Overturned convictions that are never again taken to trial because they know they have the wrong person.
Absolutely not true. A good portion of them don't go back to trial because witnesses have died or been compromised or evidence has been lost or compromised. Evidence, specifically, has changed enormously in just the last 30 years.
But most often the reason the case isn't retried is because the technicality that got it overturned is insurmountable. Again, take Sonny Jacobs. She and two men were involved in the murder of two men. The police caught them and started to question them. The shooter made the first deal - and the prosecutor hadn't talked to witnesses or anything! So the prosecutor violated the rights of both Sonny and her boyfriend Jesse Tafero (yes, the man whose head caught on fire during his execution).
Does the prosecutor's stupidity mean Sonny and Jesse were any less guilty? No. Yet the conviction was overturned. (for those curious she entered an Alford plea which pretty much means she plead guilty to two counts of 2nd degree murder in return for time served and release - she'd already served 16 years)
The Appeals Courts only serve to look for legal and Constitutional violations during arrest, trial and sentencing. There are two types of appeals, Direct and Habeas. The Direct appeal deals with the mechanics of the trial - rulings, instructions, transcripts, etc. The Habeas appeal deals with new evidence and Constitutional violations. The appeals operate independent of each other and go through the state appeals court, federal/US District Courts and can go to the SCOTUS based on strict guidelines.
The courts can rule two different ways, complete overturn of the case which is what usually happens if DNA has exonerated. Despite what you hear, exoneration by DNA is very rare among the overturned cases.
Or, the more common, the court remands the case to a lower court. If appeals intrigue you, look for those phrases. They are usually in the last section of the written decision.
[That is what we have here. It is personal opinion if you agree or not but the courts set these people free because they were found not guilty. Semantics again on the innocence/ not guilty.
Not to be nitpicky but that is not what we have here.
This case never went to trial, thus the Ramseys could not be found
anything by any appeals court, much less set free.
And the difference between innocence and not guilty most certainly is not a semantic. OJ was found responsible for the deaths of two people but in the eyes of the law he is not guilty.
There is nowhere he is said to be innocent of anything.
The legal system in the US does not have a ruling of innocence...even in the appellate process.
It is obvious that the police were trying to use any means to get the Ramseys to talk even if it was their right not to. Trying to figure out how to hold the body of their daughter is dirty pool. If it was me I would have known right away these were not police I could trust.
The Ramseys were stonewalling before the release of the body was even in question. It's wrong to say the police were doing anything to affect the Ramseys attitude at first, and given that they held the attitude before the police even started leaning on them, it's more accurate to say the Ramsey's attitude affected the police and not vice versa.