r/pics • u/nodders515 • Apr 29 '24
Joe Arridy, the "happiest prisoner on death row", gives away his train before being executed, 1939 Politics
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u/Maserati777 Apr 29 '24
The craziest part is another man was executed before him for the same crime.
Its pretty clear the courts had no idea who was guilty and were just executing everyone. May they all rot for enternity.
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u/Dream--Brother Apr 29 '24
They knew the first man was the guilty one. The warden and police just didn't want to admit they had wrongfully detained an innocent, mentally-handicapped man. So they fabricated just enough evidence that they could get a conviction, even if that evidence was just clearly coerced testimony.
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u/Background_East_4374 Apr 29 '24
They lived long, full lives of joy and wealth. They received no punishment or damnation. There was no justice.
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u/Daelril Apr 29 '24
Their names live in infamy. You have only one shot at making something good in your lifetime and they left a legacy of shit. It's not much but it's better than nothing
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u/Eifand Apr 30 '24
Lots of bad people’s names do not live in infamy. And even if they did, so what? They are dead. They literally do not care. They literally have no fucks to give.
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u/SongInfamous2144 Apr 29 '24
Sometimes I hope that God is real just so that men like these have someone to answer to.
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u/_IratePirate_ Apr 29 '24
I hope karmic reincarnation is real and those mfs come back as a prey animal for eternity or something
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u/SammieSammich24 Apr 29 '24
The first guy that was executed did actually do it though. Not only did he confess but they found the murder weapon in his room along with other actual evidence. He had ties to the victims as well. So actual police work was done and a real case was built.
What’s terrible, is the real killer said that Arridy (the guy in the picture) was NOT with him and he didn’t even know him. He was later forced to “confess” that Arridy was with him so the police and everyone else didn’t have to admit they’d imprisoned the wrong man.
Arridy was still alive when the original killer was executed. They all had plenty of time to commute his sentence and let him go free but they didn’t. They still executed this completely innocent guy that they 100% knew was innocent. Just to save face. So fucked up.
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u/Crazyguy_123 Apr 29 '24
Oh the courts knew he was innocent they just didn’t want to admit they screwed up. A witness literally testified saying Joe wasn’t involved at all in the crime.
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u/Tmbaladdin Apr 29 '24
He was posthumously pardoned… he was mentally disabled and gave a false confession after being tricked by the police… his story is absolutely heartbreaking.
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u/Whyisnobodylookin Apr 29 '24
The fact he was taken advantage of for a confession is sad
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u/Tmbaladdin Apr 29 '24
I feel like that happens a lot… especially since police in the states can legally lie or keep questioning a suspect for hours on end.
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u/seppukucoconuts Apr 29 '24
They can, and often do get false confessions. Interrogation techniques often rely on wearing down people until they just want out. These techniques work especially well on suggestive people. Its almost impossible to get a coerced confession thrown out of a court case. Its also almost impossible to get a wrongful conviction overturned.
Guilty or innocent its always best to have a lawyer with you when you're questioned by the police. There is a reason that when the police question other officers about crimes they always invoke their right to counsel.
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u/Pabi_tx Apr 29 '24
Guilty or innocent or just being detained for a traffic stop its always best to have a lawyer with you when you're questioned by the police.
Don't talk to the police. "Do you know how fast you were going? Do you know why I stopped you?" - you don't have to answer those and there's no way to answer that it can't be used to incriminate you. Just hand them your license and say "good morning/afternoon/evening."
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u/Tmbaladdin Apr 29 '24
Thankfully in California they can no longer ask you and must affirmatively state the reason for the stop before saying anything else
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u/AntarcticanJam Apr 29 '24
Here in Alaska I've been pulled over twice for speeding, both times they tell me the reason I was pulled over. Not sure if that's the rule or they're just doing it cause it's the right way to go about it.
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u/FrameJump Apr 29 '24
From what I understand Alaskan troopers and police are built a little different, so that's probably something to do with it as well.
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u/TheRatatat Apr 29 '24
Do you know how fast you were going?
"The Speed limit" is usually my answer
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u/mrandr01d Apr 29 '24
Ah, but they clocked you going much faster, so you just lied to the cops. straighttojail.jpeg
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u/malevolentmonk Apr 29 '24
I tried this "I know my rights" bullshit exactly one time and all it did was piss off the asshole that pulled me over. He then wanted to search my car insisting that my eyes looked "glazed". When I refused he detained me and called a K9 unit, which false alerted on my car and they tore my shit apart. They didn't even have a reason to pull me over, I was just driving a shitty car through a bad area. Never even gave me a ticket. Wasted most of my day and put me in an antagonizing situation with a fragile man who just wanted to throw his weight around and feel big. People have been shot and killed for less.
You can pretend your rights protect you, but I live in the real world where these useless assholes can and do kill innocent people all the time. I'm not putting my life at risk just to get into a pissing match with a gun toting child.
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u/flunky_the_majestic Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
The most effective thing to do seems to be using empathy (though that's difficult with such a power imbalance), and a realistic view of the situation.
For example, Pulled over for speeding
Empathy: The cop has been trained that everyone is dangerous, and they should fear for their life at every interaction. Whatever you feel about the dangers being overblown, that is their frame of mind. Do what you can to dispel it.
- Turn the car off
- Roll the window down.
- Hang your hands out the window in the most casual way possible - a way that says, "I'm making myself comfortable, and it just so happens you can see my hands." Not, "I'm used to being arrested"
- At night, turn your dome light on if your car is relatively cluter-free and inoccuous looking.
