For those against the death penalty:
 

What would you do to these animals?

Or a more detailed version:

I know people hate me playing with sizes and colors.... but this needed to be.

HOW the Hell can you allow those 2 animals to live? A 2 year old defenseless baby and you would have them live? WTF?

These 2 people deserve to be beaten mercilessly, and then just as they are dying, stop let them get a little air then do it over again. But, I have a feeling, finding someone that sick and without mercy would be almost impossible to find. I may have rage towards them but I would give them a fast and as painless as possible death... solely because my faith and beliefs tell me that is the most humane way to handle it.

IT WAS A FUCKING 2 year old..... how can anyone defend these people from not getting the death penalty.

When you say you don't believe in the death penalty think of this.

I'm not saying the death penalty or torture in anyway is acceptable in all cases but there are those that are extreme, like this, that torture and death should be allowed.

pan, you're advocating for the death penalty, in Texas, of all places. I have to stand against it because it is not administered equally and justly, and it cannot be taken back, if new relevant knowledge about the case surfaces after the execution.

We have to show that we are better than the killers, and better than these guys:


Texas is already an effing mess, when it comes to equal justice:
Texas has been forced to temporarily stop executing people:

I never thought arguments for the death penalty should be advanced over individual examples. We can't say the death penalty is right for an individual, we have to decide on whether it is right for everyone. That's what makes it a law.

Even if I was for it, one single case wouldn't help my position.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST Host..... I like ya man. But how the HELL can you compare this or turn this incident into a crusade against Texas.

I don't care if it happened there, Ohio, Cali... England, Sweden etc. There is no "we must prove ourselves better than the animals that tortured a 2 yr old."

We prove that by giving them a quick painless death, something they did not do to this 2 year old.

I am not (and I even stated this in the OP) advocating the death penalty in all cases... but this case and cases like it, blind justice and hate take over.

A 2 year old...... a fucking 2 year old and they did that and people would have those animals live?..... wtf is wrong with people?

I'm sorry but this is just wow........ I'll step away until I can become less emotional and can think more clearly.

Wait, what? :orly:

No you don't. All you have to do is make it available for cases like this. Making it legal lets courts use it in situations like this. Maybe this would be the only case they use it on this year, that's fine, but it needs to be legal for it to be an option.

I'm very confident that noone believes that the death penalty is 'right for everyone.'

I know that you are angry, pan, but you are advocating the granting, BY THE PEOPLE, the continuation of authority to execute, to deficient, corrupt authority, and that is more grievous a consequence of the murderous, torturous actions of the depraved animals who you are rightly railing against, because it has broader implications and continues the risk of unequal justice, which is no justice, and of the execution of the innocent, with such pathetically lacking checks and balances, and such pathetically lacking concern by "responsible authority".
Your're hot with rage, pan, and your understandably affected by one horrible
case of torture/murder against the most innocent....young chidren.

However, you know that the criminals detailed in the preceding NY Times article, and their cronies still running Texas politics are no more qualified to be the "checks and balances" of Texas "justice", anymore than you, at this moment, would be qualified to be the defense attorney for the murderers of the two innocent little girls....

It comes down to who is qualified to decide who lives and who dies, in our society. It isn't politicians, or the people who they appoint.

I've read lots of ugly stories, pan, lots and lots and lots of them. But not once have I reconsidered my own stance against the death penalty. Is it so difficult to conceive that people can have convictions that are not swayed by more ephemeral phenomena...like emotion? Ever consider how much atrocity and injustice in the world is the product of fear, hatred, revenge? From racism to the death penalty to the 'war on terror' to the 'war on illegal immigration.' It's all tied together by people relying on their emotional responses to shape their convictions and their worldview. And it paves the pathway to even more injustice and atrocity. It's a strange, fucked-up, inside-out self-fulfilling prophecy that I think we were supposed to learn from at some point.

If you want to be for the death penalty then be for it. Don't try and convince people like myself that we need to be for it because a two year was viciously killed. Either you are for it or you aren't.

I'm with aberkok and host on this one.

That was a very insightful way of addressing the question, aberkok.

I think it's pretty obvious what he was saying.

Using specific examples of extreme brutality to wonder aloud why people don't support the death penalty is grandstanding.

