^^^
Guess what, guys?

What you've just done is no less than what I've taken criticism for.

Jurors in Connecticut should examine their privileges & their attachments to their own lives.

Okay, some of you keep talking about the possibility of killing an innocent incarcerated man/woman. Sure, some prisoners have been released due to DNA evidence. Good for them. Our justice system is improving. In this case I am sure there is a hell of a lot of DNA evidence to prove guilt. Otherwise, they would not have been seeking the death penalty.

that was basically the defense attorney's argument at a press conference yesterday.


there's maybe a premise-level differend here tho.
i basically and fundamentally oppose the death penalty.
that it ends up functioning as an extension of class warfare is just one reason for it.

and this is one area that i am not changing my mind about.
as close as i come to thinking otherwise is what i said when i first posted to the thread.

This guy pretty much admitted guilt. The surviving victim would not sign off on a plea bargain that would have sent him away for life without parole. This trial was strictly about whether or not he would receive the death penalty.

I won't lose any sleep over this guy being put to death. If the death penalty is valid anywhere, it is valid here. My problem is that laws and processes must cover all eventualities. DNA evidence isn't always available or relevant. The track record in Texas demonstrates that the system isn't flawless. Odds are that Texas has already executed an innocent person.

See I don't view the death penalty as revenge, punishment or a deterrent really, I see it more as a simply a penalty for doing something that (in most cases) is utterly unthinkable. Lets face it there are some crimes/people that simply no longer fit within the realm of the punishment/rehabilitation philosophy and neither the prisoner or society will ever benefit from any sort of rehabilitation program. So what do you do with that?

Maybe there isn't a right answer for some crimes be it death penalty or life in prison but if somebody is going to go through the trouble to commit such a heinous act as to warrant the death penalty in the first place then I don't really have much of a problem with that person giving up their right to exist.

Now of course there is never going to be a flawless system, but we should be striving to remove as many imperfections from the process as possible. Its a very lofty penalty to extract from anybody and if we are going to ask for it we need to make sure they system that does it is as accurate as humanly possible. Nobody should ever have to die based on circumstantial evidence and flimsy eye witness testimony.

Count me among those opposed to the death penalty in all cases. Life in prison is a far worse punishment, it saves us money, and it avoids us having to worry about ever putting the wrong man to death. I honestly don't see much of a downside.

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” - Gandalf

...

So you're not o.k. with killing an innocent person, but you don't see much of a downside in doing something far worse?
There's always going to be some doubt in any conviction. We can either decide that at some point, the risk of punishing someone innocent is acceptable, or we can eliminate all punishments that aren't o.k. to mete out to innocent people. In the latter case, it seems odd to me to draw that line between death and life imprisonment.

Whoa, you equate life imprisonment (without parole i'm assuming) as far worse than a death sentence? What's the underlying principle? I'm curious.

inBOIL, the whole point with life imprisonment and innocent people is that it's not worse precisely because they can be released if we discover they are innocent.

Guilty person: Options are death or life in prison. Life in prison is the worse option precisely because they will actually spend the rest of their life in prison.

Innocent person: Options are death or a period of time in prison until the point where their innocence is discovered. I think it's pretty obvious which punishment is easier to recover from.

If someone's innocence is never discovered, we must assume the judgement was correct. We just shouldn't be so arrogant as to assume we will never be proven wrong in the future.

---------- Post added at 11:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:17 PM ----------

KirStang: He was responding to my post in which I agreed with others in this thread who have expressed the view that life in prison is worse than the death sentence. Unless you believe in an afterlife - and I don't - I really can't see how life in prison can't be seen as worse than death.

Gnarly.

Smeth, am I correct in assuming that your primary reason for opposing the death penalty is that it prevents innocent people from being killed? If so, and given your belief that life imprisonment is worse and the fact that wrongful convictions aren't just limited to capital cases, are you also against life imprisonment? What about long prison sentences where there's a good chance that the prisoner will die before being released?

If we choose to have a criminal justice system, we have to accept that despite our best efforts, innocent people will be convicted and that some of them will never be exonerated. It seems arbitrary to me to say that risking a wrongful execution is unacceptable, but that risking a fully-served life term is o.k.

