damasa-YOU STARTED IT!
 

HA! Got your attention. The last thread damasa started brought up another controversal issue, the death penalty. One day I was searching for a line from a poem I couldn't recall and came upon this site. This left me feeling so weird, the music, the poetry, the events surrounding this case. Take a look, be sure to turn up the music. The line was Iron bars do not a prison make...

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache...2+author&hl=en

If you click "home" you can read what happened

I'll keep quiet for now, but here's a link to some very interesting articles about the death penalty in Illinois; they're long, but worth reading --

http://chicagotribune.com/news/speci...wsspecials-hed

Ah, good topic. Hrm, before I came to college I was totaly against the death penalty, but after coming to college and opening my mind to many more things, I also opened my mind to the death penalty. I won't comment any further until I hear the views and opinions of others on the great GC.

d

I cannot justify saying I'm antiabortion (in most cases) yet predominately pro death penalty... I just feel that in most cases people who commit hanous crimes of rage have been handed their fate. Although we can sentence them to death, I feel that God will punish their souls worse than we could.

Besides... in most instances the way the prisoner is executed is far more humane than the way their victims died. Not to mention most buy time with numerous appeals.

I try to consider myself a humanitarian, yet something bothers me about paying money to keep a horrible person alive in a prision cell where he can further educate himself and have some small luxuries.

This is just my opinion.

I personally do not believe in the death penalty. . . i realise that many people disagree with me and that's cool too. i don't intend to convert anyone to my point of view, and (not to sound snotty here :D ) i don't really care. everyone has their own point of view and mine stems from my personal system of ethics, i can only speak for myself and i belive that i will have to answer for myself when i die. i believe that there is a God and that he will sit in judgement. it is his job on that day of judegement to decide what will happen to these people who have committed heinous crimes. i am not God and therefore do not have the right to make the decision to take another human life. in order for me to sit on a jury where i might have to put someone to death is in violation of my personal ethics and in my mind makes me just as bad as they are. as i said earlier i view this as my own personal ethics system and don't expect anyone else to follow it.

I presonally dont believe in the death penalty either....I belive that if a person kills someone or something as bad as that then why should their life jsut end??? that just basically puts them out of their misery and all. I believe that they should rot in jail and have to suffer. but thats just my opinion.

Nichole

Beccaria, one of the greatest criminological thinkers of our time stated that it's greater justice for a person to spend a life of misery than to end their sorrows. I don't believe in the death penalty for several reasons; however, if a freind or family member sufferred a horrendous killing i'm sure my opinion would change.

As usual, my never politically correct opinion......
 

I'm sure everyone here can guess what my stance on the death penalty is. But heres my justification. I wish I knew in dollars how much it costs to sustain one person in a federal or state maximum security prison. Lets use a hypothetical number such as $60 a day. Say the person goes in at age 25, and dies of old age at 75. At 365 days a year, and 50 years, thats 18250 days. At $60 a day, no inflation or facility cost added in, thats $1,095,000. It would cost well over that to provide basic ammenities for that one person for the natural course of his life. So basically, the way I figure it, I wouldnt want any red damn cent of my tax dollars supporting some baby killing, child molesting, terrorist piece of shit just because its justification for what they did. Screw it. Fry em. Use the money for homeless shelters or something. Not that a portion of my tax dollars arent going to a bunch of crack heads out on the streets at the first of the month, but thats a diffrent thread.

Re: As usual, my never politically correct opinion......
 

According to a study (done by, admittedly, a pro-death penalty organization) in 1996, the average cost for the lifetime of a prisoner living from age 25 to age 75 (male) is around $2 million.

(Note - I'll try to find a cite later, too much stuff to do for now)

Now . . . that said, the death penalty still doesn't make a whole lot of financial sense in its current form - with court costs etc, the price of keeping them alive is about the same (possibly cheaper - again i'll look for cites). Add to that the fact that the death penalty is not an adequate crime-prevention technique, and also, of course, the possibility of the system being wrong - killing the wrong people etc . . .

Now - THAT said, I'm firmly pro-death penalty. I figure we should just cut the bullshit, don't pretend like you're doing people a favor either way. The issue is punishment, not deterring crime or whatever, and personally I'd prefer to eliminate these people from our society, although I understand perfectly well the issues and hypocrisy associated with this viewpoint. If you're convicted by a jury of your peers of a crime that society deems worthy of capital punishment - that's it, that's all I need. Of course, the current system needs a total overhaul, but that's a different issue entirely.

God is the ultimate judge, sure - but if you want to make this argument extensible to the next level, that eliminates all sorts of elements of the criminal justice system. We're not judging a person's soul - just his or her guilt in a worldly, temporal issue.

