[HN Gopher] 1955 warrant in Emmett Till case found, family seeks...
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       1955 warrant in Emmett Till case found, family seeks arrest
        
       Author : ohjeez
       Score  : 42 points
       Date   : 2022-07-01 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (apnews.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
        
       | l30n4da5 wrote:
       | I'm genuinely curious about this. I skimmed the article and
       | didn't see mention of this, but does the statute of limitations
       | apply here?
        
         | cmpb wrote:
         | From the article:
         | 
         | >Arrest warrants can "go stale" due to the passage of time and
         | changing circumstances, and one from 1955 almost certainly
         | wouldn't pass muster before a court, even if a sheriff agreed
         | to serve it, said Ronald J. Rychlak, a law professor at the
         | University of Mississippi.
         | 
         | >But combined with any new evidence, the original arrest
         | warrant "absolutely" could be an important stepping stone
         | toward establishing probable cause for a new prosecution, he
         | said.
        
           | yieldcrv wrote:
           | yes, this needs to be done. I don't understand what the new
           | evidence is though, I skimmed the further linked article
        
         | cryptonector wrote:
         | Generally there's no statute of limitations on murder.
        
           | voisin wrote:
           | This isn't murder though. It would be perjury or something
           | along those lines.
        
             | Dracophoenix wrote:
             | According to the article, the warrant says kidnapping, a
             | crime for which there is no statute of limitations.
             | However, the district attorney for the case would have to
             | show probable cause to enforce the arrest warrant. There's
             | little chance of establishing that absent rediscovery of
             | evidence or the existence of new witnesses from a crime
             | that occurred nearly 70 years ago. There's also the issue
             | of their being only one living witness relevant to the
             | ordeal. And she is unlikely to say anything even if she
             | were to possess a steel trap of a memory.
        
       | dredmorbius wrote:
       | Among the reasons the Emmett Till case gained such prominence was
       | that Mamie Till Mobley, Till's mother, insisted that he have an
       | open-casket funeral, and _Jet_ magazine ran a photo of his corpse
       | on the cover. If you 've seen a photo of Till, it's probably of a
       | sharp-dressed youth in a coat and hat, as featured in this AP
       | piece. That's not what was returned to Tills' family.
       | 
       | The question of whether or not to show the harms of unlimited
       | violence are rising again with the proliferation of mass
       | shootings in the US, war in Ukraine and elsewhere, and other
       | forms of violence.
       | 
       | The Bill Moyers link below does show the funeral photo. CW:
       | mutilated corpse.
       | 
       | https://billmoyers.com/content/key-moments-in-the-fight-for-...
       | 
       | The story of Tills's funeral is covered by Smithsonian Magazine
       | here:
       | 
       | https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/emmet...
        
       | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
       | > Donham set off the case in August 1955 by accusing the 14-year-
       | old Till of making improper advances at a family store in Money,
       | Mississippi.
       | 
       | This is so misogynistic. The responsibility for kidnapping and
       | murder falls squarely on the men who did it.
       | 
       | Blaming a woman for saying she was sexually harassed seems pretty
       | backward.
       | 
       | In addition, consider this was 1950's rural Mississippi. The
       | power imbalances between husbands and wives would have been huge.
       | Any man capable of such horrific violence to a 14 year old child,
       | would more than likely have been a domestic abuser as well. I
       | really doubt that she had a lot of options for going against her
       | husband.
        
         | spacemanmatt wrote:
         | She's a Good White Woman who participated in a kidnapping which
         | ended in a gruesome murder. Don't make excuses for that.
        
         | richm31415 wrote:
         | > . . . going against her husband.
         | 
         | or father - https://youtu.be/_6qQ7l8pRGo
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | cultofmetatron wrote:
        
         | xphilter wrote:
         | Uh the warrant was for her role in kidnapping. It's a bit
         | misogynistic to think a woman couldn't play a part in a
         | lynching, I'd say. Glad you're coming up for excuses for some
         | lady you've never met before; keeping the system that kept her
         | out of prison alive and well!
        
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       (page generated 2022-07-01 23:02 UTC)