Ustwo

There are two distinct questions here.

#1 - Hypothetically assuming guilt is 100% do you support the death penalty for some crimes?

#2 - Do you support the death penalty knowing that guilt can never be 100% proven?

#1 - I support without question. Some people are unfit to live in society in any form, and are a danger to others. Once that danger is demonstrated without a doubt they have forfeited their lives.

#2 - I support with caveats. As to what those caveats are I am not prepared to write a position paper on capital punishment, as to what 'level' of proof need be achieved or the nature of the crime. Things like premeditation, motive, and type of evidence would all play a role.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Willravel

Shani, I answered your question.

No. Had he not killed himself he should have been tried and sentenced to life in prison.

ShaniFaye

this is the question in question, since Im being reprimanded for "individual" examples, please ignore that I asked about specific people

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

roachboy

shani: read post 36.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

ShaniFaye

I see no question in here, I see a request for me to comment on poor people being on death row, but I see no specific question

but, I can address that....I dont give a crap how much money someone on death row has or doesnt have......if they killed someone deliberately and it can be proved 100%....yes fry them

and I believe I pre addressed bor's comment by saying IF it were 100% proven the person did it.....

(as an example)video evidence of a robber walking into a store and point blank shooting the clerk and killing him (is that still and "individual" case?)

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

dksuddeth

Host, you might have confused my posts with someone elses, because I clearly stated that I think death sentences need to be declared by a jury of peers, then that appeal should be handled by a jury of peers. In other words, 'we the people'. The authority to execute would be handed to the government, only after 'we the people' determine that to be the correct course of action. Nowhere did I ever say that the government should be allowed to determine who is guilty and who is innocent and mete out justice by their own results.

totally different topic, but I can assure you that if i'm fighting an invading aggressor with my fellow townspeople, i'm not going to worry about some military authority when it comes to executing those I've caught nor am I going to listen to local law enforcement if/when they try to tell me I'm not authorized to shoot at the enemy.

Many things can come together to certify guilt beyond any reasonable doubt, for instance..the defendants fingerprints are clearly visible on the bruises left on the victims throat where he/she was strangled and defendants DNA is found under fingernails of victim that came from the scratch marks on defendants face. This is but one example of pretty clear evidence that you've got the right guy. I realize that there are uncertainties in forensics and while I do strongly support the death penalty, I don't believe it should be used as often as it is, simply because of the uncertainty.


Please tell me that you aren't advocating the execution of the elderly.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Willravel

I don't see this as unreasonable.
That'd be kinda funny in a hypocritical way, but I mean old age. Those were causes I listed. I'm okay with people dying because of illness, old age, self sacrifice, or accident.

Bill O'Rights

No. I honestly do not believe so.

No. Not Hitler either.

Hanging either of these men did not (or, in Hitler's case, would've not) bring anything to the table but to satisfy a vendetta.
Is the world any safer, now that Sadam took a long drop with a short rope around his neck, rather than rotting in prison? I don't know that it is.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

dksuddeth

I got it now.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Sun Tzu

A few reasons: One, this isn’t about sitting on a jury; or at least IMO. The question “what do we do with these animals?” Is general enough to look at the issue from various angles. Two, it was as you observed, a question- not a statement. I was trying to be as respectful as possible in asking it, I was interested to know how many if any would have a POSSIBLE emotion bias that would influence their decision. In this setting it seems an effective way to process different views, by asking- there was nothing sinister intended. Three, law is obviously important, and being impartial, neutral, and personally detached is necessary when the time comes, but the bottom line is we are not Vulcans here.

What are you classifying as success? Yes I do agree there is a problem with the entire mental health field in general. In terms of mental illness, any case of rehabilitation (that being defined as they are independent with federal financial assistance, and more importantly they do not repeat a criminal act) is an accomplishment. The other side is prison in general. Are prisons meant to rehab people, a place where they will pay for their crimes with time, a place to put dangerous people to they don’t hurt anyone else, or a combination of all three? If rehab is part of a prison’s goal I would view one failure (a criminal is released and murders another innocent person) a complete injustice.

