present a argument as to what you believe would have been the outcome of such a case.

Your name Instructor Course name Date of submission The West Memphis Three Case Introduction West Memphis Three, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Misskelley Jr., commonly known as the, were convicted of murder of three little boys in 1994. Whereas Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jason and Jessie were sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2011, they were released from prison pursuant to plea agreements that had been reached with prosecutors. The three entered an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but stated that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence to convict them. The origin of Alford plea can be traced back to the North Carolina v. Alford case, in which the supreme court held that guilty pleas of defendants who maintain their innocence during trial do not in case violate due process. This paper examines what would have been the outcome of the case involving the West Memphis Three in case they had chosen to have waited for a re-trial. On special feature about the case involving the West Memphis Three is that all the three defendants were charged with murder in which one of them, Misskelley is believed to have falsely confessed. This sheds more light on the significance of the Alford plea and the role it plays in the American criminal justice system. Legal experts contend that the advent of the plea bargaining has generally rendered the classic trial obsolete. In a bid to have an insightful understand the outcome of the case of the West Memphis Three in the event the defendants had opted for a retrial, it is necessary to examine the role played by Alford pleas in their case. This involves an overview of the history and application of the Alford plea in the justice system. As mentioned earlier, the Alford plea originated from the North Carolina v. Alford case. In the case, the Supreme Court held that there exist no constitutional barriers preventing a judge from accepting a guilty plea from any defendant who chooses to plead guilty while at the same time maintain their innocence (Scheider 301). However the court stated that a judge can accept the Alford plea only if there exist strong evidence of actual guilt. This had the implication that judges have the right to accept the Alford please. It is important to note that judges maintain the discretion to reject the plea. This implies that they have the responsibility of finding a sufficient factual basis of guilt prior to permitting the please. Alford please is unique in the sense that the person insist on innocence and the judge has the responsibility of ensuring that there is sufficient evidence of guilt in order for them to allow the plea. At this point, it is important to analyze the background of the West Memphis Three case with more emphasis on the events that led to the three defendants entering the Alford pleas. This is important in examining the way the Alford plea impacted on the case and how the case would have taken shape in the event the three defendants had chosen a retrial. In May 1993, three bodies of young eight-year old boys were found in West Memphis. The three were identified as Steven Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. They had previously been reported missing by John Mark Byers, the adoptive father of Christopher Byers (Leveritt 15). Investigation revealed that they had been beaten and mutilated. Initially, the police ruled out the cause of their deaths to be drowning. They however began to explore the theory that suggested that the murders were attributed to satanic cult activity. Thus prompted them to investigate Damien Echols, an eighteen-year-old high school dropout in the neighborhood who was believed to engage in satanic rituals. One of the witnesses led law enforcement officers to the house of seventeen-year-old boy called Jessie Misskelley, who gave a detailed and lengthy confession that is believed to be false. During the joint trial of Jason and Damien, Jessie Misskelley declined to testify against Jason and Damien. This implied that prosecutors could not use his confession during the joint trail of Jason and Damien. It was later unearthed that one of the jurors had read about the confession given by Misskelley and informed the other jury members about it during deliberation. In the final analysis, Jason and Damien were found guilty of first-degree murder. Damien was sentenced to death, whereas Jason was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Moreover, Jessie Misskelley was convicted of one count of first degree murder as well as two counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment as well. On several occasions, the three defendants, Jessie, Jason and Damien petitioned for a re-trial based on newly discovered evidence. This includes the DNA-testing results that concluded that the three were not donors of genetic material recovered from the crime scene. However, lower court judges repeatedly denied these petitions. In November 2010, the Supreme Court of Arkansas finally granted the three defendants their petition requests. The hearing was scheduled to take place in October 2011. This meant that the three defendants would wait a little longer for a chance to get a retrial. Eventually, defense attorney, Steven Braga proposed to the state that the three defendants would enter an Alford plea and be released from prison instead. The state surprisingly agreed to this deal and the three defendants were freed from jail in August 2011 (Scheb 64). There exist many speculations as to what might have happened if the three defendants could have chosen to await for the re-trial that had been scheduled in