More Math
 

And lets say over the course of that 50 years, at least every state in the union has at least 5 people per year convicted and sentanced to the "life in prison, no parole" sentence. So thats 250 people per year. Say in the span of one year, at $1,095,000 cost per person for 50 years. That adds up to $273,750,000. Just for those 250 people for the next 50 years. Compount that by 250 per year, 50 years, $1,095,000 per 50 year cost per person, thats $13,687,500,000, per the 12500 people that will come into the prison system over that 50 years. 13 billion sounds like a whole lot of clams to me.

I actually heard from an old history class that it cost more to execute a person then keep them in prison for life, but hey whatever.
I am personally opposed to the death penalty. I just dont see the point in it. In my opinion it doesnt make things better for any side. It doesnt bring the victim back and it takes another's life. Sometimes that's even what they want,and why give them the satisfaction? When that person is executed there will be someone else to do whatever they did. Its suppose to deter, but it seems like crime just gets worst. People dont care, and it seems it doesnt scare people that much to tell them they will die. Id rather see that person suffer, then give them the easy way out.
I also dont think anyone should take anyone else's life, no matter what. In a way it is revenge. It makes you feel good for a couple of days, but you'll always grieve for the victim.

If they would actually use the death penalty it would deter. Once a criminal is put to death they wont be committing any more crimes. Most crimes are committed by repeat offenders.

ha ha detering the dead, punny

ah, another fun topic:p

i see both sides...but, as i am sure some of you guessed, i am for the death penalty. yes, you will always grieve for the loss of the victim, but at the same time, you have the satisfaction that the person cannot do it to anyone else. you're saving someone else from the same kind of grief. and the idea that these people will really suffer in prison is, i think, kinda off. these ppl are put in locked facilities, yes, but they are also in great facilities. i mean, tv, air conditioning...hey, that's better than a lot of ppl who haven't done anything wrong. ya know? i say, it's better to punish them here on earth so the family can experience some kind of closure to the event and to send 'em on to the Big Guy for Him to deal with in the most proper way. if they are innocent, then they're still in a better place than here...and if they are guilty, then they are where they should be in the first place. does that make sense?

Monica

Great facilities? Have you ever seen the inside of a jail? Have you ever been raped, or beaten, or threatened constantly by gangs? There was just a case in Illinois where a guy was finally let out of jail after spending, I think, 15 years there for a crime he did not commit. He talked about how at night it was really hard, because if he slept with his head toward the outside of his cell, people would walk by and throw stuff like acid at him (no, I don't know how or why), but if he kept his head toward the back of the cell, the mice would come by and nibble on him. If you think that counts as great facilities, then I suggest that you go spend some time there and then tell me that you think they're great facilities. This guy was innocent, just like you.

I cannot believe that you could say, "if they are innocent, then they're still in a better place than here." Are you serious? First of all, who are you to say what is a "better place" for someone else, or to even presume that you know what happens after death. If you think it's a better place, then why would you care if someone killed your entire family, since, after all, they would be in a better place. My guess is that this is all very easy for you to say, considering that you are probably someone at low risk of ever being falsely convicted and sentenced to death.

If you are truly pro death penalty, read the articles I linked to earlier in this thread, which highlight just some of the rampant abuse present in the criminal justice system. It seems that in Illinois someone is set free after being on death row almost monthly because he did not commit the crime.

I really meant to stay out of this, but I just couldn't after reading your comments.

...hmmmm okay, then why doesn't society enforce measures to prevent the overwhelming amount of corporate crime that exists today.

It's funny, reading these comments I would assume that violent crime accounts for much greater than 1% of all crimes committed.
Let me give you a scenario now of a presenter for a course I studied two years ago. He was a man in his early 40s who was just released from jail after serving a term for 2nd degree murder. He was kind of a street kid in his younger days, dropped the fists whenever he cared. One night he picked a fight with a guy, and after knocking his opponent to the ground the guy hit his head on the sidewalk and later died....telling the class this story, he couldn't stress enough the pain he felt every day for being responsible for this individual's death. If he could go back to when he was 18 and just walk away from the fight he'd do so in a heartbeat. He lost half his life behind bars, but wanted to turn his life around and make the most of his remaining years. He worked hard everyday to abide to the rules and strived to build his work skills so that one day he could become a productive member of society. In co-operation with rehabilitating facilities and the correctional services, he became fully employed and cherished his prison free days as a new man. The moral of this story, if you were to punish this man so that his chance of reform was no longer available it would be contradictory to some of the basic premises for which our society functions on.

my 2 cents
 

i was a police and court reporter for a lot of years and saw a bunch of scum get the proverbial slap on the hand and do it again. flash ahead to now, over thanksgiving a 5 year old girl was taken from walmart, three miles away from my school. her body showed up the next day in a parking lot about 15 miles away -- quite dead and intentionally disfigured. i had several of the relatives in class. authorities were able to lift a palm print from the plastic bag put over the child's head. a repeat sex offender is in custody. how can you not advocate the death penalty in a case like this?
mmcat
:eek:

Ditto mmcat!