Is large red text supposed to make your point better; personally I find it rather annoying. Since, I didn’t particularly want to read most of the articles you quoted see sentence above for reason I’ll stick to general points. I know you wanted people who were against the death penalty to comment but I couldn’t keep myself from typing.

Personally, I like to split the issue into two arenas. First do you think the government has the right to kill people who break the law? I believe that a government does have that right in so far as, again by my estimation, they are only required to protect the rights(however, you define rights I think life would have to be one of them) of citizens who obey the law. The trouble here is obvious in that philosophical speaking by my definitions a government has the right to kill you for pretty much anything, including sneezing if it was outlawed. That’s where the second consideration comes in. For what if any crime should the government exact capital punishment? This is a personal matter really, but I believe that if I killed an individual in cold blood then I forfeit my right to live. In such a case if my death benefits the community even in as little as temporary relief to the people affected by the crime then the highest punishment fitting the crime should be exacted.

Pan -- the nature of my opposition to the death penalty is principle.

I'm sorry to tell you, but even this example doesn't make me reconsider for even a fraction of a second. I just don't think we ought to be institutionalizing ways to kill individuals when there are other options. In court, there is always another option.

No death penalty. Not at all, not ever, not for anyone, not in any case.

so wait....our tax money is supposed to go to support people like this for the rest of their natural lives?

If there is no death penalty for people like this, just what ARE other options?

Yes.

Treatment and confinement are two of our other options. With all of the frivolous shit we spend money on in this country, it seems callous to me to say that cost effectiveness is a good reason to support institutionalized killing.

Besides, it's not like killing people is cheap either. By the time we pay for their confinement and pay for court fees throughout their many appeals, killing ain't exactly a bargain. If you think that we ought to disallow due process as well in the name of savings... Well, we're probably too far apart from each other to have much of a productive conversation.

I would think supporting the death penalty for any reason would put us too far apart to have a productive conversation.


sorry but my heart doesnt bleed for child murders

i was going to post something to this earlier, but while i was out, host, aberkok, albania, ms. media and ubertuber said what i had in mind to say better than i would have said it.


anecdotal evidence is not the way to think about the death penalty, which is a social issue, a social problem.
no-one is asking "your heart to bleed" for anyone or anything, shani.
nor does the use of red letters matter terribly because the problem does not lie there.

but what anecdotal evidence and responses to it DOES reveal is an underlying problem with support for the death penalty--that it is predicated on revenge and amounts to a state act of premeditated murder.

but even that is not terribly relevant.

in addition to the questions raised in the posts above:
think class stratification.
think uneven access to counsel.
think about who ends up on death row and who does not.
think about what the overwhelming class composition of those who end up being convicted of capital crimes makes the death penalty into.
then maybe you'll understand something of the reasons why i personally oppose it, for whatever that's worth.

Well said - I understand people's visceral reaction, and wanting vengeance and severe punishment - in this case more than most, as I have a 3 year old little girl so this one hits home.

But it doesn't change anything - the death penalty is applied disportionately, and there have been too many people sitting on death row who turned out to be innocent of the crime they were sentenced to die for.

People who murder should go to jail for the rest of their lives.

I've always been pro-death. Whether it's fetuses or criminals.

Or gays. Hah! Just kidding. Glad you were reading.

Actually, though, I agree with host for once. While I support the death penalty, I think there are very SERIOUS problems with who we're giving the power to, particularly in Texas.

yeah! Ban him!


;)

Uber is correct. The death penalty is not cost effective. There have been studies done in several states that support this...I have posted them here at TFP before.

The only reasonable support for the death penalty can come from a sense that it is an acceptable form of dispensing justice and either you support it as a means of such or you don't. The system doesn't allow for much hair-splitting on an individual basis and it would be unreasonable to expect it to in a way that will make everyone comfortable. In other words, you would have to support it for the people who maliciously killed a 2-year-old and you would have to support it for the 18-year-old gangbanger who got involved in circumstances that spiraled out of his control and landed him on death row.

I dont split hairs over it. Im 100% for it in cases where its proven without a doubt that someone deliberately murdered another human.