October 2011. In my opinion, the three would have been found not guilty because the case was characterized by a number of law enforcement mistakes, especially false confession. It is evident that police investigations into the murder of the three little boys was marred by a wide range of discrepancies and inconsistencies. This might have affected the final outcome of the West Memphis Three case to large extents. Initially, the investigations were based on a theory of satanic cult involvement. This eventually led to the arrest and prolonged interrogation of Jessie Misskelley strongly believed to belong to a satanic cult due to his tendency of wearing a lot of black. It is however believed that Misskelley’s confession was inconsistent. This is based on the many characteristics in the confession that made experts conclude that it was a false confession. False confession is a major challenge to the justice system. In a bid to explain why one would confess to a crime they did not commit, scholars contend that the U.S justice system recognizes the power of confession as evidence of guilt. Studies overwhelmingly ascertain that jurors who hear confession evidence are more likely to find the defendant guilty as compared to jurors who hear other types of evidence such as circumstantial evidence and eyewitness testimony (Ward 921). The fact that confessions are considered to be more powerful in the minds of triers of fact many innocent defendants and their attorneys tend to easily choose to confess. This explain the increased tendency of defendants entering into Alford pleas with the aim of reducing their sentences. In the case of the West Memphis Three, it is evident that the state noted that the existing evidence pointed out that the defendants were guilty. This therefore met the sufficient factual basis criterion. Statistical evidence ascertains that in most wrongful conviction cases, seemingly a strong evidence of guilt exists. This was the case in the West Memphis Three as well. It is however evident that the decision of the case was majorly based on the confession made by Jessie Misskelley, which is strongly believed to be false. Statistical evidence ascertain an increase in the use of false confession in the criminal justice system. For instance, recent studies overwhelmingly indicate that false confessions contribute to about 25 percent of wrongful convictions in the U.S criminal justice system. Among other factors, scholars attribute false confession to various police interrogation tactics. In this regard, it is believed that false confession arise from the use of common and well-intended police interrogation techniques that are pressure-filled and psychologically coercive. The Reid Technic is a common interrogative technic employed by many police officer in the United States. Based on this technique, police officers tend to use coercive and deceptive techniques with the aim of obtaining confessions from suspects. In most instances, police officers obtain confession from suspects by presenting false evidence to them. Alternatively, they prevent the suspects from talking unless the suspects are ready to make a confession. Moreover, police officers coerce suspects into confession by offering an understanding and sympathetic attitude. In some instances, they tend to minimize the moral seriousness of the crime committed with the aim of luring the suspects into confessing. Evidently, the Reid techniques and other methods used by police officers to interrogate suspects have the effect of leading guilty defendants into confessions and eliciting confessions from innocent suspects. A recent study revealed that about 10 percent of all police interrogations in the U.S lead to false confessions from among the defendants (Ward 915). It is widely believed that the Reid Technique is designed to encourage adult suspects to confess. As such, it has a stronger effect on the young and inexperienced defendants. Statistical evidence ascertain that young people tend to false confess at much higher rate than their adult counterparts. There are various types of false confession. The most common include the voluntary, persuaded and complaint false confession. Voluntary false confession is that which occurs without any form of police interrogation. Scholars attribute this form of false confession to various internal psychological needs of the confessor as well as external pressure experienced by the confessors. Some are attributed to psychiatric disorders or psychological disturbance. On the other hand, compliant false confession is that which is attributed to police coercion, pressure or stress. Statistic evidence reveals that this form of confession is the most common. Thirdly, persuaded false confession takes place when police use various interrogation techniques that are aimed at persuading the confessor into confessing. This included subjecting the confessor into intense, deceptive, accusatorial and lengthy interrogations in which the confessor is repeatedly accused of committing the crime. There are groups of individuals that are believed to be highly vulnerable to police interrogation technics. This is based on the assumption that individual differ in terms of their abilities to withstand the pressure that emanates from police interrogation. This makes them more susceptible to making false confession. Research contends that people who exhibit features such as low self-esteem, low assertiveness, high levels of anxiety and poor memory are more likely to be vulnerable to false confession. Juveniles, developmentally disabled, as well as cognitively impaired people are more likely to be vulnerable to the pressures presented during police interrogation. This is because they are characterized by features such as