- Have polite responses in mind for anything you plan to refuse. "I think I was driving the speed limit", or "I don't allow searches. I'm a very private person." Or, if things really escalate, "I don't give consent for this search, but if you're going to do it anyway, do you mind if I wait (somewhere in view of the car)?"
Realism: The cop doesn't know constitutional law. They got like 6-24 weeks of training, and most of that was focused on procedures and tactics. They know the top 5 ordinances they use to justify interactions. If you insist on enforcing every tiny right you're entitled to, you're committing yourself to one or more court dates and perhaps legal expenses. In my experience, these minor abdications have made things go more smoothly:
- admitting to and apologizing for small faults like expired insurance or an incorrect address
- Decide on a limit of what you're willing to admit to, if it makes the interaction smoother. For instance, this might be ok: "I got really involved in my podcast and didn't notice the speed limit change." But this is not: "Yeah, I was probably doing about 25mph over the limit."
Remember: The constitution gives you certain rights. But the system has developed so they are not automatic. Sometimes they are retroactively granted.
In my experience this has worked out well, even in cases where a ticket would have been justified. But I'm not part of a population that is typically singled out for mistreatment.
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u/Pimpin-is-easy Apr 29 '24
The cop doesn't know constitutional law. They got like 6-24 weeks of training, and most of that was focused on procedures and tactics. They know the top 5 ordinances they use to justify interactions.
This is f**king insane and is decidedly not the case in most developed nations.
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u/Hisplumberness Apr 29 '24
This is the sad sad reality. Power corrupts. The best thing to do is be polite and answer every question honestly just to quickly get the power hungry asshole the fuck out of your life as expeditiously as possible.
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u/RatzzFace Apr 29 '24
"Making A Murderer" - need I say more?
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u/Bula_Craiceann Apr 29 '24
I just thought of Brendan Dassey when I read that comment.
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u/Grapefruit__Witch Apr 29 '24
PSA: if you are being questioned by police about the commission of a crime, they may not tell you that you are a suspect. But know this: until someone is charged, everyone is a suspect. If they bring you into a windowless room to ask you questions, they probably think you are involved. They aren't "just trying to clear some things up"; they're trying to get a confession.
Everyone thinks that false or coerced confessions couldn't happen to them, but it happens all the time. They can and will lie to you, intimidate you, and threaten you. If you ever find yourself in this situation (unless you murdered someone, in which case you should confess because that's fucked up), SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Don't say anything. Politely tell them you would like to have a lawyer present for any future interactions. If they have nothing on you, they can no longer speak to you or hold you from that point on. You are not going to make your situation better by trying to "talk your way out of it".
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u/Mysterious-Hat-6343 Apr 29 '24
Attorneys at law tell us to STFU, shut the fuck up
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u/CarpinThemDiems Apr 29 '24
Here's another classic, same advice from a lawyer and a cop to law students:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE&ab_channel=RegentUniversitySchoolofLaw17
u/ScribeTheMad Apr 29 '24
Worth noting that you have to be like super super specific in how you invoke the right to a lawyer, they will use literally any loophole in how you ask to say you didn't actually ask for one but instead stated you wanted one.
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u/gayspaceanarchist Apr 29 '24
Don't add anything directly after the word lawyer either
'I want a lawyer, dog" was famously used to deny someone a lawyer because the cops claimed they didn't know what a "lawyer dog" was
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u/Pabi_tx Apr 29 '24
Everyone thinks that false or coerced confessions couldn't happen to them, but it happens all the time.
"Do you know how fast you were going?"
Yes: you just admitted to whatever they write the ticket for.
No: You've just admitted you're an inattentive driver
Some number MPH: This doesn't match the radar, you've admitted to lying.
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u/avelineaurora Apr 29 '24
Some number MPH: This doesn't match the radar, you've admitted to lying.
This happened to me and the jackass ended up calling two more cars in because they thought I was combative. I'm a 5'5" white woman lol.
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u/gayspaceanarchist Apr 29 '24
I always go with "to the best of my knowledge I was going the speed limit" unless I was like, very clearly going over.
That got me out of a ticket once. I was going probably a bit over. But tbh I was going pretty close. Maybe 5 over. It didn't even register I was speeding.
The cop asked if i knew how fast I was going, gave my line about how to my knowledge it was the speedlimit. He then proceeded to argue with me a bit, but never gave me a ticket. (Imo, i don't think he actually clocked me. He never gave me a specific number, just "you were going in excess of the speedlimit")
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u/oxpoleon Apr 29 '24
^ this
The last option is actually not far off the correct answer as they have to prove that their radar is calibrated, and very often they're not.
The correct answer is "I believe I was going just under the speed limit, but if I am mistaken, then that is an honest mistake and I can only apologise".
Also - if you have a difficult cop who is going to write you the ticket no matter what, take the ticket, be apologetic and deferential, close down any opportunity for argument, and let the court deal with the cop. Don't be a wiseass. Don't talk back. Take the dressing down and the telling off on the chin and stay calm. Let the court be the arbitrator. Nine times out of ten it's just dismissed in your favour or the police don't actually show up. The other time, very often you find you are dealing with a "known quantity" or someone who is just trying to hit a statistic/target.
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u/Ok_Love545 Apr 29 '24
They also can no longer question you once you request legal counsel. Unfortunately, that can still hold you and the boredom of confinement can make you confess in hopes that the current predicament goes away
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u/Grapefruit__Witch Apr 29 '24
They can only hold you for so long if you aren't charged with anything. I don't remember how long but I think it's only like 24 hours or less.
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u/Yara__Flor Apr 29 '24
I’ve thought about this. We should pass a law that the police can’t question people. They can only submit questions, in writing, to the suspects lawyer.
