Aren't some crimes so heinous, so horrific, so tragic and devastating for the families effected that the convicted perpetrator should be killed in the quickest means possible?
Jay Jones of Virginia's House of Delegates said this:
"The death penalty is the direct descendant of lynching. It is state-sponsored racism, and we have an opportunity to end this today"
Again about race.
What about some white piece of trash who abducts and sexually assaults children? What about some white scum drug addict who kills an elderly couple in a home invasion?
Makes no difference to me, and should make no difference to the court or the state. Some people's actions require they be put to death as the only acceptable form of punishment.
If OJ Simpson was just a plain black dude who couldn't afford a great lawyer he'd be dead.
imo it's about having enough cash to afford a good defense vs a public defender
If OJ Simpson was just a plain black dude who couldn't afford a great lawyer he'd be dead.
imo it's about having enough cash to afford a good defense vs a public defender
i mean though do you feel thats right?
“just hoping the mass murders in Atlanta & Boulder don’t portend another uptick”
since then...
2 dead 9 wounded in Virginia Beach shooting
teenager shot dead near her school in Virginia
Penn. woman shot dead after road rage incident in North Carolina
-
that area is a hotbed of redneck intolerance & extremist fanaticism - maybe the violence can be contained there
still a troubling trend occurring
@stephen I remember a close friend who was black ( he is dead now) and I were walking to our cars after a day of work and one of the shapely office girls, a pretty redhead, was ahead of us and my friend said " I'm tired of dreaming about her. Let's grab her and take her into those woods"! I said okay let's. Then he said " No Blackey you would get 30 years in the pen for that and since I'm black they would execute me!".
I've never forgotten that.
But in cases where it's clear and no doubt the white guy in Atlanta killed those women in the massage parlors, or the Muslim in Boulder indeed killed 10 people in a supermarket or the white guy killed Jews in a house of worship etc my feeling is they should be executed. But in cases where it's not clear and there is some doubt, life is best. Someone could be innocent and the poor and minorities could end up executed when they are innocent.
I don't want any wrongly convicted person put to death - I get that concern and travesty.
That doesn't change that some people, where you know they did it...like the Boulder King Soopers shooter. Or the Boston Marathon bombers - why anyone would want to keep those people alive is beyond me. I'm all for cruel and unusual punishment for these types, but I know we can't do that. Just make it quick and simple then and get it over with.
I don't see capital punishment as any kind of problem in and of itself, any problem falls within the judicial system where by a rich man can get off and a poor man gets convicted. Or we have coerced confessions. For death penalty, I have always thought it should be reserved for cases where it's really beyond any shadow of doubt, guilty and then death penalty guilty. Legally, guilty is guilty - but some cases there are some questions, some grounds for appeal and potentially retrial. I don't want those individuals put to death. But in opened - closed cases, with direct video or DNA evidence, cell phone communications - things that directly 100% connect them to their crimes, in these cases, some people just need gotten rid of. I don't get this 'fight' to repeal capital punishment and how when a state like Virginia does this it is celebrated in certain circles.
Just read your post robertdee. Looks like we are on the same page.
Never mind that I don't believe a civilized society should be executing felons, but the fallibility of the justice system is reason enough to abolish capital punishment. One innocent person on death row is one too many.
The Innocence Project has proved that some cops put blinders on when working a case and just want to turn a red case over black and file it away. Some prosecutors just want a conviction, and as long as your defense is dependent on wealth (which unfortunately is traditionally stacked against minorities), capital punishment is cruel and unusual.
@stephen I remember a close friend who was black ( he is dead now) and I were walking to our cars after a day of work and one of the shapely office girls, a pretty redhead, was ahead of us and my friend said " I'm tired of dreaming about her. Let's grab her and take her into those woods"! I said okay let's. Then he said " No Blackey you would get 30 years in the pen for that and since I'm black they would execute me!".
I've never forgotten that.
But in cases where it's clear and no doubt the white guy in Atlanta killed those women in the massage parlors, or the Muslim in Boulder indeed killed 10 people in a supermarket or the white guy killed Jews in a house of worship etc my feeling is they should be executed. But in cases where it's not clear and there is some doubt, life is best. Someone could be innocent and the poor and minorities could end up executed when they are innocent.
X2 - the old saying, “better a man go free on our misjudgment, than pay for something he didn’t do” holds much water imo
Mark David Chapman, John hinkley, Dylan roof, kip kinkel, Catrina Costello - when they’re caught red handed & the evidence is incontrovertible such as in these cases ... I support execution, promptly carried out - by their choice, they’ve forfeited their right to due process w/these crimes - & I’m a pretty sympathetic person too
To expand further on my last post- Some people deserve to die, ex Timothy McKvie, Tsarnoff. On the other hand, life in prison is no picnic, and if you believe the "cause" you killed for is worth dying for, then I say life incarceration, preferably with photos of the people you killed.