poor memory, short attention span, low intelligence and poor communication skills. In most cases, they do not seem to understand the statements they make as well as the implications of whatever they say during interrogation (Scheider 283). The fact that juveniles seem to have poor problems solving skills and have the tendency to look to authority figures make them more likely to give misleading statements that could be incriminating in nature. Most of these features were seen in Jessie Misskelly, who was seventeen years old at the time of the confession was believed to have a very low IQ. In the aftermath of several hours of interrogation, Misskelley confessed to seeing Damien Echols and his friend, Jason Baldwin perpetrate the rape and murder of three boys. An analysis of his confession by several exerts revealed that the confession was false. Experts argue that his age and mental state made him susceptible to police interrogation techniques. As such, his confession was characterized by a number of inconsistencies. For instance, he argues that Jason and Damien had picked up the three boys and killed them at around noon (Leveritt 117). This was inconsistent with the existing evidence that proved that Jason and Damien were in school all day on the alleged day, and that the murder occurred in the evening. Moreover, Misskelley stated that Jason and Damien used a rope to hog-tie the boys. This contradicted with the evidence that shoelaces were used to hogtie the three boys. In the recent years, hundreds of convicted persons across United States have been exonerated by new evidence, both DNA and non-DNA. This is a clear indication that false confession induced by interrogative police techniques lead to many incidence of wrongful convictions of innocent defendants. The media continues to report many incidences of such cases in which people have been convicted for crimes they did not commit and are later exonerated. Most of these cases are attributed to the emergence of post-conviction DNA evidence that tend to establish the innocence of the convicted persons (Scheider 304). In the case of the West Memphis Three, additional post-conviction evidence emerged. In 1993, John Byers, the adoptive father of one of the victims handed a knife to a cameraman who was documenting the case and claimed that the knife was involved in the case in some way. In 1997, the West Memphis Three convicts submitted the imprints of their teeth for comparison with the alleged bite marks that were found on the forehead of one of the victims, Steve Branch. None of the teeth imprints of the three convicts matched with the bite marks. In 2003, one of the witness who had played a significant role in the arrest of the three convicts, Vicki Hutcheson stated that what she had said during police investigation in the case was a fabrication. She claimed that the police induced her into cooperating with them by threatening to take away her child. The post-conviction evidence that changed the course of the West Memphis Three case was the 2007 DNA testing of the evidence collected from the crime scene. None of the DNA testing results matched the DNA from the three defendants. In addition, it was later discovered that the jury foreman during the joint trail of Baldwin and Echols had discussed some fact of the case with an attorney and other jurors during deliberations. It was revealed that Arnold discussed with other jurors regarding a number of inadmissible evidence like the statements by Jessie Misskelley. In conclusion, it is evident that the West Memphis Three case was marred by various inconsistencies. The most prominent challenge during the case was law enforcement mistakes that were brought about by false confession. Police officers seem to have carried out ineffective and incompetent investigations. This implies that the West Memphis Three may have been wrongfully convicted. I thereof believe that if they would have waited for a retrial, they would have been found not guilty for the 1994 murder of the three eight-year-old boys. Works Cited Leveritt, Mara. Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three. New York: Simon and Schuster 2013. Print. Scheb, John. Criminal Procedure. Belmont. Wadsworth Publishing, 2008. Print. Scheider, Sydney. “When Innocent Defendants Falsely Confess: Analyzing The Ramifications of Entering Alford Pleas In The Context Of The Burgeoning Innocence Movement.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 103(1): 279-308, 2013. Web. Ward, Bryan H. "A Plea Best Not Taken: Why Criminal Defendants Should Avoid the Alford Plea". Missouri Law Review. 68(1) 913-29, 2013. Print. Major Research Paper: The Case of the West Memphis Three In 1994, three teenage males were convicted for the crimes of murder in West Memphis, Arkansas. Jessie MisKelley Jr, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin were tried and convicted for the murder of three 8 year-old boys: Steven Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers. Jessie and Jason received life sentences while Damien, the suspected ring-leader, was sentenced to death. In August of 2011, all three men made an Alford Plea and were released from jail as time served. An Alford plea is better known as the “I’m guilty but I didn’t do it” defense. Under the Alford plea, the defendant admits that sufficient evidence exists with which the prosecution could likely convince a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the defendant(s) cannot be charged with these crimes again (Double Jeopardy Law). All three are currently free men and trying to integrate back into society. In 2015, we are still in search of answers as to what happened to the three 8 year-old boys and who is responsible for their death. Under the Alford