The following was on Atrios today.

A Dallas man who spent more than 27 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit was freed Tuesday, after being incarcerated longer than any other wrongfully convicted U.S. inmate cleared by DNA testing.

Full story here.
Atrios as usual makes good points. I want to make another. Without DNA testing this man would have remained in prison for a crime he did not commit. Many serious crimes, including capital ones, do not have DNA as evidence. For example, a drive-by shooting. Consider the following:

1. We KNOW that innocent people have been convicted of capital crimes and later exonerated by DNA evidence.
2. It would be very strange if the only innocent people convicted had involved crimes with DNA as evidence.
3. Therefore, it is almost certain that innocent people have been convicted in crimes where no DNA was left behind. In capital crimes, innocent people have then been executed.
In the moral cesspool that constitutes modern ‘conservatism’ not only is the death penalty firmly endorsed, attempts are continually made to reduce the time taken by appeals. In the language dictators and despots have always used, this would make executions more ‘efficient.’  Consider the following from the original story:

Like nearly all the exonorees, Woodard has maintained his innocence throughout his time in prison. But after filing six writs with an appeals court, plus two requests for DNA testing, his pleas of innocence became so repetitive and routine that “the courthouse doors were eventually closed to him and he was labeled a writ abuser,” Roetzel said.

Modern ‘conservatives’ therefore either ignorantly advocate killing people many of whom we can be sure are innocent, while letting guilty ones walk, OR they knowingly advocate killing innocent people, which is worse. In the latter case they themselves are morally guilty of advocating murder.
They are full of arguments about why government cannot be trusted to do all sorts of things. But these arguments fall silent when government is called upon to kill or incarcerate people.
There is something ethically lacking with these people.
Increasingly I want to throw up whenever I hear a ‘conservative’ talk about morality. There are exceptions, but not many.