might’ve been raised at sentencing

You can't use DNA evidence from a place to prove you weren't there, which is what he's trying to do.

Yes, I get that.

I must have written exceptionally poorly for so many folks not to actually get my point.

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