The persons in question are almost certainly mentally ill and probably should be under the care of mental health professionals. Justice would be helping them to break free of sociopathy and allowing them to feel shame and regret for what they did. Killing them is an act of vengeance and is a reaction based on emotion instead of reason.

Would you really kill someone because they suffered from mental illness? If so, I hope you're never on jury duty in a case that has any emotional impact on you.

Shani, this former police officer was found guilty of murder "beyond reasonable doubt", on the basis of scientific findings by the FBI crime laboratory:
...and, back to Texas....again. Have people been executed wrongly because of this abuse of authority, BS? Who "TF" knows?
...and here is the conduct and reputation of the "authority" doing the auditing in Houston....the FBI:
C'mon, Shani, and pan....we musn't let emotion turn us into...<h3>if we ignore the lack of integrity of the folks in charge of determining who the guilty are...</h3>what amounts to a revenge seeking lynch mob!

They are supposed to be impartially gathering and evaluating the evidence, while protecting the rights of the accused, and time after time, we find that they just don't effing care about the rights of the accused:
...so please, stop. No more eagerness and advocacy for giving more authority to thugs who take revenge on other thugs, IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!

The "justice daddy", just as the "War president"....righteous protectors and defenders of "good" against "evil", do not exist, even here in the United States of jesusland.

The "system" is too imperfect to advocate for penalties that cannot be mitigated in the event that the rights of the accused are found to be compromised. Abandon that core principle, and you abandon even that pretense that what you are seeking is justice, because if you allow an imperfect system the authority to determine who to execute, it is not justice that will be meted out.

State sponsored service may vary from state to state, but I have had enough experience in forensic behavioral health to have concluded this is unfortunately in the extreme minority. What I have seen are allot of criminals who have done very bad things, and know how to work the system. The result is rapists and murderers that have been either found not competent enough to stand trial , or have been found guilty but, insane. Both will keep them out of prison. They spend 5 to 10 years receiving psych meds, having daily groups on how to get in touch with themselves, doing arts and crafts, and being rude and entitled to the medical staff.

After they have spent enough time being “rehabilitated” can you guess what some of them do? They go out and kill or rape again.

Perhaps in an utopian society people would not have to worry about their children disappearing, going to the store and have a sniper shoot them, being raped, and similar acts.

A couple decades ago when the level of forensics was only a fraction of where it is today, my view would be different. I don’t deny that there are truly mentally ill people out there. There are allot of Charles Mansions out there- that will never be rehabilitated.

Maybe the answer is to get more specific about cases verse a general law. Scott Peterson: is there anyone here that doubts he killed his wife and unborn son? Circumstantial evidence convicted him. If a person is found guilty by a panel of their peers of a deliberate and heinous crime, I would personally rather my taxes go into education than supporting that piece of shit.

I don’t mean this question to be passive aggressive, and if this applies to anyone here and they choose not to answer I understand.. I’m asking this with a perspective of sincere interest . Is there anyone here that has had something terrible happen to someone they love by a criminal and does not support the death penalty?

i do not want the government to have the power to kill human beings, in a sense of domestic crime prevention. human error, tendency towards corruption, moral qualms about institutionalized ethenasia...etc. the rest of this is revenge and anger. these are not solid places from which to build policy.

so no, it doesn't make me rethink my views on the death penalty, at all.

Why is your question even relevant, if we're talking about justice in the context of a system of law? The abuses of the system are there. For every question designed to conjure up emotion based arguments, there is the reality of the unfairness and abuse of the justice system's responsibility for investigating, prosecuting and bringing justice to the guilty:
Later, it turned out that former Illinois Gov. Ryan was found guilty of charges of corruption and has now <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=ryan+illinois+reports+prison&btnG=Search">reported to prison to begin serving his own sentence.</a> What is easier to take, a governor later convicted of corruption who commuted all death sentences in response to his determination that justice was not equally and fairly served, or a former governor in a state known for injustice and questionable prosecution, and a poorly structured clemency board, who signs a record number of death warrants as governor, more than all other states combined in the same time period, with the help of a close legal counsel who later is revealed as a corrupt and rabidly partisan US atty. general, while the former governor goes on to act like a war criminal POTUS, and an advocate and authorizer of torture......