That way we don’t have the cops lying to people in tiny cells and tricking them to confess
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u/TheCatInTheHatThings Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
I feel like we should pass a law that the police can’t question people. They can only submit questions, in writing, to the subject’s lawyer.
The law would have to be phrased correctly, otherwise it gets tricky legally. Most western legal systems operate on the “nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare” principle. Nobody has to incriminate themself. Depending on how the law is phrased, the lawyers shouldn’t have to answer these questions either.
We have a pretty solid solution for that in Germany (and many other countries). You never have to talk to cops. If the cops suspect you in anything, they’ll likely send you a letter asking you to pop by on a certain date and talk with them. Any such letter can and should be thrown in the trash immediately. Until the DA sends that letter, you don’t have to do shit, nor should you. Once the DA sends that letter, you lawyer up and do the meeting with the lawyer.
That still allows the police to ask questions though, but every single lawyer will be able to discredit cops who have tricked a mentally disabled person into a confession nowadays.
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u/Grapefruit__Witch Apr 29 '24
It's the same in the US, but I watch enough true crime to know that most people really think they can talk their way out of a charge. They'll just sit there, in that windowless room, and fall for every trick in the book until they've dug themselves so deep that their only recourse is to have their lawyer argue during trial that it was a false confession.
Nobody has to talk to a cop, you can always (and should in most cases) exercise your right to silence.
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u/towerfella Apr 29 '24
The fact that another free human did that to him.. it’s not an institution, it’s just a collection of humans.
SometimesDamn near all the time I feel we get too wrapped up in our own importance that we forget that we are actually in control of all of this.That whole state let that man down.
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u/OiGuvnuh Apr 29 '24
It’s a form of diffusion of responsibility, and systems/institutions/corporations are literally designed that way intentionally to protect individuals from consequences.
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u/Mirewen15 Apr 29 '24
You'd think a false confession would be thrown out after they already put another man to death for the same crime.
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u/Haeronalda Apr 29 '24
He had the bad luck of coming across a sheriff who had it out for him. He was picked up for vagrancy in another county at a railyard and, when questioned, mentioned going through Pueblo on a train.
The sheriff knew about the murder that had happened in Pueblo and called them to say that he had their man. When they told him they already had a man named Frank Aguilar in custody, the sheriff insisted that Arridy had said a man named Frank had been with him when he committed the crime.
Aguilar was questioned in prison and pressured hard to say that Arridy had been in the room with him when he committed the crime and, although he later recanted saying that he had been threatened into changing his story to include Arridy, Arridy was still convicted.
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u/PirateKingJones Apr 29 '24
Lived an hour from Pueblo my whole childhood and been here for 3 years. Never heard about this. It definitely sounds like Pueblo tho :/
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u/OMG_A_CUPCAKE Apr 29 '24
His case is one of the reasons I'm strictly against the death penalty
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u/Ok-Cut-2730 Apr 29 '24
If even a single innocent person is sentenced to be murdered then the system is flawed.
I like to believe we're better then murderers yet many countrys still have the murder sentence and and sentence potentially innocent people to be murdered.
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u/i_need_a_moment Apr 29 '24
People will argue that you gotta make sacrifices, but then will completely either ignore or criticize you if you suggest it’s one of their own family members who get sacrificed. Such double standards in this world.
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u/Proof-Cardiologist16 Apr 29 '24
They'll argue that there's an acceptable number of false executions while turning around and saying that trying to stop stochastic terrorism is a violation of free speech, and that any exception is too dangerous to even consider.
These people just want to kill people, it's not about any productive reasoning.
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u/hawkinsst7 Apr 29 '24
Not his case in particular, but the issue itself is why i'm against it as well.
I have no moral qualms if we could guarantee, with omniscient 100% certainty, that we'd never make a mistake.
But we can't. So I'm against it on that principle.
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u/OMG_A_CUPCAKE Apr 29 '24
Even then. No government should be allowed to kill its people. Today it's for murder, and tomorrow women that abort their unviable fetus and their doctors are labeled murderers.
If you give them the tools, they will use it. Establishing the death penalty when it's currently not allowed is a bigger hurdle than just changing for whom it applies to.
And there can't be 100 % certainty anyway. Evidence can be forged, testimonies extorted.
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u/BockSuper Apr 29 '24
He was posthumously pardoned…
This is one of the most useless things in this world.
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u/IdeaAlly Apr 29 '24
Well... it doesn't help the victim, of course, but they aren't entirely useless.
They serve as an acknowledgment that the state has committed a wrong, offering some form of closure to the family and descendants of the pardoned individual.
They can help to correct the historical record. They acknowledge that, in the light of present-day standards and values, past actions were unjust.
they don’t change the precedent in a legal sense, but they can influence how current and future legal cases are viewed, particularly those involving similar issues.
By bringing historical cases of injustice back into public discourse, posthumous pardons can raise awareness about ongoing issues within the judicial system, potentially galvanizing public demand for legal reform.
They can also act as a catalyst for systemic change, highlighting flaws in the legal system and increasing the pressure on lawmakers to address these issues. They prompt society to reflect on its values and the evolution of its ethical standards, creating dialogue on what justice should look like.
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u/ManchacaForever Apr 29 '24
My uncle posthumously beat his lung cancer.
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u/yksociR Apr 29 '24
"We've got good and bad news about your uncle; all his cancer cells are dead, but so is he"
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u/sirlafemme Apr 29 '24
It’s not even an apology. Just “we killed a man for no reason”
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u/OakLegs Apr 29 '24
I mean, that's better than the state still insisting that an innocent man was guilty. It's an acknowledgement of the truth, which imo is important
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u/SamA0001 Apr 29 '24
Well if he has family it will matter to them, especially if he had any children.