Police Officer killed trying to break up domestic arguement

Fraternity brother of Hubby is driving drunk and kills highway workman.

Young girl walking killed by hit and run

Young girl raped and strangled after leaving club with stranger

2 people "executed" in convenience store-uncertain motive

Infant child dies due to parental abuse

All of these are actual situatons that I have real knowledge of.
Where do you draw the line? Is it intent or the degree of repulsiveness? In all cases, dead is dead. (all I need is INTENT to do bodily harm)
The first exposure I had was the Clutter murders in Holcomb Kansas. Capote wrote "In Cold Blood" and they eventually made a movie. Yes, these guys hung & swung.
My personal opinion is, there are times when the death penalty is necessary. What good has it done anyone keeping Charles Manson alive. He WAS scheduled to die, but California changed their laws.
If a brutal murder ever occurred to one of mine, I must say I would go to ANY and EVERY extreme measure I could imagine & hunt down and destroy the animal. The sad thing is, when friends or family do that, THEY become the criminal.
***One more thought-In the '70's I learned about the videos they made/make(?) in foreign countries-Mexico was the example-where they took kidnapped children/teens/adults and had sex with them and/or murdered them. Now what should we do with people like THAT??? Yes, prison life can be brutal, but "no possibility of parole" has too many loop holes and these people don't deserve to live!

I'm all for the death penalty. I think if someone intentionally kills someone else in cold blood, then they should lose their right to live also. Give them the Old Testament "eye for an eye" justice and do it quickly. To me, the appeals process for convicted killers has gotten way out of hand. We've got people on death row who have been there for, literally, decades because they've got some crafty lawyer looking up obscure appeal loopholes 24/7. Everyone knows they're guilty, some of them have even admitted they're guilty, and yet the appeals go on and on. Taxpayers' money is being burned annually keeping these people alive and, personally, I think there are better ways to spend our money.

One thing that I've never quite understood is why some killers get the death penalty and other killers get lesser sentences. I know that, under the law, it depends on how heinous the crime is, among other things. But, to me, murder is murder and I think that a person who beats his wife to death should get the death penalty just as quickly as a cop killer.

...and it's another DITTO!

So you believe that some of these people we are keeping alive merit death? But there are many people that die that merit life, so maybe we shouldn't be so quick to kill these others . . . Sorry just watched Tolkien and that seemed Apropos of the moment.

I am not sure its possible to argue death penalty to a final outcome. Because that would pressupose some type of objective reality that we could perceive and go "look, there is the absolute truth in this matter".

With that disclaimer in place, I have some statements.

I am uncomfortable with a government that has a mechanism in place to kill its own citizens. Especialy when it is differentially applied, and often left for an economic and/or an unequal adversarial system to decide the outcome.

I believe that the if the jurors are comfortable enough with their decision to execute they should have to take part in the process. For example all 12 jurors will have to press a button, but only one button gives the signal to administrate lethal injection or elctric chair.

PRison, especially death row is not a comfortable affair, although it will differ from place to place. In fact I have read some things about some prisons that makes me wonder why amnesty international doesn't look into it. But I think they are only worried about people that suffer for politcal reasons. But certainly some of the prisons don't qualify for humane.

By the way, I am pretty sure I would want to kill someone for hurting someone I know . . or even cutting me off . . . But that is not necessarily a legitimate reason to nationalize a death sentence.

For the Death penalty to truly work, you have to execute for much lower levels of crimes. If you are killed for stealing 5 dollars you won't even get to the point of stealing more. If any situation that wasn't self-defense was punishable by death, and I mean immediate, like dragging them out of the courtroom and putting a bullet through their heads, it would be a more effective deterrant against murder.

...because I am not in charge, yet. Once I am in charge I will fry them all if it makes you happy.. Murderers, rapists and violent criminals who repeatedly commit crimes over and over will be history.

This is certainly an issue on which we will all never agree. My question is this -- do you think that it is okay to execute innocent people? The fact is, poor people often get stuck with bad attorneys, because they think that anything is better than a public defender (which is not the case) and end up hiring any fool who will take their case for the least amount of money. These attorneys in many cases do a terrible job. Please don't think that people appealing death sentences are all a bunch of hardened criminals who are trying to use crafty legal techniques to avoid the death penalty. That is not the case most of the time. When it comes right down to it, YOU could be picked up off the street, taken into a police station, tortured, beaten, suffocated and then you confess so that the abuse will stop, and then you could end up being sentenced to death for something you didn't do. It happens all the time.

Also, police lie and abuse the system -- not in all cases, of course, but police do lie. I had a police officer lie, under oath, when I was in court on a traffic ticket -- he lied, but I had photographs to prove my case, and ended up winning.