See this is where I get hung up on the whole death penalty vs life imprisonment discussion, it seems the enlightened, modern opinion is that the death penalty is a a violent, cruel, outdated and inhumane sentence and there is a push to abolish it, I can understand that. Yet I would think and it sounds as though others might agree that between the two life imprisonment is probably the worse punishment. A lifetime (a 20 something could spend the next 50+ years in this state) of being locked up in a small, confined space, never prospering, never changing, never really growing or living...couldn't that also be considered cruel and unusual punishment?

If that's the case and considering that the person is never going to be paroled wouldn't it be more humane to simply end his life? Now of course if the ultimate goal here is punishment for a horrible deed, then life in prison seems to be the best option, but if the person is beyond any sort of rehabilitation then whats the point?

Anyway, just thought I'd toss that out there for a little discussion.

EDIT: Didn't see your post there inBOIL, I guess we kind of asked the same question.

The death penalty artificially ends someone's life. It's that simple. No matter how long the sentence, when you let someone live out their natural life there is an opportunity to set that person free if their innocence is discovered. If you kill them, that's impossible and there is no going back. It's that simple. I honestly don't know how it's difficult to understand the difference between the permanence of death and the impermanence of any other punishment we mete out in our justice system.

InBOIL, I'm pretty sure I argued this the last time this dead horse zombified itself. I'm hoping the abortion crossthread pops up here at some point.

Call me a romantic, but I can think of quite a few things that are worse than death. Being stuck in a box for two decades is definitely one of them.

If justice is simply about punishment ("prison") over rehabilitation ("corrections") (the mood of the current pendulum swing), why lock anybody up for the rest of their life? Why not just do 10 years? 10 years is a really long time to be in a cell, right? What's the difference between 10 years and 15? 20? 30?

The value of human life is being able to live. Depriving me of liberty by sticking me in a box is worse than ending my life. Dead men have no complaints.

It's fun to pick out who'd rather suffer in a cage for a couple dozen years instead of embrace the peace of oblivion.

I'm not quite sure that 30+ years into a life sentence, pushing 65 and having spent the pretty much half my life behind bars that I would find a whole lot of comfort in maybe, just maybe having my sentence overturned and being let free. My life at that point would pretty much be ruined beyond any kind of meaningful repair, and god only knows what kind of mental problems I'd walk away with that I'd be forced to deal with the rest of my life, why bother?

Unless I had any kind of hope of my sentence being overturned relatively quickly (with a few years maybe) I'd probably rather just face the death penalty and call it a day.

Wes: Listen to the people who have had such experiences. Everyone I've ever heard of is happy to have their life back. It doesn't undo what was done to them, but at least they are free again. There is no being set free from death.

Depends on your philosophy, bro. Rumor has it death is pretty freeing. In some cases, I would see death as freedom itself.

Live free or die and all that. I think it takes some balls to accept death as a more noble path than lifelong incarceration.

Would that be pride?

No quetion about that. My thoughts on the death penalty are definitely influenced by the fact I don't think there's anything whatsoever after death. If I thought otherwise, I might have different opinions.

Do I look religious? I don't think there is life after death, either. I don't believe in god or other ancient magical outer space superheroes.

I just know that a life in, say, a solitary confinement cell probably isn't worth living and that it would better to be stinking up a pine box.

I value my life and that doesn't mean living just for the sake of being alive. I think a lot of people are simply afraid to die. They'd rather suffer.

...

Innocent or guilty, I think putting a man in a cell for 30 years and letting him out is worse than just putting him to death.

I think our current practice is just as cruel and unusual. And, gosh, how we like to masturbate over how civilized we are.

To me it comes down to the old If I was on life support...

I mean I'm sure these folks are happy to be out of what is probably hell on Earth and if I made it that far I would be too but my god, the quality of life in between would be virtually non existent and lets not forget that the odds of being found innocent after a conviction probably isn't very high. Sitting in a cell with nothing but the rest of my life to think about how I have no life is much worse to me then maybe being set free somewhere down the line.