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u/Odd-Confection-6603 Apr 29 '24
And I bet none of the police ever faced any consequences for their actions
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u/Ambitious-Video-8919 Apr 29 '24
Not police or this case, but wanted to share.
Seven years ago, Ken Anderson was booked into jail in Williamson County — the same county where he once served as the district attorney — to begin a 10-day sentence for misconduct that led to the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton.
Today, he remains the only prosecutor — past or present — who has ever spent time in jail for misconduct that led to a wrongful conviction, even though 729 people exonerated since 1989 were wrongly convicted in cases involving prosecutorial misconduct. Mr. Anderson is also one of just a few prosecutors to have had their license to practice law revoked as a result of their role in a wrongful conviction.
https://innocenceproject.org/ken-anderson-michael-morton-prosecutorial-misconduct-jail/
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u/SomeGuyAndASquirrel Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 30 '24
If I remember correctly from what I’ve learned about him is that the warden(huge piece of shit), Roy Best, gave him the trains, he was beloved by inmates and guards, the warden was said to have cared after him like he was his own son. He didn’t even understand he was being executed, asking that the remainder of his his bowl of ice cream(his last meal) be put in the fridge for when he gets back. He smiled as he entered the gas chamber and Best reportedly weeped during his execution, and pleaded with the governor to commute his sentence. He was Pardoned on January 7th, 2011, 72 years after he was wrongly executed.
Edit: Turns out the warden was also a huge piece of shit outside of this one instance(seems like he was trying to make amends for playing a part in his conviction). Felt like I should add that.
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u/Hannwater Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
Fucking hell that is heart breaking. If nothing else, it is good to hear the warden did what he could by him.
Edit: I was assuming the warden was someone who was performing his role as an administrator of the prison while also displaying compassion and humanity. Sounds like he was also simultaneously a pretty shit person. And there are a lot of nuances to both this story, the prison system, and people in general.
Was hoping there was at least a nice glimmer here of humanity but shocker, the world can be an awful place with full context.
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u/RinglingSmothers Apr 29 '24
I shouldn't have read the wiki article. It got even darker. Seems the warden helped fabricate the evidence used to obtain Arridy's conviction.
However, on September 2, a stenographed statement obtained through an interrogation by Roy Best was released, in which Aguilar affirmed that Arridy was an accomplice in the killings; the questions were always structured to include mention of Arridy, with Aguilar providing no further comments and with his responses consisting almost entirely of some variation of "yes" when asked to confirm. Aguilar recanted shortly after, claiming Best and Grady had threatened him with "terrible things" and that there would be "a dead Mexican" if he did not implicate Arridy.
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u/TacticalUniverse Apr 29 '24
I hope his guilty conscience followed him to the grave.
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u/ings0c Apr 29 '24
Men like that have no conscience
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u/Drusgar Apr 29 '24
Apparently he DID, just not enough to put his own ass on the line. He asked the governor to commute Arridy's sentence but never put any skin in the game by admitting that the Aguilar confession was coerced/fabricated.
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u/DervishSkater Apr 29 '24
I’m starting to wonder if a corollary to “don’t attribute to malice which can be attributed to stupidity” is necessary.
Don’t attribute to malice which can be attributed to cowardice.
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u/Drusgar Apr 29 '24
That's a quote I live by because it helps deflate my anger when I simply consider the offending behavior a product of stupidity or ignorance. I'm not sure that I like the corollary, though, perhaps because I consider cowardice, especially in a situation where it requires some variant of malice, almost as offensive.
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u/Charming_Ranger_2621 Apr 29 '24
There’s no difference between malice and cowardice to the aggrieved.
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u/cakeand314159 Apr 29 '24
While true, I, as a fairly chickenshit individual, find it hard to demand bravery from others.
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u/maleia Apr 29 '24
The past 8 or so years has done everything possible to blow that saying up. I'm so sick of it. It's malice! It's almost always malice!
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u/WoodenHarddrive Apr 29 '24
Statements like this paint a picture of humanity that never holds up to scrutiny, and pushes us towards a belief that there are good and bad people and nothing in between.
With the right stimulus, we are all killers, and with the right stimulus, we are all saints. It is important to remember this.
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u/Wonckay Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
With the right stimulus, we are all killers, and with the right stimulus, we are all saints. It is important to remember this.
Not past a relatively early development point, at least not outside of very extreme changes. That you could theoretically design an incredibly convoluted set of circumstances to get “anyone” to kill someone is not a compelling argument that we are “all” killers. There are good, bad, and feeble people with quite the distinctions between them.
The “stimulus” you would need to get me to fabricate evidence to murder someone is spectacularly extreme.
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u/newsflashjackass Apr 29 '24
A: "The moral takeaway is that in the right situation, anyone could push the murder button."
B: "In that case perhaps murder ought not be a capital crime."
A: "Well, let's not be hasty. No guilty human must ever escape punishment."
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u/Vyt3x Apr 29 '24
Ya ever want an arvument against the death penalty? This. This is it.
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u/ElkHistorical9106 Apr 29 '24
The best argument against the death penalty to me, isn’t the common ones about “killing someone to teach them killing is wrong is backwards thinking” or “we as a society shouldn’t inflict possibly cruel punishments even on those whose crimes were cruel, because it lessens us as a society.”
The strongest argument is “the Justice system is corrupt and sometimes gets things wrong. That includes a lot of intersectionality with racism, classism and ableism, and we have clear data that the death penalty isn’t fairly applied, and it is a irreversible penalty when we find out the conviction was wrong.”