As you pointed out I do have emotion tied to my view on the issue. I agree and admit this is a sensitive area for me. When I was in health care I remember working on a pediatric ICU for five months. I saw so many victims of child abuse that it began to have a negative impact resulting in my elected departure. I gained the insight that it was becoming increasingly difficult to carry a professional demeanor when I met the parents of the children they beat when in an inch of life. I knew that it was a weak area for so I chose to not be in that environment. This is probable the same for me.

It is very difficult for me see justice in granting someone another chance when the have committed a malicious crime eligible enough for current capital punishment sentences. I have not found statistics on situations like what viewers saw in the movie “The Shawshank Redemption” where the character Red stated he knew it was a stupid act in committing murder- thus contributed to him getting released.



Thanks for sharing mixed media.

I pose another question to those against capital punishment, is there any situation at all where you would see it as justice?

__________________
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.- Stephen Hawking

Willravel

Success presuming the prevention was a failure? A healthy, well adjusted person emerges from the doctor's office, and then goes to prison a bit with a full understanding of what he or she did.
I think it would be better to put it this way: Prisons are intended to be places of rehabilitation; a big time out. The idea was to punish and isolate to allow for self reflection. An interesting idea, sure, but I doubt that it's ever enjoyed a high success rate for the thousands of years we've used it. Prison in actuality is a way for us to lock our problems away instead of dealing with them and in addition to that has become a very destructive industry that is responsible for preventing rehabilitation in order to get the repeat offenders and be profitable. I don't want to get into this too much, as it's got enough crap to take up 10 threads, but it needs to be said as often as possible: prisons don't work. Prevention works. We won't be safe or happy until we are as active in prevention as we are in punishment.
My mother works with abused children at EMQ and has tales (without names or specifics, of course) to tell. I'm sorry you had to be exposed to that. I can't imagine how painful that would be.
I don't know about the "granting them another chance" thing, though. That almost presumes that it should be our (collective "our") decision whether or not someone should die. Is the taking of a life really something that you think everyone should have? Beyond that, how does the taking of the life really help anyone?
Honestly? Not really. Even as a function of retributive justice, it really only comes down to an eye for an eye type of thing... and I don't know many people who believe that an eye for an eye is justice. I know I don't.

dksuddeth

I just saw this and had to comment that psychiatric care success is limited in that the offender MAY offend again, while with the chair, that offender will NEVER offend again.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Willravel

And how many people in prison for life offend again?

ShaniFaye

It offends me every day there is a person still breathing that was in our family that murdered someone sitting around getting 3 meals a day, not having to do a damn thing but sit on his ass all day

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Willravel

You're offended that he wasn't murdered himself for murdering someone?

Bill O'Rights

What?

I disagree with that.
Prison may serve as rehabilitation, in some cases. But, I think that the primary purpose of prison is to remove a dangerous person from the street. If you want to call it a warehouse, then that's fine, I guess. I don't really care much about that.

OK...what if prison work farms were reinstated, and said murderer had to bust his ass, to earn his keep, for the rest of his life?

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

Willravel

What what?

If that's the case, then why ever release them?

Rekna

As I said in another thread I think the death penalty is ok but the burden of proof should be set much higher than beyond a reasonable doubt and it should be beyond any doubt. Also there should be a standard on how bad a crime must be to warrant it.

ShaniFaye

in a word....Yep

the person he killed maliciously and deliberately doesnt have the option of sitting around letting his family take care of him anymore.....why should he get that privilege afforded to him?


BOR, nope.....that wouldnt work for me either....it wasnt an "accident" his victim was killed, it was planned and carried out. His victim doesnt have the option of ever doing anything again...neither should he

and before anyone asks, yes there was 100% proof and a confession in this case, there is NO doubt who did it and if I could throw the switch, I'd do it.

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

mixedmedia

No, not that I can foresee.

I've already stated with certainty that I would be against putting Hitler to death, the couple who murdered that little girl, even the man who stalked, raped and attempted to kill my sister - fortunately he was too fucked up on drugs to be highly successful at either - which brings to mind the fact that we see the death penalty as justice for criminals who are successful. It does very little to address the question of intent - which then leads me to believe that these questions aren't given the thought they really deserve. The death penalty is a method of obtaining a measure of relief from an impotent anxiety that we can't face head-on for some reason. Perhaps because there is no solution to it.

