Robert DuBoise, sentenced over a 1983 rape and murder he did not commit, says he hopes others in his position now ‘get justice’

Robert DuBoise, sentenced over a 1983 rape and murder he did not commit, says he hopes others in his position now ‘get justice’

A Tampa, Florida, man who has been authorized to receive $14m for spending nearly four decades in prison over a rape and murder which he did not commit says he hopes his case makes it easier for the unjustly convicted to achieve justice before it’s too late for them.

“I’m just grateful,” Robert DuBoise told the New York Times of the compensation that Tampa’s city council voted to pay him to settle a lawsuit over his wrongful conviction. He said he hoped others in his position now “get justice and can move on without having to spend the rest of their life fighting the system that has already wronged them”.

DuBoise was 18 at the time that 19-year-old Barbara Grams was raped and beaten to death as she walked home from her Tampa restaurant job in August 1983. A medical examiner determined that someone had bitten Grams on one of her cheeks, prompting investigators to take bite samples from multiple men, including DuBoise.

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    1827·
    9 months ago

    How the fuck is money gonna fix this?

    All prisons must go. Its inhumane to incarcerate people.

    • iAmTheTot@kbin.social
      346·
      9 months ago

      That’s an interesting take. What do you recommend be done with criminals? Especially violent ones?

        • FiveMacs
          186·
          9 months ago

          And when people are repeat offenders and enjoy killing people? Then what…

          • AeonFelis@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            Then you lock them together with the people who did lesser crimes and can be rehabilitated to ensure they too will end up more likely to do crimes, maybe even bigger ones, when eventually released.

            • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
              131·
              9 months ago

              It’s a legitimate question, though. There are many people who genuinely enjoy harming others. There really is no “rehabilitation” for someone who is disinterested in modifying their harmful behavior. Segregating those people from society is a safety issue.

              Rehabilitation for other people is excellent, but we still need a solution for those who cannot be rehabilitated.

              • Tremble@sh.itjust.works
                56·
                9 months ago

                Well, considering we don’t actually have any rehabilitation in the United States…… you’re basically arguing that we should continue to trample on the human rights of prisoners because you believe that there are people who can not be rehabilitated.

                • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
                  11·
                  9 months ago

                  I’m not arguing against rehab or prison reform. You are right that we desperately need it. I’m arguing against the total abolishment of some kind of prison system because there are some who simply should not be allowed near the public. Porque no los dos?

                  • Tremble@sh.itjust.works
                    41·
                    9 months ago

                    Both are possible, but until we have an actual rehabilitation system we will continue to incarcerate innocent people I suppose

              • girlfreddy
                26·
                9 months ago

                Please provide your evidence of “many people” who deserve your version of justice.

                • Primarily0617@kbin.social
                  7·
                  9 months ago

                  Please provide your evidence of “many people”

                  even if only one person proved utterly disinterested in rehabilitating themselves, you’d still need some kind of escape hatch built into the system to handle them

                  getting bogged down in specific frequencies is kind of missing the point

                • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
                  51·
                  9 months ago

                  This is just the very first result in a litany of numerous results in a quick internet search for this. It seems there is no shortage of research on this topic available for you to read directly without my potential contamination of it. But, here’s a preview for you. Hope this helps.

                  A 2021 meta-analysis conducted by international scholars from Spain, Bulgaria, Sweden and the UK found a significant portion of the human population to be psychopaths as defined by the PCL-R.

                  The meta-analytical results obtained allow us to estimate the prevalence rate of psychopathy in the general adult population at 4.5%.

                  Regarding the significance of psychopathy among people found guilty of a crime or incarcerated, they mention:

                  the personality and behavior of offenders with a diagnosis of psychopathy are very different from those of other offenders.

                  It’s important to note that I am not espousing a “version of justice” as you put it. My concern is simply with segregating harmful people from potential victims to prevent additional harm.

                  • girlfreddy
                    12·
                    9 months ago

                    Science has discovered many (primarily) men in leadership roles (politics, business, etc) are sociopaths.

                    Does that mean they’re supposed to be jailed as well … because nothing you’ve listed there talks about that.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
          2·
          9 months ago

          Is that effectiveness based on statistical aggregations?

          Because if so, the system’s not adhering to the necessary design constraint of “must handle all possible human behavior”.

        • Primarily0617@kbin.social
          32·
          9 months ago

          its a long article and i cant read

          what do you do about cases where the victim doesnt want to engage in a dialogue with the offender?

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
            4·
            9 months ago

            If you can’t read, here’s an online article reader you can use. Just select the entire content of the article and paste it as plain text on that site

          • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.netEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            The short answer to your question is that it’s complicated - in the systems where restorative justice has the most potential to change things, it’s still quite a radical approach and there’s a lot to be figured out.

            One way of addressing the problem you raise is that sometimes “surrogate victims” are used - people who have been victims of the same or similar crime. Apparently this has been quite effective in some instances, but ideally usage of this should be limited - one of the ongoing challenges is ensuring that the rehabilitation of offenders doesn’t take precedence over the kind of two way healing that restorative justice is meant for

        • yggstyle@lemmy.world
          5·
          9 months ago

          So mars will become Australia 2.0

          I wonder if space Australia will have space dingos and space kangaroos…

            • Pantherina@feddit.de
              1·
              9 months ago

              This gives some people moral superiority over others. It means some randos that are also very flawed and, living in a western society, for sure contribute to climate change, the killing of animals and indirectly humans, can say “this person did something bad”.

              You just cant do that. Court is not a place for justice, it is often biased, emotionally and ideologically tinted, and no judge is objective.

              • Primarily0617@kbin.social
                1·
                9 months ago

                if that’s the argument you’re using against prisons, can’t i, a dastardly doer of crimes, simply reject any form of consequence for my actions, since you’re still going about contributing to global warming through your addiction to being alive and existing in society?

                  • Primarily0617@kbin.social
                    1·
                    9 months ago

                    Right, but if we’re going down that route, how do you enact any form of consequence when I decide to go about crime-ing people? Anything you try to force on me I can refuse with “nobody is perfect enough to reasonably judge other people”.

          • admiralteal@kbin.social
            2·
            9 months ago

            Don’t worry. It has no magnetosphere. Even in environmentally-enclosed shelters, you’d still see horrific rates of cancer and other such radiation-induced disease rapidly wiping out complex life like humans.