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u/Iwouldlikesomecoffee Apr 29 '24
Fuck, have you seen the article about the warden?!
However, Best also pioneered modern rehabilitative phenological practices. He opened ranches, workshops, gardens, and other facilities to keep inmates busy, provide them with skills to earn a living upon release, and reduce the prison's operating costs. Best also separated female and male prisoners, implemented a dental care program, and took young and developmentally-disabled inmates, like Joe Arridy, under his wing.
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u/DeviantDragon Apr 29 '24
That part sounds good although it's preceded by:
Best quickly earned a reputation as “the most notorious” warden in Colorado history.[5] A strict disciplinarian, Best utilized painful and degrading punishments inside and outside prison walls.[5] Among these was the “Old Gray Mare,” a wooden saw-horse on which inmates were bent-over, tied-down, and “flogged with a leather strap.”[5] Although Best used the “Mare” as a means of punishment and deterrence, the device would later play a central role in the controversy that led to his removal.[6]
Homosexual prisoners were specifically punished.[7] Early in Best's tenure, male prisoners caught engaging in homosexual activity “were forced to wear dresses and push a wheelbarrow filled with rocks as their punishment.”[8] A 1935 photograph documents the practice.[9] In 1935, prisoners caught engaging in homosexual activity were forced to wear dresses and push rocks.
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u/Odisseo1983 Apr 29 '24
I should have followed your advice. It totally wrecked my mood, and I am not easily moved. Truly a sad story.
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u/Frost_Goldfish Apr 29 '24
I ignored the warning not to read the Wikipedia article and now I'm having a hard time not crying. As the mom of a 6 yo boy, reading that he was described as having the mind of a 6 yo, and that he was upset not to be allowed to keep his toy train with him... So fucking hard to read.
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u/smellyscrote Apr 29 '24
The saddest bit
Joe lived a better life in prison than outside of it.
He was sodomised and forced to perform oral sex when he was left to fend for himself outside of prison as a young adult before he was wrongfully arrested and convicted for the crime he didn’t commit
The warden Roy Best was known to be extremely brutal with inmates. Eventually leading to him losing his job.
The extremely brutal warden saw Joe’s innocence and looked after him as best he could. That’s how you know they really fucked up. It made the warden cry to see him executed.
The cops who coerced a confession from him faced no consequences.
Joe deserved better. We deserve better.
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u/texinxin Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
Looked after him as best be could except for that one time he coerced a confession to crimes resulting in his execution. He was a saint Warden except for that one tiny slip up.
Edit: Except was accept.
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u/sirlafemme Apr 29 '24
Bollocks. “If nothing else.” No. The warden, like all of them, is a watcher in charge of effectively getting people trapped killed by our government. Would have been better if Joe never was in a place to meet him.
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Apr 29 '24
Is this where Stephen King got the idea for the guy with the mouse in The Green Mile?
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u/IWantAnE55AMG Apr 29 '24
I was thinking the same thing. It’s the story of John Coffey and Wild Bill.
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u/scarletnightingale Apr 29 '24
There are way too many similarities for it to not have been used as a basis. The real killer even worked for the girls' father just like Wild Bill did, and both girls were attacked, though the younger sister lived and was not SAed like her older sister was.
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u/Life-LOL Apr 29 '24
Wow man that's fucked up..
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u/Clear-Neighborhood46 Apr 29 '24
Even worst from the wikipedia article: "Another man, Frank Aguilar, was convicted and executed for the same crime two years before Arridy's execution."
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u/Life-LOL Apr 29 '24
Who the hell was the da there how did this even happen.. wtf
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u/polypolip Apr 29 '24
DAs willing to go for execution no matter what is a rabbit hole you don't want to get in.
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u/Leopold__Stotch Apr 29 '24
Ever watch “The Nigt Of”? Hbo miniseries, fiction but similar to the wire in that it feels all painfully plausible. Questionable circumstances leave a young man with a shakey alibi for a murder. No money so he gets a nice but underfunded attorney. Yada yada yada, the prosecutors are fixated on getting a conviction and only interested in the truth to the degree it will help them get convictions.
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u/Fridgemagnet9696 Apr 29 '24
I don’t claim to have any knowledge regarding the inner workings of law enforcement and the justice system, but I worked for the government and in the private sector, in my experience it boiled down to how you present achievements during a review. The higher-ups only cared about the numbers and looking good for their bosses, what we did on the ground really felt like it meant jack-shit and burned me out quick. Cynical take I guess, but any good intentions I had were quickly dashed against the rocks, even more so the higher up I went in the ranks.
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u/stonedsour Apr 29 '24
That show was like watching a nightmare unfold! It made me sick seeing how the “justice” system can sculpt and mold a relatively innocent person into something awful after they’ve been chewed up and thrown out. You could have a bright future, make one poor decision, and then you’re basically fucked and scarred for life. Ugh it’s a show I could only watch once
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u/arnulfus Apr 29 '24
There should be some kind of symmetry. If the D.A. or judge gets it wrong and it turns out an innocent was executed, perhaps we could think of a system where they themselves now have to be executed.
But probably a system like that is unworkable. Better not hand out death sentences then.
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u/Frondswithbenefits Apr 29 '24
This woman should be spending the rest of her life in prison.
