SHARE THIS SHOW:
RELATED CONVERSATIONS:
RECENTLY ON TOL:
TOL Our Town
- A tumblr site dedicated to the people and places that make up Oregon and Southwest Washington.
TAGS:
Diane Downs is one of Oregon's most infamous criminals. Downs has spent the last 25 years in prison after she was convicted of shooting her three small children, killing one of them. Today she learned she will serve at least two more years of her sentence. Downs was eligible for parole, but the board denied her request after deliberating for just 30 minutes this morning. From now on, she can appeal to the parole board every two years.
Most of Oregon's parole cases are less sensational than that of Diane Downs. According to the Department of Corrections, 13,754 adults who have been released from prison are still under some sort of supervision (parole or otherwise). The parole board has numerous rules and guidelines to follow when considering whether or not to release an inmate. The laws pertaining to parole have changed over the years, most notably with the passage of Measure 11 in 1994. However, the board must apply the law that was in place when the crime was committed. For example, if Diane Downs had shot her children after the passage of Measure 11, she might not be eligible for release.
Have you ever worked as a parole officer? Have you been to prison? Were you released on parole? What led the board to decide in your favor? When should criminals be released on parole?
GUESTS:
- Anne Jaeger: Former anchor and reporter for KEZI in Eugene who interviewed Diane Downs many times and current freelance reporter and writer
- Nancy Sellers: Executive director of the Oregon Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision
- Bronson James: Chief deputy defender at the Oregon Office of Public Defense Services
Photo credit: ruth1066 / Flickr / Creative Commons
Reminder: You may not distribute, modify, transmit, reuse, re-post or use the content you find on this Site for public or commercial purposes, including the text, images, audio, and video, without permission.
-
I wonder what the psychiatrist reports said about Downs.
And I wonder what her religious upbringing was. -
I'm curious what impact her escape made on her sentencing. Didn't she escape about 10 or 15 yrs ago when she was incarcerated in Salem and captured a few days later? There must have been additional time added on to her sentence.
-
I noticed on the KGW story online they listed the dianedowns.com website. I followed the link and it was an entire site created by her father about evidence pointing to her innocence. I thought it was strange for the news source to leave that link at the end of story without additional information. I do not think there is a lot of sympathy for her case but it added some credibility to his argument to be linked on the site. I was surprised that they didn't just say "her family maintains a web site that supports her innocence" and leave it at that. Off the point of this program but strange that the posted a link.
-
I found the same link as well (http://www.dianedowns.com/) and while it would have been nice to hear an alternate point of view, the subject of the program was "Rules of Release", not "Guilt or Innocence". This does, however, brings up a more interesting question (IMHO): are people displaying narcissistic antisocial behaviors ?guilty by disorder??
All of us have habits so I?m sure we can all agree a life long habit is a hard thing to break. Now imagine that one of your habits is to habitually ?fudge the facts? whenever communicating with others, regardless of whether or not you are trying to avoid responsibility. For example, your spouse asks you what you got while grocery shopping and you ?neglect? to mention the ice cream because you feel guilty about your weight. Or maybe you took a scenic country road to work instead of the freeway and you were late to an important meeting so you tell your manager you had a flat. While most of us are guilty of telling the random white lie it is difficult, if not impossible, for habitual liars to turn around on a dime and begin to tell honest, accurate, and consistent stories even when the situation merits it (as would be the case in a police investigation).
The real question is not, ?Can we trust Diane Downs? version of events?? Based on what I?ve heard and read the answer is a simple: no. The important question, in my mind, is this: does Down?s inability to be consistently honest make her guilty of murder? More importantly, should ritually dishonest people be presumed guilty of any crime simply because what they say can?t be trusted?
I?ve had several (past) friends who demonstrated similar psychological traits to Downs? and while frustrating and untrustworthy, their inability to keep their stories straight didn?t always mean they were guilty. People who are habitually dishonest, inconsistent, and manipulative are like that all the time and will continue to engage in socially ineffectual behaviors regardless of the seriousness of the situation. This makes them appear guilty but it does not make them guilty. In such cases the court should consider the testimony of people with this disorder as a consistent extensions of their personality hence not a trustworthy accounting of the objective facts.
Is Downs' guilty? I don't know. But my opinion, for what it's worth, is that she's more concerned about how people perceive her (and by extension, how she can take advantage of that) than earning anyone's trust. Trust is not a character trait worth emulating but an object to be molded for personal gain; sadly, for many like this it is not understood as it should be, as a means for building warm, healthy, and strong social relationships with others.
...
P.S. While reading more on this case I learned that Down's said the following when told her son Danny had a chance of surviving: "Do you mean the bullet missed his heart? Gee whiz!" If an accurate quote, that's definitely the behavior of someone with antisocial personality disorder. -
Comments are now closed.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/after_25_years_diane_downs_fac.html