Here's some food for thought --

From http://www.amnesty-usa.org/abolish/factsinnocence.html

Because the death penalty system is administered by human beings, and because human beings are fallible, innocent people may have been executed in the past and will continue to be executed in the future.

Michael Radelet, Hugo Adam Bedau, and Constance E. Putnam report that 350 people have been wrongfully convicted of capital or potentially capital crimes in America since 1900. Of these, 23 were executed. (In Spite of Innocence, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1992.)

Between 1973 and 2001, 98 people in 22 States have been released from death rows across the USA after evidence of their wrongful convictions emerged.

In January 2001, the case against Peter Limone has been officially dropped by the state of Massachusetts, 33 years after being convicted and sentenced. Joseph Barboza, the main witness against the four men admitted that he had fabricated much of his testimony.

In October 2000, Earl Washington received a full pardon following DNA testing that exonerated him of a rape and murder charge for which he had spent 17 years in prison in Virginia. Washington, who suffers from mental retardation, came within one week of execution in 1985. In 1993, his death sentence was commuted to life. He remains in prison on unrelated charges.

In March 2000, Joseph Nahume Green became the 87th person exonerated since 1973. He was acquitted of the murder for which he spent seven years on Florida's death row.

In January 2000, Steve Manning became the 13th defendant exonerated in Illinois when prosecutors announced that they were dropping all charges against him and no longer planned to retry him for the murder for which he had been convicted.

The exoneration of the 13 Illinois death row inmates led Governor George Ryan to declare a moratorium on executions in the State of Illinois.

"I don't think an execution will ever happen again while I'm governor. I'd rather err on that side."
-George H. Ryan, Governor of Illinois

In September 1999, Charles Munsey died in a North Carolina prison. He had been imprisoned for six years and sentenced to death for a crime to which another man confessed. Shortly before his death, Munsey had won a new trial.

Factors leading to wrongful convictions include:

Inadequate defense
Police and Prosecutorial misconduct
Perjured testimony and mistaken eyewitness testimony
Racial Prejudice
Tainted jailhouse testimony
Suppression of mitigating evidence and misinterpretation of evidence
Community pressure
_____

From the Chicago Tribune articles --

Illinois has claimed the dubious distinction of having exonerated as many Death Row inmates as it has executed. But many of the circumstances that sent 12 innocent men to Death Row have been documented by the Tribune in numerous other capital cases.

In the first comprehensive examination of all 285 death-penalty cases since capital punishment was restored in Illinois 22 years ago, the Tribune has identified numerous fault lines running through the criminal justice system, subverting the notion that when the stakes are the highest, trials should be fail-safe.

The findings reveal a system so plagued by unprofessionalism, imprecision and bias that they have rendered the state's ultimate form of punishment its least credible.

The Tribune investigation, which included an exhaustive analysis of appellate opinions and briefs, trial transcripts and lawyer disciplinary records, as well as scores of interviews with witnesses, attorneys and defendants, has found that:

- At least 33 times, a defendant sentenced to die was represented at trial by an attorney who has been disbarred or suspended--sanctions reserved for conduct so incompetent, unethical or even criminal the lawyer's license is taken away.

In Kane County, an attorney was suspended for incompetence and dishonesty. Ten days after getting his law license back in 1997, he was appointed by the county's chief judge to defend a man's life.

- In at least 46 cases where a defendant was sentenced to die, the prosecution's evidence included a jailhouse informant--a form of evidence so historically unreliable that some states have begun warning jurors to treat it with special skepticism.

In one Cook County case, the word of a convicted con man, called a "pathological liar" by federal authorities, put a man on Death Row. In exchange for a sharply reduced sentence, the con artist testified that while in jail together the defendant confessed to him, even though a tape recording of their conversation contains no confession.

- In at least 20 cases where a defendant was sentenced to die, the prosecution's case included a crime lab employee's visual comparison of hairs--a type of forensic evidence that dates to the 19th Century and has proved so notoriously unreliable that its use is now restricted or even barred in some jurisdictions outside Illinois.

- At least 35 times, a defendant sent to Death Row was black and the jury that determined guilt or sentence all white--a racial composition that prosecutors consider such an advantage that they have removed as many as 20 African-Americans from a single trial's jury pool to achieve it. The U.S. Constitution forbids racial discrimination during jury selection, but courts have enforced that prohibition haltingly.

- Forty percent of Illinois' death-penalty cases are characterized by at least one of the above elements. Sometimes, all of the elements appear in a single case. Dennis Williams, who is black, was sentenced to die by an all-white Cook County jury; prosecuted with evidence that included a jailhouse informant and hair comparison; and defended, none too well, by an attorney who was later disbarred.