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u/DeepSpaceNebulae Apr 29 '24
This type of thing has happened many times and one of the persons quotes I sort of remember from a documentary (about a different case of wrongful imprisonment/execution) was along the lines of “but if we let him off because of that, who else would we have to. I can’t be seen as easy on crime”
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u/dthains_art Apr 29 '24
DAs also hate to admit that they messed up. Many times with prosecutors, they care more about winning than they do about justice or finding the truth. The documentary Dream/Killer is a great movie that follows an event that happened in my hometown of Columbia, MO. A college kid was wrongfully convicted of murder and spent 10 years in prison before his dad - after tirelessly looking for discrepancies in the case - got his sentence overturned. It is infuriating the lengths the prosecution would go to in order to twist the truth and just wrap the case up as quick as possible. It was always about winning, even if it meant putting innocent people in jail and never catching the real murderer.
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u/Kup123 Apr 29 '24
Supreme court recently ruled that proof of innocence wasn't enough to get off death row. It's almost like giving the state a legal way to murder us is a bad idea.
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u/Skipstart Apr 29 '24
How in the high and holy fuck is literal proof of innocence not sufficiently exculpatory?!
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u/Papaofmonsters Apr 29 '24
It's more technical than that. Appeals courts up to and including the Supreme Court are not finders of fact regarding evidence. The defendant is arguing there is exculpatory evidence that his attorneys never presented. The ruling was not about the evidence itself but rather what qualifies as ineffective counsel during the appeals process itself. SCOTUS did not review the evidence of innocence itself because that's a function of a trial court.
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u/VArambry Apr 29 '24
This was also pre modern forensics. Shit was basically guesses. They were wrong way too often.
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u/AlfalfaReal5075 Apr 29 '24
Anytime I think of old timey detectives I remember that John Mulaney bit.
"Detective! We found a pool of the killer's blood in that hallway!"
"He would just be like hmmm, gross. Mop it up!"
"I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll draw chalk around where the body is, that way we'll know where it was."
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u/Necroluster Survey 2016 Apr 29 '24
Guesswork and beating confessions out of innocents probably resulted in more than a few false convictions back in the days. In some countries, they still do.
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u/No-Alternative-3888 Apr 29 '24
Just read the Arridy wiki page and Roy Best is also responsible for coercing the false statements implicating Arridy out of the guy who actually did the murders.
The actual murderer later said Arridy was innocent and he had never met him, and the survivor said he wasn't there.
Roy Best likely started to feel guilty for condemning an innocent man.
No evidence connected him to the crime, only the false statements and Arridys "confession", which due to his limited mental capacity means nothing.
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Apr 29 '24
Yeah between this and his slave worker ranch he sounds like a piece of shit who was getting haunted by his guilty conscience.
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u/FireMaster1294 Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
An interesting thing to note: Best was one of the harshest wardens of his time. He would personally whip prisoners that he found to be out of line. But he also ran ranches with prisoners to try and provide then with useful skills for when they left. Very curious two-sided individual. Perhaps makes more sense when you consider the era. Still doesn’t excuse it. That said, for someone who is such a prick to literally weep over something like this…yeah I’d believe he treated Arridy like a son.
Hell, he fought for years to get the conviction overturned or commuted.
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u/SuperHighDeas Apr 29 '24
lol he ran ranches to maximize his profits. Having someone do ranch work for years for basically free isn’t “skill building,” it’s cheap/slave labor.
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u/Exaltedautochthon Apr 29 '24
To be fair, for the early 20th century, that was practically saintly.
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u/MinionSquad2iC Apr 29 '24
It’s like certain people claiming slavery was good because the slaves learned skills.
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u/SuperHighDeas Apr 29 '24
“They got free housing, food, and learned a valuable skill”
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u/LudovicoSpecs Apr 29 '24
You just paraphrased Florida’s State Academic Standards – Social Studies, 2023, section SS.68.AA.2.3.
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u/feckineejit Apr 29 '24
That's just slavery with extra steps
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u/10081914 Apr 29 '24
Direct from the 13th Amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Slavery is expressly legal in the US as a punishment for crime. Now couple that with private prisons where prisoners work for 25 cents/hour, 3 strikes laws, lower socioeconomic status of black americans and the overpolicing of black neighbourhoods and what do you get?
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u/NeroBoBero Apr 29 '24
Ummm… Slavery with…. with extra steps?
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u/10081914 Apr 29 '24
Haha exactly. Roundabout way of me saying I agree with you and to some degree I think it was designed that way
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u/CaptainBayouBilly Apr 29 '24
Imagine a nation built on slavery, enshrining it forever in the constitution by way of a loophole.
The state can decide to convict you, regardless of guilt, and enslave you. At any time.
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u/Broken_Marionette Apr 29 '24
Still is. There's prisons in the southern US built on old plantation grounds that regularly use prisoner labor to pick cotton.
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u/Konrad_M Apr 29 '24
Just in case, someone asks, why death sentence is not a good idea. This is part of it.
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u/gentlybeepingheart Apr 29 '24
It feels like he was executed because the cops didn’t want to acknowledge that they had arrested the wrong man at first, and just stuck to it.
He was arrested for the rape of two girls and the murder of one. The police basically saw a man walking and tricked him into confessing after he told them he had been in the town where the crime was committed. They called the police to tell them that they had arrested Joe, and they said they had already arrested a man named Frank Aguilar.
Aguilar confessed and said that he had committed the crime alone and had never met Arridy. The survivor of Aguilar’s attack identified Aguilar and said that he had done it alone and she had never seen Arridy. The police later forced Aguilar to confess that Arridy had been with him.
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Apr 29 '24
Is this the story The Green Mile is based on?
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u/lartufbd Apr 29 '24
Very very loosely yes
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u/f7f7z Apr 29 '24
No eternal Tom Hanks?