Sorry for the tangential thinking...seem to be doing more and more of this lately, lol.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Ustwo

Bill I don't get this from a guy who said he was fine with the death penalty until he read a Time article about bad law enforcement.

They serve no purpose in prison either. Order the killing of 6 million Jews, 2 million gypsies and uncounted other 'undesirables' and get life in prison. Super. Will they be allowed books, outside communication to?

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

matthew330

"Saddam Hussein should not have been killed. He was guilty of multiple murders, and should have been in prison, but not killed."

What happened to rehabilitation, Will? This guy brutally killed massive numbers of people......can you rehabilitate him? If so, do you let him go once you have, regardless of the risk to...well, literally everyone living around him. If not, what the point of rehab if you're not planning on letting him go?

Is there no crime worthy of extermination knowing that any other punishment puts other peoples lives at risk?

dksuddeth

I can honestly say that i've never researched the amount of crime that actually happens in prison, although I've seen enough court tv episodes and msnbc lockdown episodes to know that there is still alot of crime, even if it is inmate on inmate. I also remember reading news stories about how gangs on the streets are still run by gang lords behind bars......so I'm thinking that it's too high for me.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Willravel

If he's actually rehabilitated, then no one is at risk. It's not a complicated concept.

It's naive to think that 1) he'd ever be released and 2) had he been released he'd be able to accumulate any amount of power unchecked. He'd never be a threat to anyone.

Bill O'Rights

Whoa. It was more than just bad "Law Enforcement". The entire system is flawed to just serve up an order of McJustice. Whatever pushes through the system the quickest.

Well...it is a moot point. Hitler wasn't getting out of that bunker. And, if Sadam had had a spine, he wouldn't have gotten out of that "spider hole".

But...as far as books and outside communication for Adolph? Hmmmm...perhaps his only reading material should be the Torah.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

Ustwo

Still not sure how McJustice applies to one of histories greatest villains enough to change ones mind here.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

flstf

I don't trust the police, prosecutors or judges.
I believe there are people who deserve to be executed but I think our criminal justice system is too corrupt to trust them with this responsibility.

Elphaba

Shani Shani, I've been where you are for the same reason and I know the rage that you are feeling. I would have supported the death penalty for jay walking, if it would have put to death the man that murdered Tim. Like others have said, personal passion can turn any of us into potential vigilantes, but that is very different from supporting a state sanctioned death penalty.

For many reasons, several given in this topic, I have come to believe that the US should abolish the death penalty again. One reason that has not been given, is that the US is the only "industrialized" nation to continue the practice. Perhaps this made it easier for the Texas governor and a champion of execution to support torture as a president.

The US should be the example of human rights as it once was, and not the thug as we are currently viewed by most of the world. A good first step would be the end to the death penalty.

Pan: If anyone harmed my two-year-old granddaughter, they could never run far or long enough. But again, that is personal rage rather than what I believe the rule of law should be.

__________________
"You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." Molly Ivins - 1944-2007

ShaniFaye

Just so Im clear to y'all....I was a supporter of the death penalty before the incident 4 years ago, this was not an event that changed my mind and I moved from one side to the other

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Elphaba

So was I, Shani. My change in position is a big shift for me that happened a decade after the death of Tim. I'll be dead before the bastard that killed him is out of prison. I will never forget or forgive what he did, but I won't allow him to waste my emotional energy any longer.

Give my a pm, sweet lady, if you want to share with someone who knows how it feels.

__________________
"You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." Molly Ivins - 1944-2007

Plan9

Nothing, especially the legal system, is 100% anything.

Why do people always have to point out the 1/99 failures in the system? What about the 99 pieces of garbage that got what they deserved? Nothing is perfect.

Wha-wha-wha... human rights. Who wants to spend twenty five years in jail? Not me. I'd rather die. Jail for decades. Is that humane? Is that justice? That's babysitting felons. Felons who get better treatment than the poor veterans of the Vietnam war (or this war, soon). Warm meals, cushy beds, TeeVee, god knows what else. Our system is so good that some felons commit additional crimes to go back because it is better than being free. What does that tell us about our system?

I'd rather the system beat me close to death and leave me on the street instead of "take care of me" in a box for endless years.

