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    disbitch1Rebecca "Burt" Rose
    3/24/14 11:39pm

    Good lord, who were this woman's lawyers? They should be disbarred.

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      ad infinitumdisbitch1
      3/24/14 11:42pm

      I'm going to guess over-worked, underpaid public defenders who just didn't give a shit.

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      Rebecca "Burt" Rosedisbitch1
      3/24/14 11:44pm

      It looks like her lawyers were just over-confident that she wouldn't be convicted, and they were probably blindsided by the fact that the confession from her son wasn't admitted on a technicality.

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    ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ : Riot GRRR is RUNNING WILDRebecca "Burt" Rose
    3/25/14 12:00am

    So you have a woman who's abused by one man growing up, then by another man she married, and then finally gets exonerating evidence excluded on a technicality by yet another man, who then sentences her to death.

    Sounds about right.

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      Rebecca "Burt" Roseʕ•ᴥ•ʔ : Riot GRRR is RUNNING WILD
      3/25/14 12:06am

      There has probably never been a moment of Michelle Bryom's life where she wasn't victimized—either by a family member she should have been able to trust or by the system that should have been there to protect her.

      This case is just an easy "win" for some prosecutor who is only concerned about his conviction/execution stats. Sickening.

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    mix18Rebecca "Burt" Rose
    3/25/14 1:18am

    I am glad that i live in a Country that is not barbaric enough to have the death penalty, after what happened to Troy Davis (i hope every American on here knows who he is) i do understand how anyone can support it.

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      ZhiBaChu: Awkward Detectivemix18
      3/25/14 9:03am

      Being the family of a murder victim might change your mind. I don't support the death penalty - but I can see where some might feel it was the correct punishment.

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      germankiwigirlmix18
      3/25/14 9:12am

      That's what I just thought as well - thank God both Germany and New Zealand have abolished the death penalty. I will never understand the people who are in favour of keeping capital punishment, it is archaic and barbaric. And yes, I would say the same thing if a member of my family was brutally murdered (waiting for that worn-out "argument" to be brought up), because murdering the murder won't bring someone I love back and won't make achieving closure even one bit easier.

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    KarenDelaneyWalkerRebecca "Burt" Rose
    3/25/14 12:26am

    I'm sorry, but I think I am missing something. The article says, "Gillis was released from prison in 2009." Wasn't he the one that actually committed the murder? Did I read that wrong?

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      Rebecca "Burt" RoseKarenDelaneyWalker
      3/25/14 12:32am

      You are reading it all correctly. According to the prosecution, Gillis was the one who shot Edward Bryom, Sr. (Even though his son, Edward Jr. was the only one of the three arrested who had gunpowder residue on his hands.) They were all released except for Michelle Bryom. They all presented different version, but prosecutors chalked it up to "conflicting testimony" and "chose to believe the version that included both mother and son in the murder plot with Gillis as the shooter," as The Atlantic put it.

      And yes, Gillis is free and has completed his sentence. Bryom, Jr. is free on a supervised release program.

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      KarenDelaneyWalkerRebecca "Burt" Rose
      3/25/14 12:39am

      WTF. That's insane. So even though she wasn't actually convicted of the murder, she gets the most harsh sentence for apparently (but not really, based on the evidence) planning the murder. Moral of the story: don't hire someone to commit a murder you could do yourself. Complete bullshit.

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    tambrathegreatRebecca "Burt" Rose
    3/24/14 11:43pm

    This is exactly why the death penalty should be abolished.

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      Jacob30Rebecca "Burt" Rose
      3/24/14 11:37pm

      Why did the Supreme Court decline to hear the appeal? They've been open to much dumber cases in the past.

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        oldfolksquadrilleJacob30
        3/25/14 12:19am

        But is there a new "issue" here for the Supreme Court to decide? If it's just a question of the lawyers' competence, there's already plenty guidelines for determining competent representation and whether or not the incompetence (to the extent that it existed) would've made a difference in the outcome.

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        PyraxJacob30
        3/25/14 8:15am

        The way I see it is that the Supreme Court isn't really an appeals court like the others, it's a court where it picks what to take on based on what law is being assessed in the case. If the law itself is in question, then the Supreme Court takes it on so they can make a ruling on how the law is upheld. In this case it wasn't a question of the law being ambiguous, but the representation being terrible, so not really the kind of case they take.

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      Lucky FrogRebecca "Burt" Rose
      3/25/14 12:14am

      Tishomingo County didn't see the murder as a case of an abused child turning on his tormentor. Instead, they saw a plot, a murder-for-hire conspiracy

      There's been a few cases where the cops have added up two and two and gotten seven, usually when the initial investigator has "a hunch" and starts feeling stuff in his gut. What surprises me is how willing prosecutors often are to take those crappy theories and run them in to the end, completely in denial of logic and common sense. You might have a case like this still being litigated more than a decade later, and some completely new DA chained to peddling the same flawed line cooked up by one woefully mistaken cop, now retired.

      I figure that the best way to get away with a crime is to somehow have the initial suspicion fall on someone else. They get so much ridiculous, totally insane tunnel vision going on that you can just stand there flagrantly guilty while they move heaven and earth trying to pin it on some poor sucker.

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        YoanaRebecca "Burt" Rose
        3/25/14 7:02am

        So much wrong here. First of all being a victim of abuse should be an extenuating circumstance, especially if that's all she ever knew. Secondly, a court should not be allowed to decline to hear an appeal when a death sentence is involved. Thirdly, death sentences should not be allowed without 100% rock solid proof, and should be reconsidered if there's a hint of a possibility that the suspect didn't do it. And lastly, the capital punishment is a barbaric, inhumane, shameful and disgraceful punishment that needs to be abolished everywhere on earth immediately.

        I'm speaking as a lay person who knows nothing about the American justice system so this isn't based in law but my understanding of morality.

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          SunBear87Rebecca "Burt" Rose
          3/25/14 12:04am

          As a criminal defense attorney I find this truly appalling.

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            TadKosciuszkoRebecca "Burt" Rose
            3/24/14 11:48pm

            At some point the "he just needed killing" defense needs to come back into vogue

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