I prefer the jailed ex-gov. Ryan, how about you?

Here is a Texas woman initially convicted of killing her five children. Are her crimes any less an offense to our sensibilities than the ones described in this thread's OP....three more killings...young innocent lives snuffed out by a parent....or does the torture killings of two, trump the drowning of five? Is it even relevant? Should the killer of five be treated with less deference, in the same state, as the killers described in the thread OP? Why?

It's not so much these instances, but the ones where killers are let loose after so many years, and go on to murder more innocent people - that make me think "if he'd have been put to death the first time....."

I think the government has a responsibility to make sure that this doesn't happen again when they capture someone who's proving themselves capable of committing this type of crime, there's one sure-fire way of protecting the public. Social injustices and institutionalized racism be damned.

If it helps at all, wouldn't punishing this young white couple help even things out a bit.....off with their heads.

Ah, but if you compare the success rate of rehabilitation under psychiatric care to the success rate of rehabilitation in an electric chair, things become clear. The criminal justice system is about justice. Killing people because we don't necessarily think that they can be treated doesn't really make sense. Incarcerating them does, that way we can revisit it if it's deemed possible later (psychology is an evolving science, after all). I realize that in the case above, despite not having access to any specific information on the mental health of the presumed guilty parties, full rehabilitation isn't likely, but somehow I don't see murdering them as a constructive response by a rational populace.

So, to summarize, I agree rehabilitation isn't likely but that doesn't mean we should murder them.
That's a serious failing of the psychiatric rehabilitation industry, and I recognize that, but again is this a worse option that murder? If someone is deemed to be "currently untreatable", why shouldn't they be shipped off to a prison for a time? I'll admit I'm not fully aware of procedure when it comes to this as my education was more about history and systems of the mind and such, but it would seem that if a trained professional deemed that a patient was hostile and actively avoiding rehabilitation, they should be sent to prison.

I'll bet John Watson wouldn't have let convicts be rude to his staff.
It's a massive failing in the system to release people who aren't rehabilitated (which is becoming the word of the day).
I'm not the only person with psychology training that believes that Manson isn't beyond rehabilitation, but that's beside the point. This is about viable solutions. Manson has life in prison, for example.
The answer is prevention, and the fact you use "piece of shit" suggests emotional content in your decision making process when it comes to this. If you want to stop this, then the only option is prevention. Prison trains criminals instead of rehabilitating them. It's in prevention, programs like Second Step, that we could actually see crime rates drop off.
I was shot in the leg. My grandfather was exposed to agent orange. A close friend of the family had his leg blown off by an insurgent. Would I sentence any of the guilty parties to death? Absolutely not. The idiot who shot my leg was just an idiot. He served time and was released. McNamera and the rest of those responsible deserved to be in prison, but not killed. Bush is responsible for every injury and death in Iraq, and I'd like to sentence him to prison, but I'd absolutely never support the death penalty.

I have had something terrible happen to two of my daughters.

My sister was raped by a man who forced himself into her apartment and he attempted to kill her. She doesn't support the death penalty, either.

Do you realize that often the trauma of losing loved ones to violence has the opposite affect that most people who are only imagining it expect it to?

Sometimes, yes, people experience anger and want to exact revenge. While sometimes people feel even more keenly what it means to take a life and reject the idea of more death as being justice.

Death penalty IS about justice. Yeah. No repeat offenders treated by the electric chair.

Death Penalty: When you care enough to go all the way.

I fully support the death penalty, however, I believe that the preponderance of evidence should be so overwhelmingly obvious, that guilt can't even be questioned as a hypothetical. video evidence would be great, otherwise, forensics should have to conclude that not even 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 chance that someone else committed that particular crime.

That being said, the sentencing phase of a trial should be done by a seperate jury than the one who decided guilt or acquittal. In most criminal trials, a jury of 12 of your peers listens to the evidence and decides whether or not you committed the crime. A sentencing jury should have 15 people on it and a death sentence MUST be decided by 2/3rds or more.