Even though some people deserve to die, I don't feel comfortable killing anyone. It's a known fact that innocent people wind up on death row. It's rare, but it happens.
Finally, as my previous post and others pointed out, justice is NOT blind. Punishment, trial, and conviction are not as fair as they should be.
So even though some people deserve to die I'm against the death penalty.
Never mind that I don't believe a civilized society should be executing felons, but the fallibility of the justice system is reason enough to abolish capital punishment. One innocent person on death row is one too many.
The Innocence Project has proved that some cops put blinders on when working a case and just want to turn a red case over black and file it away. Some prosecutors just want a conviction, and as long as your defense is dependent on wealth (which unfortunately is traditionally stacked against minorities), capital punishment is cruel and unusual.
This^
One mistake is one too many and there have been way more than one mistake. Not to mention intentional malfeasance.
Guess this is where I say I've worked pro bono for The Innocence Project for 25 years to free the wrongfully convicted. There's no question that for many of the reasons stated - DNA that was never taken & was "lost" or "misnamed," inadequate defenses, eyewitness misindentification, coerced "confessions," and flat out wrong interpretation of scientific evidence - puts innocent people behind bars for rape & murder (those are the only cases taken.) It's a long, slow process to get someone out for a wrongful conviction; no one - cops, DAs, victims - want to admit they were wrong. There are hundreds of innocent people behind bars in this country & that is NOT acceptable to me. I'm in the "better to let 10 guilty men go free than imprison 1 innocent man" camp.
Some of the convicted mentioned in this thread have lingered on death row for years. Some have actual mental illness and have spent their sentence in a psych hospital. Who goes where? Depends on a state "expert" or panel of "experts" whose competence is questionable.
In hindsight, we learn that horrific crimes were NOT committed by those everyone was CERTAIN had - The Scottsboro "Boys," Scottsboro Boys of the North aka the Trenton 6, and the Central Park 5. All were exonerated (some posthumously) and the actual perpetrators were tried. The only reason some of them were still alive is their appeals took 20 years.
I have no problem with the death penalty, especially when the evidence of an extremely heinous crime is overwhelming or for repeat offenders of particular heinous crimes. I do think that it is particularly important though that there is absolutely zero doubt of the guilt of the accused and not just "beyond a reasonable doubt."
2112 just touched on my feelings. When I said earlier that there is "guilty" and then there is "death penalty guilty". Beyond a reasonable doubt and zero doubt. It seems strange to say it like that, because if you convict guilty, then you are saying they did it and if they did it then the punishment is all their's.
However, I acknowledge and has been fairly and accurately pointed out here that not every guilty person did it and I don't want an innocent man or woman in prison and surely would never want to have them put to death and I think great lengths should be gone to make sure that doesn't happen, or it gets corrected before it is too late.
Then, there are the other set of people, where the evidence is so strong and so air tight and so convincing, some of those people shouldn't to be breathing the air the rest of us do.
So rather than ban the death penalty to protect the lives of those who might have been wrongly convicted, I would like to refine the death penalty criteria to narrow it down to the ones that most certainly are guilty and very much deserve to be killed for their offenses.
I understand your philosophy & the 2-tier standard you'd like to see. Louisiana tried it w/marriage - marriage & covenant marriage, making divorce harder for those who choose covenant marriage.
However, the entire criminal legal system is that although the prosecutor's job is to "find the truth," the only standard to be met is "beyond (don't forget that term) a reasonable doubt." [Johnny Cochran was very eloquent in his closing statement to OJ's jury - it's not doubt, some doubt, or even reasonable doubt; it's beyond a reasonable doubt.] There isn't "zero doubt." Every state sets its own standards for the death penalty. There can't be "zero doubt" as long as humans w/their own agendas are involved in the process - everyone from victims, investigators, defense lawyers, district attorneys, juries, judges, & appeals court judges.
I use the Central Park Five as an example. Everyone, including the public fueled by the media, believed there was zero doubt about the perpetrators. There were calls for the death penalty to be reinstated just for these guys the crime was so heinous. What if that had happened? Five innocent guys would be dead. A decade later, the actual perpetrator confessed. The now-retired prosecutor, who at the time had designs on higher office & this conviction made her a star, admitted to not disclosing evidence that would have provided significant doubt. Cops admitted to coercing confessions. Other cops who saw that coercion remained silent. Other avenues of investigation stopped. DNA evidence didn't match ANY of the 5 & was withheld. And that's just some of the story. People w/agendas made everyone believe these guys were absolutely guilty. Sure, the convicted men received compensation from the state for their years of wrongful incarceration, but they could've been killed by the state.
Life w/o possibility of parole works for me.