Williams and three other men--referred to as the Ford Heights Four--were wrongly convicted of the 1978 murders of a south suburban couple. Williams served 18 years, almost all on Death Row, before he was cleared by DNA evidence in 1996. He then filed a lawsuit accusing sheriff's officers of framing him.

"The feeling is emotionally choking," Williams said of being sentenced to die for a crime he did not commit. "It's inhuman. It's something that shouldn't be imaginable. Here are people who are supposed to uphold the law who are breaking it."

Illinois houses its condemned inmates at the Menard and Pontiac correctional centers and at the new prison in Downstate Tamms. They spend 23 hours a day in cells so narrow they can touch opposite walls at the same time.
_____

To win a death sentence, prosecutors in Illinois have repeatedly exaggerated the criminal backgrounds of defendants--turning misdemeanors into felonies, manslaughter into murder, innocence into guilt.

Prosecutors have lied to jurors, raising the possibility of parole when no such possibility existed.

They also have browbeaten jurors, saying they must return the death sentence, or they will have violated their oaths and lied to God.
_____

For police and prosecutors, few pieces of evidence close a case better than a confession. After all, juries place a remarkable degree of faith in confessions; few people can imagine suspects would admit guilt if they were innocent. But, in Illinois, confessions have proved faulty.

Howard's case, his lawyers say, may be one example. As in many of the other Burge cases that resulted in a death sentence, without a confession there is little evidence against Howard--certainly no physical evidence, such as fingerprints, and no weapon. And in the years since Howard's trial, new information that could help reverse his conviction has emerged.

Criminal suspects frequently realize the damage they have done to themselves by confessing, then falsely claim that the police abused them. But what separate many of the Burge cases from others, and what make the accusations so troublesome, are their rich detail and numbing repetitiveness.

A federal judge and the Illinois Appellate Court have made rulings that, in often harsh language, suggest the alleged abuse under Burge warrants additional investigation and threatens to taint trial verdicts.

"It is now common knowledge," U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur wrote in one Death Row inmate's appeal in March, "that in the early- to mid-1980s, Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge and many of the officers working under him regularly engaged in the physical abuse and torture of prisoners to extract confessions."

Citing internal police accounts, lawsuits and appeals, Shadur said that torture occurred as an "established practice, not just on an isolated basis."

Burge was fired from the department in 1993 for torture in one case. Reached at his Florida home, he declined to comment.

Police tactics scrutinized

Charges of police misconduct--from manufacturing evidence to concealing information that could help clear suspects--are central to at least half of the 12 Illinois cases where a man sentenced to death was exonerated.

In two of those cases, neither of which is linked to Burge or his detectives, men whose confessions put them on Death Row were cleared and set free.

Ronald Jones had long claimed he confessed to the 1985 murder and rape of a South Side woman only because Chicago police beat him repeatedly. After nearly eight years on Death Row, he was exonerated by DNA evidence earlier this year.

Gary Gauger claimed his unsigned confession to the 1993 murders of his parents in rural McHenry County was the product of coercion by sheriff's detectives who questioned Gauger for some 21 hours until he broke down and agreed to a scenario the detectives suggested.

Are you against the death penaty or just against innocent people being but do death?

Yes, the people that are sitting on death row for years and years merit death. We shouldn't be paying for their food, shelter, college degrees, entertainment, etc. for 25 years waiting for someone to flip a switch. It's absolutely ridiculous that someone given the death penalty in, say, 1974 is still working on a book deal about his life in prison in 2001. That's where our justice system fails. Because the courts are so mired down in the appeals process, criminals know that they stand little chance of being actually executed for their crimes. Some of them actually stand a better chance of dying of old age than getting a lethal injection! :rolleyes: So where exactly is the deterrent for violent killers in this country? The truth is, we simply don't have one.

As for the people who die who merit life... James, to which people are you referring? I'm a little confused. :confused:

valkyrie, I know what you are saying is true in some cases,
that is something that can't be denied. I also agree that Blacks face the brunt of these types of situations. I was wondering if
you or anyone knew of a situaton where an average citizen, with no criminal record had been executed yet later proved not guilty. I'm not saying that it's OK if this were to happen to a criminal, just wondering...or a case of TOTAL misidentification that resulted in death.

I think we all want to believe the evidence would be so overwhelming that it would leave no doubt that the person on trial was guilty. Of course, you have shown this isn't always the case. Still, I believe that is why there are so many laws in place to protect the accussed.

Now, how about children being tried as adults??? The case of the toddler in England comes to mind. Two young boys led him out of a mall and beat him to death. The boys are now 18+ and they want to protect their identities.

I personally think that they should be tried as adults. There has been so much research in recent years showing that serial killers start committing violent acts at a young age and then get progressively worse. For that reason, I really think that, in order to prevent more violence, it is best to try children in murder cases as adults. If they are old enough to know right from wrong and old enough to try to cover up their crimes, then they are old enough to pay for those crimes as a grown-up.