As in all death sentences, an appeal is automatic. This appeal should no longer be done by just a courtroom judge or bench. As all too often happens, a black robed tyrant inevitably fucks up the system by implementing his own ideology over the laws and we end up with murderers released on technicalities or innocent people still on death row. A death sentence appeal should be handled by yet another jury of peers, 15 again, and either the confirmation of said death sentence or commutation to life should be decided by 4/5ths of the peer jury.

Unfortunately, I don't see this happening because not enough people would care about the justice system as it pertains to criminals to actually want to be involved.....but if they were somehow caught up in it as a defendant, I wonder if that would change their mind?

There's an inherent contradiction in that idea, though. Historically, executions don't bring closure or healing to victims. Even pushing aside the fact that 2/3 of all death sentences are overturned on appeal because of serious errors, the victims aren't made better. Even pushing aside the insanity of fighting murder with murder, the victims aren't made better. Even considering that all current death penalty methods are torture, the victims aren't made better. Even considering that it's not an effective deterrent, the victims aren't made better.

There are a million reasons not to have the death penalty. The only one that matters is that it doesn't help the victims.

okay....who do you execute? Would you "do" this former cop?
...and do you execute cops and prosecutors who are convicted of knowingly falsifying evidence that is key to a death penatly conviction and sentence, or who deliberately sit on potentially exonerating evidence in capital crime cases?

I read you're short and absolute comments and they don't seem to be thoroughly thought through, odd in a discussion of whether the people should grant the authority to kill, to authority, don't you agree?

So...are you saying that enough examples of a flawed system, unequal in the way the accused are represented, investigated, prosecuted, and evaluated for possible clemency, along with the finally admitted flaws in it's forensic science by the FBI, and what was revealed about the FBI's and prosecutors' (lack of) commitment to protecting the rights of the accused, an even bigger shortcoming than the abandoning of it's long love affair with "bullet science"...are enough to convince you that it's just about impossible to fairly...with 100 percent certainty...apply the death penalty?

no, thats not what i'm saying. I knew the death penalty system was flawed and applied unfairly long before I was ever a member on this board. I still support it. I would just like to see the system changed, i.e. the process that I explained.

Aren't you the most skeptical poster here on the issue of trusting authority to constitutionally uphold the "right of the people to bear arms"?

Yet you would yield the authority to determine who is "guilty enough" to deserve to be executed, to that same distrusted authority? That doesn't sound like the dksuddeth who I have come to know and respect for his wisdom, depth, and grasp of politics...although it does fit with what I know of your unwillingness to be "framed", "labelled", or stereotyped.

I'm discussing this in a "due process" environment. In a legally justified martial law situation...say, during efforts to repel an invasion of a foreign aggressor from our shores, I could see the need arise, in the eyes of military authority, for ordering executions....

Im curious to know from those that oppose the death penalty.....do you think no one should ever be executed? ever? for any reason? or is it just against the american death penalty?

For example....should Saddam Hussein have been hung?

This is an interesting idea, but is there really such a thing as certainty? I'm sure that those on death row were considered guilty and there was no reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors (unless all 12 of them were emotional vengeance bags, which does happen), so how much unreasonable doubt can there be before we decide that someone is permanently killed? There aren't appeals after death, after all.

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

This is my stance: Illness, old age, self sacrifice or accident. Outside of these, something has gone terribly wrong.

Up untill about 4 or 5 years ago, I was right up there with Shani. 100% pro capital punishment. Nothing could sway my opinion. Except...there was a Time magazine article that spotlighted the corruption in the judicial system. Forensic labs that intentionally manipulated the evidence to favor the prosecution. Prosecutors that knew the evidence pointed elsewhere, pushing through to get a conviction, and another notch on their belts. Investigators that picked a suspect, and only looked at evidence that could help convict that suspect.

By the time that I had finished reading that article, my views on the death penalty had changed 180 degrees. So long as there is any chance, that an innocent person is sent to their death, on my behalf, I am opposed to the death penalty.