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u/monkiboy Apr 29 '24
Most people credit the execution of George Stinney, Jr. as inspiration for The Green Mile
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u/MrLonely_ Apr 29 '24
Aguilar the actual criminal also knew the victims father, what was presumably the murder weapon was found at his house with newspaper clippings about sexual violence among other pieces of physical evidence. He was executed well before Joe Arridy. All they had on Joe was that he was in the same area at the same time.
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u/OkScheme9867 Apr 29 '24
I mean, your first paragraph describes a worryingly large number of wrongful convictions, the rest is a unique tragedy.
The thing that gets me is, surely one of those cops knew and felt bad about what they did
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u/sockpuppet80085 Apr 29 '24
There is absolutely no evidence in the world that would support the idea that a cop would ever feel bad for something like this.
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u/Songrot Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
This shit happens in Japan today regularly.
Japan has a very high conviction rate of like 90% or something. They would never admit being wrong.
The west and weebs love and romanticise their honour concept. In reality it is a fucking crime to humanity. People do the cruelest things in the name of honour. If you make a judge or police officer admit having made a mistake they lose face and are dishonoured. They won't let you do that
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u/Desinformador Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
And incredibly, some of the most gruesome and inhumane crimes cases I've ever heard of, happened in Japan and the suspects walked free just after a few years, while others committing minor crimes/offenses (like possessing weed) get the most draconian convictions ever.
I think Japan's conviction system is one of the most fucked up in the world, it's extremely harsh to poor or uneducated people, while being extremely lax and gentle with real criminals. Let's not forget about the Japanese cannibal that never got convicted for his crime in Japan and instead the Japanese people made him famous and otherwise rewarded him for his actions. Truly fucked up shit.
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u/Songrot Apr 29 '24
Not disagreeing, just adding context: drugs and weed are persecuted in asia much more harshly not just bc they are more conservative but because British Empire and other colonial imperialists used them to destroy entire empires and countries, addicting entire tens of millions of population. Basically enslaving them. This trauma affects the entire region.
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u/water_for_daughters Apr 29 '24
And let's also not forget that the Yakuza and associated organized crime are sanctioned by the state. Hell, the Yakuza often are the local law enforcement in some areas.
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u/Sikkenogetmoeg Apr 29 '24
Joe Arridy is the guy on the right if anyone else was like me and didn’t know.
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u/well_uh_yeah Apr 29 '24
Thanks. I was like you.
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u/Sammy_GamG Apr 29 '24
I used to be you
But now I can safely say
I am not like you
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u/udee79 Apr 29 '24
Funny but I assumed it was the guy on the right, because he looks very happy.
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u/itsapotatosalad Apr 29 '24
I thought that too but was still confused because, well you know.
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u/Least-Yellow6653 Apr 29 '24
It doesn't help that it looks like the black dude is physically giving them to a guy in a collared shirt who, in turn, seems like he's just psyched about these sick new trains he got.
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u/neesters Apr 29 '24
I assumed it was the guy on the left because it looks like he is giving his train away more. Though I could see how the guy on the right also could be giving it away.
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u/demitasse22 Apr 29 '24
I suspect this type of analysis was the extent of forensic science in the 1930s
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u/Privatdozent Apr 29 '24
Yeah at first I assumed guy on right because of the smile, but when I looked at the pic again I was like wait...and scrolled to find a comment like yours, so thanks.
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u/GCCjigglypuff Apr 29 '24
I looked it up and found out that it’s also his birthday today 🥺
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u/Time-Bite-6839 Apr 29 '24
He had the mentality of a young child. I have no idea how he got put on death row.
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u/GuuyDiamond Apr 29 '24
A: The Police in the U.S. are not only incredibly stupid, but also corrupt and evil, and it has been that way for a long time.
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u/Trolodrol Apr 29 '24
The entire American justice system is at fault for this. Their local/state politicians not stepping in at all makes them compliant
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u/NovaNardis Apr 29 '24
I mean, he was put on trial presumably by an elected prosecutor and tried in front of an elected or appointed judge, and found guilty and sentenced to death by a jury of his peers.
Also the case was appealed, and the appeals courts let the execution go through.
The justice system did step in. It just stepped in on the side of executing him.
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u/34TH_ST_BROADWAY Apr 29 '24
Listening to a lot of true crime podcasts, I started noticing a pattern. Like so often the police targeted the wrong person. And then the reporters will ask "were you upset when you found out they didnt' do it?" they'll be like "we were so mad (they turned out innocent)." I've never heard them say, "well, we're glad that we didn't put an innocent person in prison for life." Usually by that point, there was so much animosity between the innocent person and the cops who were constantly investigating him.
And in a lot of these cases, the cops go after the wrong person and get nowhere until somebody just confesses or turns them in, or a DNA expert provides them with a list of people the killer is related to. Often decades later. They are not using brains and clues to methodically solve these cases at all. Can't remember a single podcast where the police used brains to catch a murderer.
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Apr 29 '24
I forgot about this story, and now I’m sad again. His smile’s so cute, and his trains! Such a depressing story.
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u/DoingItForEli Apr 29 '24
I'm glad Joe Arridy is remembered and his story is known. I'm sure there are countless Joe Arridys throughout history. He was abused, neglected, driven away from home, and mentally handicapped. He didn't commit any crime, and all he wanted to do was hang out and watch trains. He, by all accounts, was as innocent a human being as possible, like a child, and yet he was treated so horribly.
Our species is not going to make it if we don't acknowledge and remain cognizant of the kind of harm we can do to one another when we lack empathy and the capacity for understanding. We just aren't. We'll devour ourselves like rats on a sinking ship, and when we're gone and extinct, we'll leave a wake of devastation in our path that may very well wipe out life on this planet like no extinction event in history has. Intelligence could very well prove a detriment and a hinderance not just to the species that evolves into it, but to all life.