There will always be a spectrum of doubt and different people will have different opinions on where to draw it. Just beyond your Dahmers, there will always be someone in a dark shade of grey that 99% of people think is absolutely guilty. There will always be human error and prejudice in the process, and the line drawn between "absolute" and questionable will always be grey.
I would like to refine the death penalty criteria to narrow it down to the ones that most certainly are guilty and very much deserve to be killed for their offenses.
This sounds more like retribution than justice.
@cyclone, thank you and I understand. To the naked eye, I see, we see, some people who most certainly did what they did. Take the Dylan Roof example. I want that piece of shit dead. But I understand in the eyes of the legal process there are several ways the system can go off the tracks in cases and tragic grave mistakes can be made with outcomes that can't be reversed. Dead is dead.
I get it. I just wish there was a way that when we really did actually know that the death penalty could be used for those people's punishment. You, and others have explained why that isn't at all easy in most cases.
Some of the things you mention about the Central Park 5, that DNA didn't match and was withheld - that is outrageous and inexcusable. The prosecutor had evidence that created significant doubt yet it was not disclosed.
We all want guilty people found guilty and innocent people found innocent. Unfortunately it's not an easy task.
Someone like Dylan Roof is a domestic terrorist - a self-described Nazi who intended to start a race war by killing the black church attendees. He did receive the death penalty in federal court and 9 sentences of life without parole in state court.
That's where a line can be drawn. Treason - rarely used - is punishable by death.
like the recent case in Minneapolis, the case I was a juror on was two parts. We found him guilty of multiple murders. Then came the sentencing phase where we were to consider evidence not given in the trial that might have been prejudicial in our considering the verdict.
Some of the jury were willing to go life w/o parole until we were presented recordings of his sessions with the shrinks assigned to the case, and he not only confessed to the killings, said why he did them, and proclaimed he was caught before he was through.
Yes, the defendant was a black male, but, the first comment when we retired back to the jury room was from a young black female. I'm not going to repeat her comment, but she was the first to cast a vote for the death penalty, with all votes counted after an older black male said he had to pray on it first.
The vote was unanimous, the jury was polled, and all stood by the verdict and penalty.
Yeah, he really deserved to die, and did in March of 1985.
You should see the reactions when I'm called for jury duty and asked have I ever served on a jury and what was the outcome.
I'm sure the prosecutors want you!!!
I was told by a Bibb County DA that they know I'm going to be excused by the defense, but they love the drama. One of the Bailiffs told me that almost all of them in the courthouse want to be outside the doors when I get up. They hated it when I moved to Houston County, but now I get letters from the US
District Court of Middle Ga.
There will always be a spectrum of doubt and different people will have different opinions on where to draw it. Just beyond your Dahmers, there will always be someone in a dark shade of grey that 99% of people think is absolutely guilty. There will always be human error and prejudice in the process, and the line drawn between "absolute" and questionable will always be grey.
I would like to refine the death penalty criteria to narrow it down to the ones that most certainly are guilty and very much deserve to be killed for their offenses.
This sounds more like retribution than justice.
Probably is. And I am fine with that.
There will always be a spectrum of doubt and different people will have different opinions on where to draw it. Just beyond your Dahmers, there will always be someone in a dark shade of grey that 99% of people think is absolutely guilty. There will always be human error and prejudice in the process, and the line drawn between "absolute" and questionable will always be grey.
I would like to refine the death penalty criteria to narrow it down to the ones that most certainly are guilty and very much deserve to be killed for their offenses.
This sounds more like retribution than justice.
Probably is. And I am fine with that.
And I think the penalty should be in the manner they committed the crime.
The Alday family was one of the most grewsome acts done to mankind.
the-line-up.com/alday-murders
Check youtube for "The Alday Family Murders"
These fellows deserved to die. They admitted to it, made stars in the news "specials".
Convictions overturned due to unfavorable publicity, new trials in a different county.
I, like many others still get pissed about the whole thing.
why anyone would want to keep those people alive is beyond me.
For many, like myself, we oppose it because it's not what Jesus would do. It goes against the Christian faith to kill as punishment.
And I think the penalty should be in the manner they committed the crime.
I think that's almost as twisted as the crime itself. The state, the People, are above this.
And I think the penalty should be in the manner they committed the crime.
I think that's almost as twisted as the crime itself. The state, the People, are above this.
If they thought it was the proper way to kill someone, why should we think it's "cruel and unusual" to do the same to them?
Because the state has an obligation to follow the constitutional rights granted by the 8th Amendment.
@jerry Sorry but that makes no sense. The people who commit such crimes are deranged, and the assumption is the jury and the state are not. The system fails if those sitting in judgement are just as sick. Even the worst of us are protected from torture.
If we know they did it, we should watch them burn and get them out of here.
