Hope rising in US for national death penalty ban

[daniel green]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090326...ecutionjustice

YES, WE CAN!

[Susan43]

Originally Posted by daniel green

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090326...ecutionjustice

YES, WE CAN!

I am entirely for this change, but it must come with a caveat that every state has life without parole so that evil people have no chance of ever getting out.

But I am firmly against the death penalty.

[dinojen]

NO WE CAN'T..
I'm not a big fan of the death penalty... but some that commit these deadly crimes are just evil and deserve to be put to death.

I just watched the funeral of four police officers today that were gunned down by a parolee. Seven kids are now fatherless... It wasn't enough that he shot them.. he had to go and shoot them one more time execution style to make sure they were dead before running off to hide.

While in hiding.. he shot through a door that he was hiding behind and killed two more officers... before the swat team finally got him.

Now you tell me... if he had survived..this monster deserved to live his life in prison on the taxpayers dollar... I don't think so.

There are some cases... where the death penalty totally fits.. and should not be delayed.. if this monster would not of been killed this would of been one of them.

JMVHO

[daniel green]

It's way past time that we stop being in the company of the remaining countries which allow this practice, such the Congo, Angola, Lybia and Iran.

[daniel green]

Originally Posted by dinojen

Now you tell me... if he had survived..this monster deserved to live his life in prison on the taxpayers dollar... I don't think so.

snipped

It is so much more expensive, to the taxpayers, to have the death penalty.

Not to mention the number of innocent folks who have sat in death row for decades before being exonerated.

[dinojen]

Yeah... we need to care for these people for the rest of their lives after they have snuffed out others...for no reason.. NOT...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090328/...rial_shootings

I agree there have been some injustices done with the death penalty but when it is as clear cut as some are as the link above.... I have no problem with it..

JMVHO

[daniel green]

The death penalty diverts resources from genuine crime control measures. Spending money on the death penalty system means:
Reducing the resources available for crime prevention, mental health treatment, education and rehabilitation, meaningful victims' services, and drug treatment programs. Diverting it from existing components of the criminal justice system, such as prosecutions of drug crimes, domestic violence, and child abuse.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-pena....do?id=1101084

[Susan43]

Originally Posted by Spectra

I hope the death penalty is banned. The way I look at it is, if a heinous murderer is executed, in a way we are giving him an early release. Also, some convicted are innocent and others not given a fair trial resulting in more people of color being convicted because of prejudice in the system.

It seems to me that locking someone up in a small cell for the rest of their lives with few or no privileges is actually more punishment then killing them.

[daniel green]

I was very happy to see New Mexico (news story in the OP link) ban the death penalty.

[dinojen]

Originally Posted by daniel green

It is so much more expensive, to the taxpayers, to have the death penalty.

Not to mention the number of innocent folks who have sat in death row for decades before being exonerated.

Not a good night Daniel to go down the road of innocence with me Daniel..if Mixon had lived.. I would of volunteered to pull the plug. What he did was inhumane.. and there was no chance he would of been exonerated.. He killed FOUR FATHERS in a matter of 2 hours...and for that he should deserve to live just in case he could be exonerated.. I don't think so...
There are exceptions to every rule... and this guy and the guy I provided the link for in Arizona are a perfect example.

[YoYo]

There are people who earned the death penalty. John Couey comes to mind. MO

[daniel green]

Putting someone in prison or the death penalty is not done as punishment. That's never been it.

It's done to isolate an individual from society so that he/she cannot do x,y,z TO society again. Whether for a month, a year, a lifetime or with the death penalty.

[Susan43]

Originally Posted by dinojen

Yeah... we need to care for these people for the rest of their lives after they have snuffed out others...for no reason.. NOT...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090328/...rial_shootings

I agree there have been some injustices done with the death penalty but when it is as clear cut as some are as the link above.... I have no problem with it..

JMVHO

There have been 234 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/351.php

There is no doubt in my mind that we have executed innocent people. Our system is so far from perfect that to support the death penalty in the face of all the evidence about convicting innocent people just seems very, very wrong to me.

[daniel green]

Originally Posted by dinojen

Not a good night Daniel to go down the road of innocence with me Daniel..snipped.

There is no denying the fact that innocent ppl have sat on death row in the US for lifetimes, decades, some have been put to death.

That is a fact.

There is nothing personal about this, nor aimed toward you or anyone anymore than saying the sky is blue or the sun rose this morning. Those are the facts.

[Susan43]

Originally Posted by daniel green

Putting someone in prison or the death penalty is not done as punishment. That's never been it.

It's done to isolate an individual from society so that he/she cannot do x,y,z TO society again. Whether for a month, a year, a lifetime or with the death penalty.