As for the 18+ boys that killed the toddler, I don't think they should have their identities protected. The issue makes me think of child molesters who, when released from prison, move into a neighborhood with lots of children or try to get jobs in a toy store or school. I think that the law which requires the police to notify people that a sex offender has moved into the neighborhood is a very good one, and I feel it has probably saved many a person from being victimized.

valkyrie, after re-reading my statements, you are right...i totally need to clairfy and not sound so...bad.

ok, the "great facilities" remark was only about the facilities themselves. there are ppl in there who have beaten, raped, murdered, and God knows what else. to me, if someone throws acid on their head, who cares? they did 10 times that to someone else (although i know not in the case you specified earlier)...kind of a what goes around comes around type of thing. you can't tell me that in a case where a man raped a woman, cut off her breasts and left her for dead that he should be in a place that provides him as much comfort as possible. why should that person receive any more consideration than they gave to their victim? i don't understand why there are ppl who always look out more for the welfare of convicted criminals that they do for the justice of the victim. that's the point of prison...punishment for those who have done wrong, and justice for those who have been wronged. the same for the death penalty. if you take someone's life, you should pay for it with your own.
now, as far as how messed up things are with innocent ppl being convicted...i wish i had a way to prevent that. but i do know that eliminating capital punishment is not the answer. there are times when justice does indeed prevail and the correct people are punished...not everyone is innocent, afterall. i do not by any means think it is ok to punish innocent ppl and everything should be done to prevent this...but at the same time, everything should be done to prevent a murderer from killing again.
and finally, my best friend died unexpectantly last year and i will never be over that loss in my life...the only comfort i have is that knowing that he is in, yes, a better place. again, only my opinion, but i would appreciate not being criticized for that when i have yet to criticize you.

dzrose, well said!

I haven't finished reading all the posts on the second page of this thread, but I wanted to make one small comment.

I don't know how anyone else would feel if a close friend, family member or loved one were randomly killed but I know that I would be so enraged that I would seek the highest punishment the law allowed. I admit, it doesn't solve much by killing another person i.e. doesn't bring back the loved one, HOWEVER I feel that once you've committed such a brutal crime, you've lost your right to live any normal life.
At any rate, my theory is this - If the above happened to me I would try to forgive with all my heart, but forgiving only goes so far and that doesn't mean forgiveness means letting that person live either. Obviously that person had no regard for life and would probably do the same if allowed to go free. Now wether a person sits in a cell and rots to death the rest of his/her life or dies in the chair or smoke chaimber - they deserve it.

I ask those who aren't pro-death penalty to think how they'd feel if their mother, father, sister, brother, grandma, child, best friend, lover, co-worker were killed malitiously by one of these crazed people...what sort of justification would you want? I find it hard for even the most compassionate people to not want some sort of revenge!

* I DO TALK ABOUT RELIGION IN THIS POST*

Be warned, i will talk about religion in this post, not with the intent of offending anyone but becuase it is an integral part of my belief structure and to give you insight on why I feel the way I do. Skip this post if you're going to be offended.


I would of course be heartbroken and want them locked away for the rest of their natural lives, but I would also pray that God would grant me the strength and courage to forgive that person for their horrible actions. Holding onto grief and hatred would not do me any good as a person, and the knowledge that I had a hand in sending someone to die for revenge, or so i could feel some sort of vindication would haunt me for the rest of my life. I would have killed someone with the mask of 'it's for justice'. I don't want to get all religious on you guys but since my religion is an important part of my beliefs I would like to point out that the scripture talking about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is in the old testament. The old testament occured BEFORE Jesus came to earth. Jesus preached a message of peace and forgiveness. Those who because Christians in that era rather than following the stict jewish laws instead followed the way of Christ. The laws in the old testemant were designed to give people a structure to live riteous lives until such a time as they could know Jesus. This is why I feel that it is more important to forgive, not always to forget, but to forgive. In the long term it would do more to hurt me mentally to hold that grudge and look for the death of this person than to forgive them with God's help. My family knows that God forbid, if something were to happen to me as the result of a heinous crime I would not want them to seek the death penalty.

Killing is a daily part of my job, yes it is animals but it is still killing.
I am pro-death penalty, people like the woman in Houston that drowned her 5 kids needs to be put to death. Her husband should be placed in prison for life also as he knew after the 3rd child she was suffering from depression (post-partum) and yet she went on to have 2 more kids. I see those poor kids in my mind struggling under the water reaching for help-she needs to die. It is unfortunate that innocent people are wrongly convicted but some of these people are truly guilty (Jeffry Dahmer also comes to mind as well as John Wayne Gacy etc..)

