I don’t understand the angle of “Punishment” because anyone who fucking says that has never spent a single day in jail. If you have, then you’ll know that spending an entire lifetime there is more than enough to punish you for whatever tf you did.
In this case the judicial angle isn't punishment, but completion. They can now "close the case". If he were released, then the case would still remain open (and unsolved), which looks bad on their record/statistics. Now they (the DA/police) got +1 solved/closed cases.
Another possibility is that the actual perpetrator is well-connected or known to the DA, so they threw this guy under the bus.
If you want to think "wtf?" for an hour and a half watch the documentary The Thin Blue Line (1988). The subject of the documentary was actually exonerated after the documentary came out (but received 0 dollars as compensation).
In this case the judicial angle isn’t punishment, but completion
That's the crazy part, the bare minimum appeal was to change his sentence to life in prison. That would still be an end to the case with a definite ruling. They chose to kill him. A lot of the opposition to his execution wasn't even asking to release him, but to just change the sentence, they couldn't even do the bare minimum to spare a (potentially innocent) life. Sheer barbarism.
In this case the judicial angle isn't punishment, but completion. They can now "close the case". If he were released, then the case would still remain open (and unsolved), which looks bad on their record/statistics. Now they (the DA/police) got +1 solved/closed cases.
Another possibility is that the actual perpetrator is well-connected or known to the DA, so they threw this guy under the bus.
If you want to think "wtf?" for an hour and a half watch the documentary The Thin Blue Line (1988). The subject of the documentary was actually exonerated after the documentary came out (but received 0 dollars as compensation).
That's the crazy part, the bare minimum appeal was to change his sentence to life in prison. That would still be an end to the case with a definite ruling. They chose to kill him. A lot of the opposition to his execution wasn't even asking to release him, but to just change the sentence, they couldn't even do the bare minimum to spare a (potentially innocent) life. Sheer barbarism.