A panel of his peers (not experts), convicted him on circumstantial evidence.
Look. I'm 99.999% positive that Scott Peterson did exactly what he was accused and convicted of. But there is that .001% that leaves that liiiittle bit of doubt. I wasn't there. I don't know that he did it. A man should be sent to his death because everything looks like he did it?

this one's easy.
the trial--if you want to call it that--was a travesty.
there was not even the pretense of "justice".
it was a stalin-worthy show trial, a joke, a hamfisted matter of political expediency.
all this and i dont doubt that hussein was a brutal dictator--with full american support so long as he was convenient of course.
so this would be one of the worst possible examples to support your position, shani.

and any single instance is simply going to function to avoid the problems that have been raised repeatedly in the thread about the system-wide implementation of the death penalty in the states.

maybe try justifying the simple fact that it is OVERWHELMINGLY poor folk who are on death row in the states--or address bor's post above this one.

so Im guessing, Hitler shouldnt have been executed if we'd had the chance either?

Um, no, I don't think Saddam Hussein should have been hung.

And I would oppose the death penalty even if the system were not flawed and corrupt (ie, human). I oppose it on principle.

I would not have supported the execution of Hitler. I do not support state-sanctioned killing or any other form of institutionalized murder.

you're right shani: kill em all and let god sort em out.

why not questions that are addressed to you instead of trying to "prove" your point by way of ridiculous examples, particularly given that most of the objections to the death penalty in this thread include objections to arguing from individual example, even when they are not ridiculous?

sorry? I dont see where anyone asked me a specific question? I on the other hand did and so far the only person that I see that answered it was MM

since we all know im ignorant of anything political, please state the question to me clearly and concisely and I will "try" to answer it

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.

Shani, I answered your question.

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

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

shani: read post 36.

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?)

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.

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.

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 got it now. :thumbsup:

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?

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.

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.

And how many people in prison for life offend again?

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

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

:orly: 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?

What what?

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

"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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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. :icare:

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

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

whoever said this clearly has no understanding of why the judicial system was set up the way it was by patriots of this country.

I'd like to see the death penalty abolished all over the place, including Iraq, but yes, it would be nice if the US would join the rest of the Western world and abolish it.

So, no, I don't agree with hanging Saddam. Justice must be applied equally to all - from gangsters to domestic murderers to those guilty of war crimes.

What an interesting word. Justice.

We can join the rest of the free world I suppose and abolish the death penalty.

But again...justice.

dictionary.com has this as the 5th meaning and the one that applies here...

5. the administering of deserved punishment or reward.

So what is the deserved punishment for murder? For 10 murders? For a 100? For a million?

For some of you, apparently its life in prison. Now I can't say that life in prison would be a happy time, but how many of you will be committing suicide rather than face a life in prison? Not to many.

Where there is life, there is hope. Maybe I could escape, maybe a bunch of hippie types get on the state supreme court and change the life without parole law with their typical judicial activism, maybe I finally work on the writing I've been putting off for 10 years.

But justice? No, my victims, they are gone, dead, no life, but me, I'd have hope, and in my view, an undeserved hope.

You can oppose the death penalty based on human error, I can respect that, but don't talk about justice while doing so.

To me...that 10% is a big deal. If 1 out of every 10 executions was that of an inncent person, that is abysmal. 1 out of 1000 is too many.
Look. If your wife, or girlfriend, disappears, or turns up dead, guess who they're going to focus on. All investigation will be conducted to gain a conviction of the most likely suspect. You. There will be little, if any, effort expended to ascertain what really happened. Evidence that is contradictory to the prefered theory will be overlooked and ignored. The prosecutor wants a quick win, to add to his resume when it comes time to run for State Attorney General. The judge wants to demonstrate how tough he is on crime when it comes time for re-election. Death is a pretty high price to pay, just to be a political pawn.

Are there people out there who deserve to be executed? Oh, you bet your ass there are. But, thier lives are not worth the price of a single innocent person being put to death.

Now, on this point, I'm with you 100%. Prison time is even a badge of honor with some of these little gang banging thugs, as it gives them "street cred". Prison should be a son-of-a-bitch, where no one ever wants to go. But, that is probably an issue better brought up in another thread.

This is true. The American penal system doesn't seem to be working. Hell, neither does the Canadian one, I'm right there with ya. But really, I don't think the answer is to kill the convicts.

Otherwise, my opinion has been well represented by Bill O'Rights, roachboy et al.

Let's not use a dictionary to teach us about justice. We must go beyond even encyclopedic entries.