Personally I have no problem punishing people that do horrible things and I can't think of a worse punishment then life without parole. Years and years of knowing the world is going on without you, and people enjoying themselves while you are locked up. I'm all for that.

[daniel green]

Originally Posted by Susan43

There have been 234 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.

snipped.

And most of those since 2000. And those are just the ones which the InnocenceProject or other such projects were able to fund and investigate.

The thousands of innocent ppl who are sitting in death row as we speak without such assistance or the right and/or money to fund such or pay for DNA tests?

[YoYo]

There is no denying the fact that John Couey buried Jessica Lunsford alive. The sob deserves to die regardless of how much it may cost. There are others.

MO

[daniel green]

Originally Posted by Susan43

Personally I have no problem punishing people that do horrible things and I can't think of a worse punishment then life without parole. Years and years of knowing the world is going on without you, and people enjoying themselves while you are locked up. I'm all for that.

I am not into punishment. Just don't do it.

Having worked in the justice system for so long, I do think that a number of ppl are just too dangerous to be out in society. But I do think that mental health and substance abuse treatment could be used effectively in about 80% of the cases where ppl are locked up for long stretches of time.

[dinojen]

Originally Posted by Spectra

Did you read the article. It said that death sentences can be up to 10 times more expensive than life. The extended appeals procedures are very costly. It will save taxpayer dollars to keep them in prision for the rest of their lives instead of executing them.

In obvious cases... do away with the appeals... cut the costs.. they are senseless anyway... year after year after year when you know the result of the appeal..

Heck what's it matter... California is letting loose thousands anyway because of overcrowding.. no room at the inn... wonder how many of them will return.

The whole system needs to be overhauled.

I'll be the first to admit there have been some huge mistakes .. people sitting on death row that didn't belong there... but there are also some that it's a done deal.. flat out right.. they did what they did.. no appeal.. say night night goodbye. Sounds cold yes... but that's the way I feel right now.. JMVHO

[daniel green]

Originally Posted by Spectra

Did you read the article. It said that death sentences can be up to 10 times more expensive than life. The extended appeals procedures are very costly. It will save taxpayer dollars to keep them in prision for the rest of their lives instead of executing them.

The greatest costs associated with the death penalty occur prior to and during trial, not in post-conviction proceedings. Even if all post-conviction proceedings (appeals) were abolished, the death penalty would still be more expensive than alternative sentences.

Trials in which the prosecutor is seeking a death sentence have two separate and distinct phases: conviction (guilt/innocence) and sentencing. Special motions and extra time for jury selection typically precede such trials. More investigative costs are generally incurred in capital cases, particularly by the prosecution. When death penalty trials result in a verdict less than death or are reversed, taxpayers first incur all the extra costs of capital pretrial and trial proceedings and must then also pay either for the cost of incarcerating the prisoner for life or the costs of a retrial (which often leads to a life sentence).

In California the current sytem costs $137 million per year; it would cost $11.5 million for a system without the death penalty.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-pena....do?id=1101084

[daniel green]

Originally Posted by dinojen

In obvious cases... do away with the appeals... cut the costs.. they are senseless anyway... year after year after year when you know the result of the appeal..

snipped

Even if all post-conviction proceedings (appeals) were abolished, the death penalty would still be more expensive than alternative sentences.

And we just can't chuck post conviction appeals. That is, what's the word I'm looking for, unconstitutional.

[daniel green]

Thank YOU, Spectra! Can you tell it's the thing about which I most passionate?

Ninety-five percent of death row inmates cannot afford their own attorney. Court-appointed attorneys often lack the experience necessary for capital trials and are overworked and underpaid. In the most extreme cases, some have slept through parts of trials or have arrived under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.

Prosecutors seek the death penalty far more frequently when the victim of a homicide is white than when the victim is African-American or of another ethnic/racial origin.

Co-defendants charged with committing the same crime often receive different punishments, where one defendant may receive a death sentence while another receives prison time.

Approximately two percent of those convicted of crimes that make them eligible for the death penalty actually receive a death sentence.

Each prosecutor decides whether or not to seek the death penalty. Local politics, the location of the crime, plea bargaining, and pure chance affect the process and make it a lottery of who lives and who dies.

GEOGRAPHIC ARBITRARINESS: Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 80% of all executions have taken place in the South. The Northeast accounts for less than 2% of executions.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-pena....do?id=1101083


"Twenty years have passed since this Court declared that the death penalty must be imposed fairly, and with reasonable consistency, or not at all, and, despite the effort of the states and courts to devise legal formulas and procedural rules to meet this daunting challenge, the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice, and mistake."– U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, February 22, 1994

[dinojen]

Originally Posted by Poster Guy3

Considering that BO backs the dp for child rapists, it is unlikely that is going to happen.