The death penalty is invoked for specific, heinous crimes. Homicide, rape, etc.

Death penalty is about justice and general deterrence. 90% "rightness" would be acceptable to me. So a few "innocent" people die. Big deal. Innocent people die every day on the outside. Robbery, rape, useless combat deployments. Show me where this changes by keeping people alive in jail and flushing money down the toilet. I think a big factor is money. Why does it cost more to kill somebody (by keeping them on death row for years) than it does for a life sentence?

Convicts rarely give anything back to a society that pays so much to segregate them.

Death penalty: Be reasonably sure. Speed it up. Greater good and all that.

/rant

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

matthew330

"If he's actually rehabilitated, then no one is at risk. It's not a complicated concept."

Of course it's not a complicated concept and I apologize in advance for my inability to understand such a remedial thought process, but do you mind my asking for a little clarification, using a hypothetical...

If my neighbor kills his family and is sentenced in your (Willravel's) rehab jail, and you've decided after a given amount of time he is "actually" rehabilited by whatever measure you use with your experience in psychology (you do have an insanely impressive resume BTW), then it's ridiculous for his new neighbor to be the slightest bit...uhhh, nervous???

Pardon my ignorance.

Skutch

Buttsecks? That last sentence hit the nail on the head. If these killers don't get state-sanctioned capital punishment I hope they get it off the record courtesy of their fellow inmates.

roachboy

depends on what you value, i guess.

if you enjoy the spectacle of an execution because maybe for you personally it serves a therapeutic function--maybe because there's something in the past that happened that triggered such a response--but that's not necessary---but because you can imagine an execution would be therapeutic for you, and you value therapy above other possible words like justice, then you can easily imagine it serving a wider social/therapeutic function.
so process is secondary---so it would follow that in this regard at least, you could be equally happy in a dictatorship or a monarchy or any other system in the context of which procedures like due process are---um---let's say optional. and because the primary value is therapeutic, it wouldn't necessarily matter if the person executed was actually guilty or not--like crompsin says above, utilitarian arguments can be made to justify a few innocent people getting offed. as he so daintily put it:

so long as that person is not you, i assume. then it would be a big deal. but it cannot be you, because it's your therapy that matters. so you are necessarily the spectator and patient and beneficiary. so you can't be in jeopardy yourself. that's why process is secondary. the logical center of this position is narcissism.

but if you value democratic procedures, then the spectacle of the Kill is not the point--the process is. the rationale is not therapy, but some idea of justice. so it is NOT ok to execute innocent people. it is NOT ok to, as the good mister jello biafra once put it, to kill kill kill kill kill the poor in the way the american system does (who gets onto death row? seriously....can you say class biais? look at reality and stop pretending that it is just anyone who gets convicted of capital crimes in the states. jesus.)....and there is something maybe problematic about thinking in terms of justice and the state engaging in acts of premeditated murder: like that it puts the state and the executed on the same level and so undermines precisely the value that the action is supposed to be about.


now that i think about it more, this-->

is entirely alien to everything i understand as even rational.

repeating it--->

just makes it more surreal.

copy it lots of times for yourself.
it becomes more and more what it is.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

I'm in this camp, too.

Even after reading on, this is what sticks out for me. If you do enough research you will find that the system of justice is stacked against impoverished non-Whites. On the other side of the coin? It's generally run by White attorneys and judges. The overall system is broken (i.e. not just the justice system), and I haven't even mentioned the death penalty yet. Why is Texas killing so many Black people?

Basically, I wish to say that we should not use this case as a defense of a system reaches far beyond just one incident.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Sun Tzu

Would anyone here refuse to serve a jury duty if they knew the guilty verdict would result in capitol punishment?

__________________
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.- Stephen Hawking

Willravel

It wouldn't lead to capital punishment if I were on the jury. I'd actively prevent it.

Plan9

Hot damn, the race card always kills every death penalty theory debate. I'm trying to step outside the race box here.

Reality? Fuck no. Debate? Yes.

Regardless of skin color... are any of these offenses acceptable? Somebody was murdered, somebody was raped, some cop didn't go home to his family, etc.

This so isn't going to work, isn't it? *gets plowed over by racism*

...

