That’s really cool.

COMMENT DELETED: Inappropriate Language

This guy deserves millions…sad it has to come from the taxpayers. Why not make the prosecutors and the “victim” pay up for this.

What I want to know is where the hell are all those rape victims’ advocates and what do they have to say about the outcome? Steve Avery was tried, convicted and sentenced by a justice system that was created according to their demands. But when that very system goes wrong and innocent people wind up going to prison, where is the outrage?

Here’s another thing I find impossible to comprehend:

"This project was never about funding the Innocence Project," Findley said. "The main thing is to find adequate compensation for Steven Avery."

Well, I think that if the state will not fix the damn justice system, then the least they can do is to help support an organization that knows how to practice law!

The $25,000 Mr. Avery received is totally unacceptable. He lost eighteen of the most productive years of his life, his marriage, his children and his own dignity, all of which are irreplacable.

The first anonymous poster might sound a bit brash in his condemnation to many readers, but as a woman, I honestly can’t argue. As women, we might feel that there is still much work to do to improve our status, but we must also remember that many innocent toes have been stepped on to achieve that goal. Our success depends squarely on generating concern for issues that affect us. On our own, we would remain powerless to change anything for the better.

Yes, women are still only human and therefore fallible, a fact that the headlines will constantly remind us of, lest we forget.

Poster One needs his meds.

I agree completely that states should raise their maximum compensation. This issue, however, is not limited to rape accusations, or feminism. Bad forensics and bad eyewitness accusations extend to murder, robbery, etc. I agree that prosecutors are too powerful; I don’t know why the poster feels that feminists are more to blame for this than a public scared of “crime waves” that are more illusory than real.

In any case, Wisconsin, as well as other states, have have known about problems like this for years. Yet I would bet my own money that the Republican legislature will not act on this—a shrug of the shoulders is more likely than fundamental change (or even significant change).

As for the Innocence Project—I know of no other group of lawyers who do a more noble thing. You guys are awesome.

Well, the first poster is definitely pissed, but he does make some good points. For one thing, the criminal justice system in regards to how it handles sexual assault cases is decidedly skewed in terms of its attitude towards the defendant. You are guilty whether you are proven innocent or not. You will get the kind of fair that the prosecutor decides you will get. Even today, there are cases where the prosecutor argues against allowing DNA evidence if he/she believes other material evidence is sufficient to support a guilty verdict. You’d be surprised what prosecutors do to try to sway the jury. And the reason they do it is because they don’t want a bunch of feminists protesting outside their office. Most prosecutors are elected to office, another reason why they are pressed to get results.

It sucks, but that’s the way it is. Too much public pressure can and often is a bad thing. It’s not until years down the road when people are finally exonerated via a DNA test that should have been done a long time ago.

Now our justice system strikes another major blow to the defendant by severely and unfairly limiting the amount of damages wrongly-convicted men can collect. So why shouldn’t the first poster be mad? If you’re a male, you stand just as much of a chance of being carted off to prison as a woman has of being sexually assaulted. And when you get to prison, you are the second most hated type of offender in the place, right behind pedophiles. You would never be safe there because prison guards care damn little about sex offenders. And you didn’t even do anything wrong!

The first poster may or may not be justified in lashing out at victims of sexual assault, let alone women in general, but it clearly points to a well-known fact that most of us men politely refrain from discussing. The pervasive ambivalence most women exhibit toward the wrongly-accused in such cases seems to indicate that their concept of a totally equal society comes up short for men. For whatever reason, they feel that it is necessary to “tilt the balance in the scales of justice” to control the aggressive behavioral patterns in men. Unfortunately, the exact opposite usually happens instead, as evidenced by the first poster’s rage.

I will agree, however, that both men and women are discriminated against equally, though not always in the same ways. Society imposes two different sets of demands and expectations on both sexes. Old prejudices die hard, and the courts are among the most frequented battlegrounds. We went from finding blame on the part of the victim(i.e. “She led the guy on, she dressed like a slut”) to trying to blame the defendant any which way we can(i.e. “Screw the DNA test, he’s probably guilty anyway. Let’s make up shit to get him convicted so we can go home and eat!”). Injustice is one sure way to breed animosity. It’s just a question of who wants to be the bad guy next time around.

I think the last poster hit it right one head. If the justice system is corrupted by extremist influences, and feminists are definitely extremists, then it will show in the way criminal cases are prosecuted and therefore in the verdict. Thanks to DNA testing, criminal cases like Steve Avery’s will be handled with far more caution by prosecutors, who wil have no choice but to avoid being overzealous. Jurors will be presented with one solid piece of evidence of a person’s guilt or innocence. Other material evidence, which could’ve been tampered with or even fabricated, will no longer be the only type of evidence to rely on.

However, many criminal defendants in our country’s prisons were convicted long before DNA testing was implemented. More often than not, DNA test results that finally proved the defendant innocent causes us to reexamine the evidence that got them put away in the first place. People who work in criminal law and law enforcement might cringe at the thought that someone they sent up a long time ago may get a chance to turn the tables on them, which is probably the real reason for the unfair limitations on the damages the wrongfully-convicted can collect. Well that’s just too bad for the system! Just because they’re cops, lawyers and judges doesn’t mean they should be immune from paying a price when they screw up. Nor does it mean we have to accept their lame excuses for the “mistakes” they made in the investigation and subsequent trial.

They need to think about the wrongly-accused for once. Eighteen years is a long friggin’ time to be locked up for something you didn’t do. And yes, rapists are among the most hated inmates in any prison. Put it all together and you have a legal system that still needs a lot more work and a lot less political influence before it gets any better. Sure, it’s not perfect, but we can only shrug our shoulders at the flaws for so long. Those who are wrongfully-convicted are entitled to just compensation far beyond the lost wages Steven Avery got, and the balance owed them by our legal system is long overdue.

I have nothing better to do than post comments.It is better than sex.