At least I agree with him on someting.


http://www.boston.com/news/politics/...backs_dea.html

You and me both... oh by the way... Mixon.. the killer of four cops.. his DNA has also been linked definately to a rape of a 12 year old.. and they are investigating four more that could be him also... but nahhhh.. this guy wouldn't deserve the death penalty.. like his sister said.. he's not a monster.. he just killed four cops and raped a 12 year old..

If he wouldn't of been killed we could keep him warm and fuzzy in CA for the rest of his life.. NOT...

[Susan43]

Originally Posted by ABC

Once again Susan, we agree. Are we progressives, liberal, moderates, conservatives or what? Or none of these things and just sensiable?

LOL I vote for sensible. I think some things transcends politics.

[dinojen]

Originally Posted by Poster Guy3

Do not get me started on that creep. Did you see those marches?

They accused the OPD of genocide.... and this guy if he hadn't been killed..deserved life without parole.. not in my book...

I'm just thankful his march got almost zilch publicity...and hopefully his memorial won't either..

[daniel green]

Originally Posted by dinojen

snipped
If he wouldn't of been killed we could keep him warm and fuzzy in CA for the rest of his life.. NOT...

Statements such as this preclude any meaningful discussion of the topic.

[fiver]

Originally Posted by dinojen

NO WE CAN'T..
I'm not a big fan of the death penalty... but some that commit these deadly crimes are just evil and deserve to be put to death.

snipped
JMVHO

I'm the same. LWOP would be plenty punishment for most cases, but the worst of the worst, which is what the death penalty is supposed to be applied to, really do "deserve" to die for their crimes.

Originally Posted by YoYo

There is no denying the fact that John Couey buried Jessica Lunsford alive. The sob deserves to die regardless of how much it may cost. There are others.

MO

I agree, YoYo. Some people just need to be dead and let God figure out what to do with them. JMO.

Originally Posted by forensicpsy~

Which innocent people have been put to death?

Good question, forensicpsy. I'd like to see the answer to that as well.

[fiver]

Originally Posted by daniel green

Putting someone in prison or the death penalty is not done as punishment. That's never been it.

It's done to isolate an individual from society so that he/she cannot do x,y,z TO society again. Whether for a month, a year, a lifetime or with the death penalty.

What?

See the title of Amendment V of the Constitution. Also see Amendment VIII and prior repeals of the death penalty as being "cruel and unusual punishment"

Putting someone in prison or giving them the death penalty is to make them "pay for their crime" and to protect society from the individual. It's punishment for breaking the law, in every sense of the word.

[daniel green]

The philosophy towards incarceration and its purpose has shifted from one of rehabilitation between the turn of the century and the middle of the 20th century to a philosophy of deterrence and, more recently, retribution. At one time, it seemed that prison was reserved for violent offenders who posed a threat to public safety and to those who were repeatedly convicted for felonious acts. More recently, a heightened fear of crime among the voting public coupled with economic prosperity has created a criminal justice system that imprisons persons who have never been convicted of violent crimes and who have had no prior convictions.

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~oliver/RACI...ationdraft.pdf

[daniel green]

At 2.3 million people, the United States also had the highest incarcerated population in the world, followed by China and Russia. The 2.3 million incarcerated comprise 1.5 million people held in federal or state prisons to serve sentences of longer than one year and some 766,000 people in local jails who are serving time or awaiting either trial or sentencing. The incarcerated population grew 3 percent from the previous year (2005) and has grown almost 40 percent since 1996.

http://www.hoover.org/research/facts.../16084042.html

[fiver]

Originally Posted by ohioguy44138

I don't understand how some pro-lifers can also support the death penalty.

Pro-lifers claim that every life has value and any deliberate destruction of human life is considered ethically or morally wrong and is not considered to be mitigated by any alleged benefits to others, as such benefits come at the expense of the life of a person.

And I don't understand how pro-choicers are anti-death penalty.

Seems rather hypocritical to be for ending the life of an unborn child but totally against ending the life of a convicted criminal.


But this isn't a thread about abortion.