I would have no problem pulling the switch, If jury members were required to do this-no problem for me. BTW a bottle of beuthanasia is cheap-I don't understand why we don't use this- it works well.

I'd probably enlist in the Guardian Angels, and take it upon myself to administer justice for whoever I felt was wronged....But is it my place to commit such acts? And where do we draw the line? Peolpe have different perceptions of punishment, a victim of robbery may feel the same level of punishment is adequate for the offender as someone who lost a family member. There are too many mitigating circumstances and not a definable criteria to determine (right now) who receives this for a majority of cases. But since it seems so many ppl have no problem with pulling the switch, maybe the jury can possess the power of whether someone lives or dies.

OK, I've already given my stance on the issue, but I feel like there's a couple points being argued that I don't understand - Not to pick on skip101 at all - yours was just the first post I saw, many others have said similar things, I'm not trying to bash you or anything!

This isn't actually true - in fact, there's no proof of this at all, and most studies state exactly the opposite - that there is no deterrent effect associated with capital punishment.

Also, here's a somewhat poorly worded but fairly well-done cite

OK - I don't have that data here at hand, but I think this is sort of the fallacy of the complex question. "Most Crimes" aren't the ones that will fall under the death penalty anyway, right? Well here's an interesting case study, culled from the Portland Oregonian, of actual cases of the repeat offenders. A quick scan shows that some had committed 'capital' offences before, but most had not - they had committed much lower offences, and later worked up to murder or rape.

So does the problem then really lie in the lack of use of the death penalty? I'll argue that it's more of an institutional problem than this - the entire system has faults, and the death penalty is in no way a cure-all for the woes of murder, rape, etc in our society. Rather, I'll openly state that if we wish to institute the death penalty, it must only be openly due to the fact that death is felt to be an appropriate punishment for the crimes committed.

Other reasons - whether they be deterrence, revenge, religion, or monetary reasons - don't hold water, in my opinion.

KSig RC- Were we looking at the same thing??? What I saw was a lot of high level crimes that NEVER should have been pardoned or should have held greater sentences. People get out of jail far too easily IMO. Anyway, I didn't take a count on the cases or break it down into statistics, I just scanned it.

I share some of your thinking, but not all. One point you made that I readily agree with is-"Rather, I'll openly state that if we wish to institute the death penalty, it must only be openly due to the fact that death is felt to be an appropriate punishment for the crimes committed." However, I think it was James (Lil G also) who said we each could interpret this differently. When that young boy was caned in Singapore, Americas felt it was barbaric. Yet, it was acceptable in their country. So who will set the standards?

I also agree that the whole sytem is at fault, right down to Juvi and the court system as a whole. The only "solution" I see must start in the home. Believe it or not, a whole theory developed around the famous Dr. Spock. Many hold him and his theories of child rearing responsible for the impulsive nature of MY generation which in turn has been deemed responsible for the lack of conscience in some of our children-YOUR generation. When our values become so mired in looking out for number one, we lose site of the greater picture. What I am trying to say is until our society as a whole steps up to the task and takes responsibility for our deeds the criminal element will continue to thrive and commit atrocities. Sad thing is, I do not see this happening.

A criminal is a criminal. I believe I would be hard pressed to find one that DEescalated his/her activities. Does anyone start out raping an infant and drowning it in a tub of scalding water? OR do they start out by shaking the baby or locking it in a closet when it cries? If allowed to move beyond point A, aren't the odds greater that B occur?

As far as the state passing laws to kill its own citizens... It is also important that the state PROTECT all citizens and the death penalty absolutely assures at least ONE piece of excrement will NEVER harm another living soul.

IMHO, death is the easy way out. People who commit
these terrible crimes should SUFFER for the rest of their lives, prisons aren't utopias, well most aren't. Or at least go the route of execution that some twc's do, eye for an eye. For example, that woman who drove her kids into the lake, should be executed the same way. Unfortunately, that will never happen here, US is to PC for that.

I know this question could counteract the above statement: What about the innocent people who are wrongfully accused? It is rare, but it does happpen. That's major reason why I lean towards anti-death penalty.

OK - this is a different discussion entirely. In a death penalty discussion, all I'm saying is that few (if any) committed capital crimes. Enforcement is a different issue, one that's totally unrelated.

This is why, although I'm in favor of the death penalty as a punishment (ie i support the concept), I DO NOT SUPPORT INSTITUTING IT! There's no way a system like this could work - and, like James states, there's TONS of implicit hypocrisy etc, and I have no doubt that constitutional issues will eventually arise, if given the right SC panel.

Well, altruism etc is good in theory, but I'll argue this point with you another time, I don't really want to hijack the thread. The point is, values are temporal - "time and place" if you will, and definition and experience differ from person to person. There's no real way to link any of this, and although you very well might be correct, it's a post hoc argument.

No?