Once out of prison, a couple of decades to kick around with my best years left behind in a prison cell, I don't know it sounds pretty bleak to me.

EDIT: Which kind of brings me back to my original question posted above. Why is life in prison seen as the modern, humane way to deal with criminals? It still seems rather cruel and unusual to me.

In cases where there is absolute proof that the murderer is guilty, as in this case, the murderer should be executed. Appeals should be accelerated or limited. The murderer gave up any rights he had when he took away the rights of his victims.

The only way a life sentence would be remotely acceptable would be to be put in a cell 24 hours a day, naked, lights always on, no TV or other entertainment, just a steel cot, a toilet and a sink/shower. Or let the guy out in the general prison population with no protection and let the other prisoners know what he did. Se how long he lasts.

Acceptable to what or whom?

Probably Dogzilla, since he posted it.

Me for one. If the killer is undeniably guilty, why does he have a right to anything beyond the absolute minimum required for survival? Life in prison with TV or other outlets, while not perfect, is not that drastic a punishment for killing someone.

He has the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.

he killed a woman and two kids, let him fry

This is basically solitary confinement, which is accepted as reasonable treatment of prisoners by US courts, and seems to satisfy the constitutional requirement to not be cruel and unusual punishment.

Why should the killer have any sort of diversion at all? Let him meditate on the seriousness of his crime for the rest of his life.

It shouldn't satisfy it. It's cruel and unusual punishment. However, there is evidence of unconstitutional practices going on elsewhere as well.

Isolated in the nude and without day/night light cycles? Adequate meditation cannot easily be accomplished when one is disconnected from an outside reality and while under the effects of psychological torture.

I have a new thought, at least to me, and I haven't heard it discussed elsewhere.

I propose no death penalty; however, if a person with a life sentence requests it, they can be euthanized.

Thoughts?

Since I support euthanasia - provided the person passes psychological evaluations - I see no problem with that.

I think murders lose their right to have an opinion on such matters.

Wouldn't euthanization (is that a word?) and serving out a death penalty be the same thing? The only real difference is we'd be allowing the person to choose which fate they want but its still a state sponsored death carried out in the name of the people. It doesn't really eliminate the death penalty it only keeps the state from forcing it on people.

The only way to REALLY remove the state/people from the equation would be to allow the prisoner access to cyanide pills or something and let them take care of it themselves...but that would open up the doors to a whole new set of problems I'd imagine.

Yea, giving a convicted killer a lethal substance... how could that go wrong?

I dunno Tully seems pretty fool proof to me!

I was just throwing out ideas on how to remove the death penalty while giving convicts the option to die...I can't imagine anything would work though. It seems to me that you either have to have a death penalty or abolish it all together, there isn't a whole lot of wiggle room.

unconstitutional, defenitely. unethical, maybe not. this guy isn't being sent to time out so he can think about what he did, he is paying the price for his crime with a punishment that isn't exactly a secret.

i think "psychological torture" is a bit extreme to describe his situation. to me psychological torture would be putting up a tv behind plexiglass with a reenactment of his crime over and over again with the survivors of the family each recording "i hate you" and having it played on repeat for the rest of his sentence.

The Canadian Press: US rejects call in UN human rights body to abolish death penalty

It's interesting though. America remains one of the few nations in the developed world who still has the death penalty (Japan is another). There are others who don't use it in regular practice but reserve it for war crimes.

well i'm kind of glad that Tim McVeigh is dead. anyone else?

What I don't understand is that if intentionally taking someone's life is such an abhorrent crime why is intentionally taking someone's life a suitable punishment? Do they rape rapists or kidnap the children of kidnappers?

Social isolation, forced nudity, 24-hour lighting is psychological torture in that these things can have serious long-term psychological consequences—this is a degrading and dehumanizing treatment that I would call cruel and unusual punishment. No individual or state has the right to inflict these things on a human being any more than they have the right to waterboard them or inflict unrelenting physical pain or agony.

---------- Post added at 06:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:34 PM ----------

I'm indifferent.