[daniel green]

Other industrial democracies, even those with significant crime problems of their own, are much less punitive: Our incarceration rate is 6.2 times that of Canada, 7.8 times that of France, and 12.3 times that of Japan. We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined workforces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country, and we are spending some $200 billion annually on law enforcement and corrections at all levels of government, a fourfold increase (in constant dollars) over the past quarter century. Never before has a supposedly free country denied basic liberty to so many of its citizens. In June 2006 some 2.25 million people were being held in the nearly 5,000 prisons and jails that are scattered across America’s urban and rural landscapes. One-third of inmates in state prisons are violent criminals, convicted of homicide, rape, or robbery. The other two-thirds consist mainly of property and drug offenders. Inmates are disproportionately drawn from the most disadvantaged parts of society. On average, state inmates have fewer than 11 years of schooling. They are also vastly disproportionately black and brown.

http://www.thehittingstopshere.com/hsh-a6.htm

[augustus]

I'm against the death penalty and am glad some states like New Mexico and New Hampshire are moving to abolish it. We're the last of the civilized world that practices state-sanctioned killings. Even one innocent person put to death is too much, but we had several instances of wrongly executed inmates, as pointed out above.
The argument that we should execute only those that we're absolutely, positively, sure are guilty doesn't wash, imo, because when you're found guilty of a crime you're assumed to be guilty. There's no quantifying it, no degree of certainty of guilt written in our laws.

I'm also philosophically opposed because I don't believe the government should be in the business of killing its own citizens. Besides, we have seen that the death penalty doesn't really work as a deterrent as murder rates are not any lower in death penalty states.
I can understand the outrage that we all feel for such monsters as Couey, or Duncan in Idaho, who commit the most atrocious murders against defenseless children. Heck, I would have wanted to grab the guy and bury him alive like he did that little girl. But that's an emotional response to a gruesome act, it's an entirely different matter to coldly put someone to death.
LWOP is enough of a punishment and deterrent, IMO, so that we don't have to resort to barbaric acts such as those of the perpetrators.

[Casspian]

Originally Posted by daniel green

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090326...ecutionjustice

YES, WE CAN!

I hope I see the day we get rid of the death penalty!

[Casspian]

Originally Posted by ohioguy44138

Pro-choice individuals believe that a woman should have complete control over her fertility and the choice to continue or terminate a pregnancy. This entails the guarantee of reproductive rights, which includes access to sexual education; access to safe and legal abortion, contraception, and fertility treatments; and legal protection from forced abortion.

Pro-choice individuals do not consider themselves "pro-abortion" because they consider abortion an issue of bodily autonomy, and find forced abortion as legally indefensible as the outlawing of abortion.
jmo

Nice explanation!!!

[shiloh2000]

Originally Posted by dinojen

NO WE CAN'T..
I'm not a big fan of the death penalty... but some that commit these deadly crimes are just evil and deserve to be put to death.

I just watched the funeral of four police officers today that were gunned down by a parolee. Seven kids are now fatherless... It wasn't enough that he shot them.. he had to go and shoot them one more time execution style to make sure they were dead before running off to hide.

While in hiding.. he shot through a door that he was hiding behind and killed two more officers... before the swat team finally got him.

Now you tell me... if he had survived..this monster deserved to live his life in prison on the taxpayers dollar... I don't think so.

There are some cases... where the death penalty totally fits.. and should not be delayed.. if this monster would not of been killed this would of been one of them.

JMVHO

I know how you feel dinojen.

They're all for the death penalty being banned and the terrorists being set free on US soil; but love those live abortions! Something very wrong with this picture.

[shiloh2000]

Originally Posted by augustus

I'm against the death penalty and am glad some states like New Mexico and New Hampshire are moving to abolish it. We're the last of the civilized world that practices state-sanctioned killings. Even one innocent person put to death is too much, but we had several instances of wrongly executed inmates, as pointed out above.
The argument that we should execute only those that we're absolutely, positively, sure are guilty doesn't wash, imo, because when you're found guilty of a crime you're assumed to be guilty. There's no quantifying it, no degree of certainty of guilt written in our laws.

I'm also philosophically opposed because I don't believe the government should be in the business of killing its own citizens. Besides, we have seen that the death penalty doesn't really work as a deterrent as murder rates are not any lower in death penalty states.
I can understand the outrage that we all feel for such monsters as Couey, or Duncan in Idaho, who commit the most atrocious murders against defenseless children. Heck, I would have wanted to grab the guy and bury him alive like he did that little girl. But that's an emotional response to a gruesome act, it's an entirely different matter to coldly put someone to death.
LWOP is enough of a punishment and deterrent, IMO, so that we don't have to resort to barbaric acts such as those of the perpetrators.

We are? Tell that to Iran and those countries where they still cut off a hand if you steal and a head if you change religions.

[shiloh2000]

Originally Posted by ohioguy44138

Pro-choice individuals believe that a woman should have complete control over her fertility and the choice to continue or terminate a pregnancy. This entails the guarantee of reproductive rights, which includes access to sexual education; access to safe and legal abortion, contraception, and fertility treatments; and legal protection from forced abortion.

Pro-choice individuals do not consider themselves "pro-abortion" because they consider abortion an issue of bodily autonomy, and find forced abortion as legally indefensible as the outlawing of abortion.
jmo

Complete control over her fertility.

Can we spell birth control?