plea, Damien, Jason, and Jessie are considered guilty of these crimes. Under our laws, they are considered ex-cons. The state of Arkansas has declared the murders of the three boys a cold case despite questions that have been raised regarding the possible involvement of two of the stepfathers, John Mark Byers and Terry Hobbs. There are many speculations as to what might have happened if the three men would have chosen to wait for a re-trial. For this paper, present an argument as to what you believe would have been the outcome of such a case. Would the three been found guilty or not guilty? Additionally, this argument will be focused on a specific element of the case. You may choose one or two of the following: police error/law enforcement mistakes (including false confession), Satanic Panic, or Media Involvement in case. Whichever element(s) you choose to write about will be the sole argument for the paper. After reviewing all of the court testimonies, documents, evidence, and extra accounts that the real jury did not have access to, you will make a decision and support it with evidence as to the guilt or wrongful conviction of these three young men. There is a lot of evidence, statements, etc to dig through for this case. However, as a jury member it is imperative that you look at all that is available to you in order to make a sound judgment. The job of a jury member is to: sort through conflicting claims; weigh all evidence as objectively as possible, without personal biases; and uncover the assumptions behind the messages you are hearing. For the introduction section to your paper (2 pgs), give an overview of the crimes and how/why these three young men were arrested and charged. Also indicate to your reader what sentences these men received as well as information pertaining to their Alford Plea. You will then follow with a claim about how you will argue the paper (not guilty because of false confessions, not guilty because of multiple police errors, etc). Be sure to back up your arguments with quotes from the trial or other resources. Because this argument is so specific, your reasons and evidence will need to be very clear and logical. Requirements: Sources: Everyone will cite the film (http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/west-memphis-3-free-50129311/) and must use at least 3 other sources. There have been two books written on the case, Devil’s Knot by Leveritt and Life After Death by Echols. Additionally, there are multitudes of sources through newspapers, magazines, and journals. You may also use scholarly sources related to aspects of your argument: forensic studies, DNA, police procedure, false confessions, etc. You may also use any documentaries that have been made about the case: West of Memphis, etc. A website that will be extremely helpful to you is www.wm3.org. Absolutely NO Wikipedia or blog postings permitted. Quotes: No more than 1 block quote will be permitted in this paper. Rubric for Argument Paper Argument: Essay makes an argument by stating a clear thesis and working to prove that thesis throughout the essay. Analysis includes detailed and well-supported paragraphs that make claims about the guilt or wrongful conviction of the three men. Paragraphs include sufficient examples and explanations that work to prove the essay’s thesis. Sufficient background information on the 1994 case is supplied. 45 Organization: Essay is organized in a deliberate manner that allows the argument to achieve its rhetorical purposes. Paragraphs follow the Rules of Paragraphs by including topic, supporting, and, where necessary, concluding sentences. Essay includes transitions, paragraph breaks, and explanation to help the reader navigate easily and logically through the argument. 30 Using Sources: Essay incorporates primary sources that are properly cited with in-text citations and a Works Cited page. Quoting and paraphrasing are properly formatted. Essay uses at least four sources that allow for a productive argument. 20 Clarity: The essay’s ideas are presented clearly and in a straightforward way. The words are chosen precisely and carefully. 15 Grammar: The essay’s grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and spelling are correct and meet the requirements for college-level writing. 10 Total: 120 59. Finance Microstructure Case #8 Created 11/15 The goal of this case is to compare the costs and fees structure of different online brokerages. Specifically, E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, and TradeKing. Instructions: A. Go to www.etrade.com. Under “Investing and Trading” click on “Pricing & Rates.” Print this page ONLY until “Bonds” pricing information. Answer the following questions: 1. What is the cost of trading for Stocks, Options and ETFs? 2. What is the cost of trading of “Transaction-fee funds” Mutual Funds? 3. What is the cost of trading of Bonds (online secondary trades)? B. Go to www.tdameritrade.com. In the search box enter “Pricing PDF”. In the search results find “Standard Retail Pricing: Commissions, Rates, and Fees” PDF document. Print it and turn it in as a part of your report (2 pages). Answer the following questions: 1. What is the cost of trading for Stocks and ETFs? 2. What is the cost of trading of “No-Load Funds” Mutual Funds? 3. What is the cost of trading of Bond and CD trades? C. Go to www.tradeking.com/rates . Print the first page and turn it in as a part of your report (2 pages). For information on Mutual Funds and Bonds click on “Fees.” Answer the following questions: 1. What is the cost of trading for Stocks? 2. What is the cost of trading of “No-Load” Mutual Funds? 3. What is the cost of trading of Bond and CDs? After comparing the three brokerages, which one would you personally prefer to use for trading? Why