Gerald Posner
I have tremendous admiration and respect for Gerald Posner, the attorney, investigative reporter and author of such books as Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, Mengele: The Complete Story, and Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Apparently, not everyone agrees with me.
The other day, Posner posted an interesting Twitter comment on his Facebook page:
Amanda Knox
When we look back over the topics we’ve covered in the past year, the ongoing murder trials in Italy of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito take the prize for the greatest number of posts. And there is a good reason for that: No other case has provided such a glaring example of what can go wrong with a prosecution, and the horrifying repercussions when it does.
We have reviewed and detailed the seemingly endless mistakes and miscarriages of justice promulgated by the investigators, prosecutors and judges: police assumption of the killer(s) and type of crime before any evidence had been collected; Amanda’s coerced “confession;” nonsensical and changing theories of the case; unprofessional evidence collection; flagrant misinterpretation of the crime scene; complete lack of DNA and other evidence of Amanda and Raffaele’s presence coupled with overwhelming evidence of the actual killer’s; false statements to the media; the so-called murder weapon not fitting the wounds on Meredith Kercher’s body, and on and on and on.
And now one more has surfaced. There are several ways to state it, but essentially, Amanda has been denied the right to mourn.
Corey D. Stoddard
Yesterday, January 1, 2014, Cory D. Stoddard, 35, of Washington, D.C., was arraigned in District of Columbia Superior Court on a charge of second-degree murder while armed, in the death of Kevin Lewis Crouch, 22, also of Washington, the day before. On the official tally of murders in the District of Columbia, this was the 104th – the last homicide of 2013.
I sincerely hope Mr. Stoddard beats the charge and is found innocent.
Before you accuse me of going soft on crime in the new year, consider the facts of the case and decide for yourself.
Mark Olshaker & John Douglas
We thank all of our readers and contributors for their interest, passion and commitment to www.mindhuntersinc.com over the past year. Your comments and reactions have been an education and inspiration to us. We hope you and yours all have a happy, healthy, productive and safe 2014.
With all best wishes,
John and Mark
Austin S. Clem
I know I’m going to get some criticism for even bringing this up, but I’ve been struggling with myself over this one case and how it was handled.
Last week, a circuit court judge in Alabama handed down a completely suspended sentence – no prison time – to a 25-year-old defendant who had been convicted on three charges of rape – one Class A and two Class B – all of them against a teenaged girl, 14 and a neighbor when the first assault occurred.
Why am I struggling? Because it may be that this defendant, Austin S. Clem, a pipe-fitter and the father of three daughters, is redeemable, and that redemption could be lost if he has to spend considerable time in prison. On the other hand, the victim went through a horrible experience and is entitled to justice.
