I think Jason and Jessie were sentenced to life plus forty years each. Which, if that's correct, pretty much equals to 80 years. Damien on the other hand was never getting out. He was sentence to death and would have been killed after he exhausted all of his appeals. He was on his last appeal.
The whole point of this is that they didn't do it. There is no legitimate evidence pointing to them and there never was. Whoever did it, is still running free. The state would have never let them out with such a weird legal deal at this point if they didn't think they would get out anyway after the re-trial. This entire deal as far as I'm concerned is an effort for the state of Arkansas to avoid lawsuits and on the part of the West Memphis Three, it's an effort to ensure their release immediately. According to what I've read, the plea they entered is kind of like a draw and it makes very little sense to me. They have to admit that the courts have evidence against them, but are still able to proclaim their innocence. So it's like half-guilty plea? It makes absolutely no sense, but from what I've heard, it's a plea that came into existence to basically deal with "complicated" trails. I am irritated that Arkansas just didn't pardon them. But at least they are once again free men. Now they have all the time in the world to clear their name.
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Date: 2011-08-21 02:12 am (UTC)The whole point of this is that they didn't do it. There is no legitimate evidence pointing to them and there never was. Whoever did it, is still running free. The state would have never let them out with such a weird legal deal at this point if they didn't think they would get out anyway after the re-trial. This entire deal as far as I'm concerned is an effort for the state of Arkansas to avoid lawsuits and on the part of the West Memphis Three, it's an effort to ensure their release immediately. According to what I've read, the plea they entered is kind of like a draw and it makes very little sense to me. They have to admit that the courts have evidence against them, but are still able to proclaim their innocence. So it's like half-guilty plea? It makes absolutely no sense, but from what I've heard, it's a plea that came into existence to basically deal with "complicated" trails. I am irritated that Arkansas just didn't pardon them. But at least they are once again free men. Now they have all the time in the world to clear their name.