Tampering with evidence is certainly a crime (unless Mississippi is unique among states this way), and Hayes and West are obviously guilty. But that’s a state offense. OTOH, they are also clearly conspiring to violate Duncan’s civil rights, and that is in federal jurisdiction.

Second, Radley has documented several other instances where Hayes or West appears to have tampered with evidence and/or committed perjury, both to favor the prosecution and to bury cases the prosecution did not want to investigate. IIRC, if you have probable cause for three separate crimes committed by persons linked in a conspiracy, you have a RICO case. They don’t have to be federal crimes.

Third,with a RICO case you can drag in everyone that aided and abetted the conspiracy. That is, DA’s and cops all over Mississippi. They may be immune as to their decisions to charge or not charge, but not for knowingly introducing false evidence.

Finally, you pile up charges so everyone is facing 200+ years of consecutive sentences, and start making deals. Maybe you can’t prove much of it in court, but given the chance of being convicted of fifty felonies and spending the rest of your life in prison, versus (say) pleading guilty to one small felony and cooperating in framing prosecuting the holdouts in exchange for a suspended sentence…

Okay, perhaps not at all just for any actually innocent men caught in this web. But godawful unjust laws like RICO aren’t going to be changed until the great and powerful discover they aren’t safe from them…

Patterico also did not write about the price of tea in China, the location of the Holy Grail, or whether the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot are connected. Very telling.

I think this could be the natural endgame of cutting corners when you “know” someone is guilty. In this case no one disputed that Duncan was with the girl when she died. Most people would agree that he did SOMETHING wrong that is perhaps criminal. So Hayne and West very reasonably believed they were going after a “bad guy.”

Of all the cases where cops, prosecutors and witnesses cut corners because they “know” the guy is guilty, this seemed to be a case where at least the identity of the culprit was not in question at all. Perhaps with higher level of certainty these animals felt like a higher degree of unlawful and criminal behavior was justified.

that would be my guess as to why they did this. I still get sick when I think about this long enough. Why do I feel liek no one is talking about it?

The child, in the video, had no obvious marks initially. What a mess. Good work Radley!

I, also, had to deal with a similar situation. I was called to the ER to see a child who was being given CPR. About the same age. She had become trapped in a playpen and suffocated. This was shortly after a special on one of the TV news programs like 60 minutes, that pointed out the dangers of the playpens. The child was beautiful. There was not a mark on her. She could not be resuscitated.

The mother had another child, removed form her home, and was under suspicion after there was noted to be swelling around the brain, and in the lungs, at the autopsy done in the state capitol. Hell, we had beat on this little girls chest, trying to bring her back for an hour! And the sheriff had the nerve to do this, when it had been on TV within the last month, as to how the incident most likely went down!

They are so quick to judge without good evidence. Looks like many are lucky that it is not made up, as it appeared to be with this with the bite mark evidence! Its like their attitude is “Somebody has to pay!” This needs to be stopped.

I would think that tampering like this should require some jail time. But that is only wishful thinking! Where did they find the video?

I missed the part on the rape!? How was that “proven”? Or, was it?

In the meantime, we need a publicity blitz for this article. Words can be ignored, or dismissed as the rantings of some lone wacko, but the video speaks for itself. It says “Hayne and West, your day of reckoning is coming.” If enough people see the video, it’s coming very soon.

Maybe someone should call the defendent’s lawyers and point them at Reason??