A deserved punishment for murder is one that restores at least some semblance of harmony to society. Life imprisonment removes guilty parties from free society for an extended period of time. Killing them causes more discord.

Justice IS the same for all, or there is no justice. This is basic to free societies. Obviously, different punishments can apply to different crimes but given that I don't agree with a death penalty under any circumstances, I'm not going to make an exception for tin-pot dictators nor for elected presidents. The maximum penalty that should be imposed for any crime is a life time of hard labour - this is more productive than anything else.

Having said all that, Iraq is effectively a third world country these days and it is not surprising they wish to maintain a death penalty and a rather dodgy court system, nor that other nearby nations also cut hands off thieves and whip women who go about with their faces uncovered.

So you don't agree with the death penalty.

I ask you this, because so far no one else is answering.

Hypothetically someones guilt was 100% in a horrible murder. Why do you feel the death penalty is not appropriate?

I haven't been answering all of the individual cases because I think my first post in this thread sums my position up. I'll go farther than your question does. If I were to witness the murder and have first-hand, 100% knowledge of the murderer's identity, I still wouldn't support the death penalty.

I think I've stated my opposition quite clearly more than once.

Why?

Somebody oppose this by illustrating the value of human life in this context.

How's that? I'm sure the "founding fathers" would agree with the death penalty for certain crimes based on the current standard of evidence at "beyond a reasonable doubt."

I like how supporting the death penalty questions my patriotism, too.

...

We're talking about the death penalty for heinous crimes here, right?

I get the feeling a lot of people are forgetting that aspect.

Death Penalty Criteria (3rd grade edition):

A: A particularly brutal crime was committed (murder, rape).
B: There is evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant committed the crime.
C: Society believes that this individual is a threat to lawful citizens.
D: The jury feels that the crime warrants the death penalty.
E: Automatic appeal covers any legal issues are ironed out (in theory).

This, of course, is in the best of all possible worlds.

See post #86.

The founders supported capital punishment, quite enthusiastically I believe. My statement wasn't about your support of the death penalty, it was about your indifference to the idea that 'so some innocents are executed, so what' that my statement was directed to you.

I've never not been the smartest guy on a jury. Most other smart people avoid them, you see. It'd be easy to use my unwillingness to kill the guy to get them down to life in prison. No one would be found innocent.

Oh, a bit of tongue-in-cheek commentary to represent the blind polarity here, man.

Some: "No, no, no! Death penalty is all bad and never works and makes baby Jesus cry!"

The only discord I see is from those saying it shouldn't be done.

By that logic if your imprisonment can cause enough social unrest than by default it is best you are let free.

No I see no justice in this logic.

So if the prosecuting attorney asked if you would support the death penalty under any circumstance in jury selection, how would you answer?

Perhaps for the same reason you support it? What is the basis of your preference for the death penalty?

It conforms with my general world view that we (Western societies at any rate) are evolved cultures and we view the taking of a life as little more than revenge and not either an effective deterrant nor a way to improve society as a whole.

It is the action, the concept, of state-sanctioned murder that offends me and, I think, many others, not the virtues or lack thereof of the convicted party nor of the individual crime.

Do I think the system we have in Canada is perfect? Of course not. I'd like to see hard-labour introduced.

But we've also had Donald Marshall, Steve Truscott, and dozens of others - cases of men convicted of crimes they did not commit and who would be dead in Texas or Florida.

So, for both the concept of state-sanctioned taking of life and the fact that even one innocent death is too much, I do not support the death penalty.

I think of note, when it comes to the nations that support the death penalty, we often equate the US to Iraq or Sudan or some third world hell hole, but perhaps it is also due to the impersonal aspect of crimes in the US due to the A) the amount of crime, and B) the size of the population. Many of the nations with the largest populations support the death penalty and people look upon the death of "just another criminal" a bit more remotely and with detachment.

I'd tell him I do support the death penalty and of course be referring to the death penalty for the lamb I'd eaten the night before. He'd need to be ridiculously specific in order to get a straight answer out of me.

in this instance, your sole purpose for being incredibly ambiguous unless the prosecutor was ridiculously specific would be simply to ensure that this jury could not mete out a death sentence? in other words, you would lie to see your ideology on the death penalty succeed?