Don't patronize me with discussions of narcissism and humility. That's just silly.

I'd like to think the center of logic for this argument was based on the fact that society is so cushy with "everybody should be alive regardless of their trespasses" instead of "you fucked up, son - defend your right to be alive, prove you have social worth." Let's say we're operating under notion that we're all pretty much expendable. The lowest level that evolution occurs is population and thus the individual doesn't really mean squat in the big picture.

...

I acknowledge that I am no better than the next guy. Our country is based on such a concept of equality (despite reality). Our legal system is represented by "Lady Justice." I won't post a picture to insult your intellect as to the symbols involved there and how our racist country and legal system needs a lot of work (to say the least).

I acknowledge that I am no better than the next guy... except I won't put myself in situations where I will murder anybody and I sure-as-socks won't rape anybody. I am talking of serious crimes from sick individuals that don't have a skin color.

In practice? We're not doing so good. In theory? We're not doing so good. This isn't shocking to me. I'm well aware of the current issues.

I like the general deterrence the death penalty provides for severe crimes.

...

Let's say, for the sake of dreamy-What-If-arguments, that we can trust the State and race isn't an issue. Har-har, I know. How does keeping these people alive do anything for society?

What would you suggest we do with them? Ship them to Australia? Have them pick up trash on the roadside for the rest of their lives? Bankrupt our already bankrupt country keeping them incarcerated indefinitely? Perhaps let them go free after 10 years of being pissed and becoming more maladjusted to society? Recidivism is a huge factor for felons. How about we claim that they just need rehabilitation after committing grisly murders or heinous rapes?

...

There is a balance on those scales. Perspective is what changes the integers.

...

Hell, I'd have sex with Angela Lansbury and send myself to the electric chair tomorrow if I could get rid of racism.

Yeah, I'll say it a few more times for those of us who got deployed and came back in a box. Makes about as much sense.

...

We're all so wise and so civilized.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

host

If we aren't trying to be civilized, then who are we to call what we do to apprehend, try, convict, and sentence law breakers, "bringing them to justice"?

You've got a cynical, "cop mentality", evident in your posts. If it isn't about a system that sincerely attempts to find out who actually "did it", responsibly and reliably maintains the chain of evidence, keeps meticulous records and zealously weeds out corrupt cops, prosecutors, and judges, and provides an adequate defense counsel for indigent accused facing potential jail time, and complies with all obligations under rules of discovery, by gathering and sharing with the defense, both incriminating and potentially exonerating evidence collected in police investigations, every shred of it.....than what would it be that "the people" are doing when they arrest, charge, try, convict and sentence a "law breaker"?

Why have any "system" if it is not one that is totally committed to actual justice and avoidance of falsely convicting any innocent accused?

Do you trust any authority to mete out a penalty that it cannot end or reverse if it turns out that the target does not deserve to be convicted and punished?

How is your attitude andy different than the "get 'er done" attitude of a lynch mob? It seems as if your saying that state operated killing of the guilty or of an occasional innocent, is "no big deal".

If you are saying that, I think you should compare your present views with those you can recall before you served in a combat theater of operations. There has to be a purpose for law enforcement and criminal justice, that closely matches the rationale for creating and paying to maintain it, and if you don't think that it matters if we delegate the power to execute people in our country, to a flawed and unethical authority, then...where does it stop? Should we even continue with the pretense of investigation, evidentiary hearings, and criminal trials?

Why don't we just give the cops a wink and a nod as we let them loose to "use their own judgment" to take out the scum who don't even deserve the time and expense of a trial?

The cops know who society would be "better off" without. We've tied their hands by insisting that they establish "proof" before seeking arrest warrants.
Isn't justifying the arrest of someone that the cops have known for a long time, is "dirty", a nicety that we can dispense with?

What stops you from agreeing to let the cops deliver street justice, as they see fit?

Ustwo

So you would find a murderer innocent because you don't like the law.

'Sorry about that family but you see I'm morally opposed to the death penalty and my opinion is more important than public safety, so even though he is clearly guilty I can't in good conscious convict him'.

I think the internet term to describe this kind of thinking is douchebaggery.

I'd hope this would properly come out in jury selection prior to said douchebaggery.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.