The demographic that follows stories like this is overwhelmingly female and over 40. If you want to know an approximate breakdown, there is a poll in the parking lot that shows the composition of WS. Approximately 92.5% is female, and 61.5% is female over 40. Females 25 or less comprise about 2.5% of the demographic. Most of the people posting on those sites are female, so they fit the demographic. So yes, middle aged to elderly female. Maybe you don't like it, but there it is.
Another set of eyes won't help in HD's case, the physical evidence is gone or contaminated. The only other thing that could come up are witness accounts, and after 3 or 4 years those are not accurate. So, a re-examination is not going to substantially change anything. Even if they did decide to focus somewhere else after looking at everything, how will it help them? They are not going to find irrefutable physical evidence after all this time.
You are welcome to sit on a jury with me. One thing I can assure you of though, is that emotion will not sway me in the slightest one way or another, the charges will have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt and for that proper and irrefutable evidence will be required. If there is an alternative explanation for a particular piece of evidence, it has to be considered, and if it is a reasonable alternative, it has to be accepted. It is up to the prosecutor to prove that there is only one explanation, and prove they MUST.
Every other week we hear of this or that person who has had their conviction overturned because it has been proven that the prosecutor/LE engaged in malpractice, or DNA evidence proves that a circumstantial case was just that - circumstantial. Would you want to be one of those jurors and have that on your conscience, ruining someone's life for 10-20 years, just because you didn't like the look of the defendant, or because the prosecutor made you cry, or because someone needed to be punished and the guy in the dock would suffice? I would not. I would insist that the prosecutor PROVE that the guilty was guilty if they wanted me to make that kind of decision. IT IS A BIG DEAL. While the prosecutor might not have a conscience (and I was watching one on CNN the other night who clearly did not), I most certainly do.
As for these cold cases, other than when DNA crops up to solve a cold case, they are almost entirely circumstantial and rely on decades old memories to get convictions. Those sorts of circumstantial cases are very unreliable. If you look at cases where exonerations are made years later, in almost all of those trials the conviction was made on circumstantial evidence, because a jury accepted a prosecutors argument without question or without giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt. And those exonerations are just a tiny tip of the iceberg, trust me there are many, many, more who rot in prison for the bulk of their lives on a false conviction. It is the worst thing that anyone can do to another human being.
If you want to send someone to prison, you need to be certain, without any doubt, that they did it, and you need to be prepared to question and scrutinize every detail that is presented in evidence. If you can be swayed by an emotional argument and consider that adequate to convict someone, I guarantee that you will make a bad juror.