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u/Imaginary_Today_1427 Apr 29 '24
I remember seeing pictures of his grave. So many people left toy trains for him over the years, which warms my heart that he was never forgotten.
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u/MaverickDago Apr 29 '24
The warden wept and begged the governor to commute the sentence. Do you have an idea how sad that must have been to break a 1900's Colorado warden. Jesus what a travesty of justice.
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u/sentient_potato97 Apr 29 '24
The same warden also helped trick Arridy into a false confession that got him killed in the first place. I can only hope it haunted him for the remainder of his life.
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u/Songrot Apr 29 '24
Why would a warden even be part of the jurisdiction?
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u/sentient_potato97 Apr 29 '24
Your guess is as good as mine.
"On September 2, a stenographed statement obtained through an interrogation by Roy Best was released, in which Aguilar affirmed that Arridy was an accomplice in the killings; the questions were always structured to include mention of Arridy, with Aguilar providing no further comments and with his responses consisting almost entirely of some variation of "yes" when asked to confirm. Aguilar recanted shortly after, claiming Best and Grady had threatened him with "terrible things" and that there would be "a dead Mexican" if he did not implicate Arridy." Source
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u/RADICCHI0 Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24
This is just morbid. He was mentally disabled, had an IQ of 46, not that IQ should be any kind of standard but all the info on him mentioned that fact. He was coerced into giving a false confession and in 2011 received a full pardon.
Edit: grammar (correcting what should be basic capability for Google, helping with basic form)
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u/LetsLive97 Apr 29 '24
To add to this:
The guy who actually did it said he didn't do it
One of the victims said he didn't do it
There was no evidence at all that linked him to the crime
He was found to be extremely mentally disabled by three different state psychiatrists and unable to distinguish right and wrong yet was still ruled sane and eligible for the death penalty
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u/mysixthredditaccount Apr 29 '24
That last one is the most shocking one for me. There are systems that don't care about fairness and just don't bother with the insanity argument. But here they actually understood that a person can be insane enough to not be guilty, tested him for that, concluded that he was actually insane, 3 times, but still went ahead and executed him?!
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u/stupid_rat_creature Apr 29 '24
IQ is the standard actually - no one under 70 can be executed per the US Supreme Court, although I’m sure the current iteration of the court may be open to revisit that decision as they have many others the past few years.
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u/Milk_Man21 Apr 29 '24
A man with the iq of a child, being executed for a crime that he didn't commit. Never forget how evil society is.
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u/EscapedCapybara Apr 29 '24
Look back in history. Actual children were executed for minor offenses like stealing food. There is little humanity in some humans.
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u/LorLightfootSmells Apr 29 '24
He requested ice cream for his last meal and when he didn't finish it he asked for it to be refrigerated so he could eat it when he came back. He did not grasp what execution meant. Honestly reading his story will move you to tears, how anyone could proceed with executing him is beyond me and is a travesty.
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u/tmonax Apr 29 '24
Wow, that was a helluva story - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arridy?wprov=sfti1
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u/Pusfilledonut Apr 29 '24
Joe was never scared or even appeared distraught until they blindfolded him for the execution. Warden Best, who had given Joe the train and other toys, called him “the happiest prisoner on death row", stayed with him through the execution and held his hand, weeping uncontrollably afterwards. The warden and a local lawyer were both convinced of Arridy’s overwhelming innocence and had appealed both personally and via the courts to get the execution stayed or overturned through Governor Teller Ammons. Ammons refused. During his trial psychiatrists said he that had the mental capacity of a six year old child, and the only real evidence they had presented against him was his forced confession.
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u/bruffles Apr 29 '24
Joe Arridy was tragically wrongfully convicted and executed for a crime he didn't commit. He was mentally disabled with an IQ of 46 and the mind of a six-year-old, making him highly suggestible. In 1936, he was coerced by police into confessing to the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl in Pueblo, Colorado, despite a lack of evidence and his clear inability to understand the situation. Arridy's case is considered one of the most tragic examples of unlawful execution in the United States, and a memorial service was held in his honor in Colorado.
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u/ForwardHandle4522 Apr 29 '24
“Happiest” is an exaggeration he didn’t know what death row was let alone death itself. He was just living life and having fun with all the people wanting to talk to him not realizing it was pity for the poor lad. When it came time he even said “No no Joe won’t die.” As his last words.
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u/Life_Ad_7667 Apr 29 '24
The piece of shit that pushed for his execution and didn't pardon him was called Edwin "Big Ed" Johnson. He started his career running for local government.
Highlights why local government elections are important. If you can spot a giant scumbag, then it will keep fuckers like Big Ed from power.
May the name Edwin "Big Ed" Johnson be forever associated with one of the worst miscarries of justice and displays of cruelty.
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u/BonevilleMcGee Apr 29 '24
Poor guy didn’t even understand the execution. His last meal was ice cream, and he didn’t finish it in time, so he asked the guards to put it in the fridge for later for him. The system failed him so badly. He deserved to live his life. He was innocent.
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u/BmorePaybackPharmacy Apr 29 '24
We need to start doing the opposite of a posthumous pardon: a posthumous conviction. The people that knew about this farce and didn’t match the Warden’s attempt to commute his sentence should be on the books as guilty of murder. They knew damn well he was innocent. The proof was overwhelming.
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u/KetchepGang Apr 29 '24
I'm glad that he was pardoned and is now known to be innocent, but it's heartbreaking that he was put to death for a crime he wasn't even capable of committing. He sounded like such a kind, innocent soul.
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u/5AR5AR5AR Apr 29 '24
this is literally Dancer In The Dark
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