I agree. Many posters here feel this has been a miscarriage of justice, and it may in fact meet the criteria, but when the alternative of actual justice is based upon a DP with no death, and considerable and unique benefits out of all proportion to the punishment meted out, this miscarriage may in the end be more just than the real article. It is truly backwards and farcical, but that is an accurate reflection of the backwards and farcical nature of the DP in today's political, and politically correct climate.
There is a poster on this board who's name carries a message of support for a dear friend of hers who was kidnapped and murdered many years ago. She names both the victim and the murderer. Googling the murderers name reveals that his DP conviction was overturned 27 years after it was imposed, and there is mention of the possibility of his getting parole.
There is no doubt that had this juror been unbiased and fair, JA would have received the DP. Most people, including the family, would have had the satisfaction of a just result for a depraved and evil act. Except it would have been an illusion, a lie, fool's gold, a house built on a foundation of mud, and nothing short of a golden opportunity for evil to triumph in the end. Not an inevitability, but an opportunity, as borne out by Katiecoolady's story, the poster's on this board that I mentioned, and undoubtedly many, many others.
As it stands we know that 13 people out of 14 on that jury (including the alternates) saw, understood, and supported the truth, as well as saw, understood and rejected the lies. That this is justice in a sense perhaps greater than the law can provide is a suggestion worth considering.
That the written law was subverted by a less than honest human nature may be a fact in this case, but is also a story as old as human nature itself, but interestingly the written law in this case is booby-trapped, it carries within it the opposite of its intention, has concealed within it the ability to turn justice into injustice and to injure those it claims to help, and to help those it claims to injure.
Is there very much to mourn in the fact that un-admired human folly was used so apparently skillfully, in such a measured amount, as to yield the best possible result out of flawed human law, and the best possible sentiment out of 13 sincere hearts?