This is a straw man argument - I don't have statistics right here in front of me . . . but I will definitely allow for differentiation between different crimes. A criminal is a criminal, sure - but what does that mean? Does that mean they lose rights as people? Does that mean we should spank them a few times and let them go? What this implies to me is that all criminals deserve the book thrown at them - which isn't a bad concept - but it's extensible conceptually to some system of across-the-board penalties, ie one harsh penalty for a variety of crimes. To me, this doesn't make sense, so I feel that differentiation needs to occur at some level. A criminal is a criminal, but only b/c they committed a crime - the human element has to remain.

. . . and it guarantees that this person will never see his or her family, hug the dog, etc - and there are many marked cases of the wrong person being convicted, even executed, for capital crimes. Doesn't this standpoint seem a little hypocritical then?

Also - the state's duty is to protect ALL its citizens . . . right? So isn't this duty also available to the criminal element? They're still people, and definitely citizens - what about making a forceful push to find ways to rehabilitate the criminal element, or prevent crime through various means (whether you feel these to be familial, religious, or via intensive drug use), and use these rather than a method which, in current form, appears to have no real value to the majority of the citizens of any given populous, since total overhaul of the system doesn't seem inordinately possible?

Just to play devil's advocate for a while . . .

K Sig RC,

:eek: Damn dude, you'll make a good lawyer or politician (sp?)! Take that as a compliment.

KSig RC , What in the heck are you arguing??? I'm sorry, but I'm a tad lost.
When you posted the link, you introduced it for discussion.

The death penalty is not "instituted" it is an option that a jury has. I am for having this option available, and yes, if I were a juror who was convinced, I would use it.

Crime is ALL about values.

Yes,criminals lose their rights. Being put in jail, they lose their "right" to freedoms of all sorts. The justice system offers them council (even though it could be inept council) to help protect those rights...to "help" see JUSTICE is served. Now, I know we can all get into a discussion of justice, but that too is philisophical.

The reference to looking to our homes and family life is nothing new when discussing topics of this nature. The thread did bring up the issue of Death Penalty as a deterent to future crime didn't it? Check out some Soc. and Psych courses as they reinforce the cause/effect that values and experiences one learns through their environment has in relationship to future crime. The time to deter crime is not after the fact. As a side note, I already took those courses and don't feel a need to post a link. The bit about Spock-Actually, it was a little FYI ( a universal FYI, not you individualy) that is interesting in the context of crime & deterents.

Of course there are different degrees of criminal behavior. This is a death penalty discussion, not parking violations. I don't think any two people on this thread hold the exact same "measuring stick" on the lower end, but for those who favor the death penalty
there are those case that hold no doubt.

Now I'll tell everyone what one of our neighbors think- He thinks those on death row should be used in medical experiments & trials...Now THAT'S a thought....

I study Sociology/Criminology and I have yet to find a conclusive study that supports evidence that it is a detterent. Greater studies of deterrence have repeatedly proven that there's a greater chance an offender would not commit a crime if he or she knew the chances of being caught were very high with a very low punishment as opposed to a very low chance of being caught with a very strict punishment. Hell if i knew there was only a 5% chance i'd receive harsh punishment from robbing a bank i'd probably go out and do it tommorrow.

Another "murderer" goes free
 

On Friday, another man convicted of murder after confessing was released from prison after DNA evidence revealed that he did not commit the crime. I wonder how many of you here would have pulled the switch and killed Mr. Bell?

From the Chicago Tribune:

Bell, 25, was charged with the July 2000 murder of his mother, Netta, after he made a videotaped confession in which he said he stabbed her to death because she had resumed her cocaine habit.

Bell, who is mildly mentally retarded and has a long history of mental illness, said in court documents that he confessed because police hit him so hard that he was knocked off a chair and because he grew weary and hopeless after being in custody for more than two days.

He said he believed that once in front of a judge he could explain that he was innocent and the judge would set him free. Instead, he was prosecuted and jailed.

Cook County prosecutors dropped charges Friday after a final round of DNA testing failed to link him to the crime. Instead, the tests have connected another man already in jail for a crime similar to Netta Bell's murder. That man, prosecutors said, remains under investigation, although he has not been charged in Netta Bell's murder.

One of Bell's lawyers, Herschella Conyers, said videotaping the interrogations that produce confessions is a crucial step in preventing false admissions.

"You can't not tape the 50 hours of denials, and not tape the time the police strike someone in the head, and not tape the way the person is coached into saying whatever he says, and then only flip on the camera for the actual confession," said Conyers of the University of Chicago's Mandel Legal Aid Clinic.

"You have to tape everything that leads up to it."

According to Geller's study of departments that tape interrogations, it cuts down on claims of coercion and abuse and often leads to guilty pleas because a videotape of an interrogation and confession is powerful evidence.