And that’s what executions are for.
I don’t want to pay to feed and house Ted Bundy or Richard Speck or Dean Corll.
Dean’s pal did us a favor and killed him. Florida did us a favor and killed Bundy. But we’re still paying for Speck’s room and board.
I didn’t say the courts are ignoring it. I said it’s not right for them to. I’m glad they don’t.
And yes, I do care that execution is being wrongly and unfairly applied. I’ve said so. I’ve also said I’d rather have the whole thing stopped right now and severely limit how it can be used before it’s re-instated.
It’s still damn expensive to keep someone in prison for life, and it gets more expensive as they get older.
I don’t mind paying for appeals to make sure justice is done.
I do mind paying to put food in the bellies of people like Rolling, Gacey, and Ramirez.
There are limits, obviously.
But to say that the victims’ families – who are also victims, mind you! – should not be considered… that’s outrageous!
You appear to have sympathy only for the wrong people.
I don’t think this is correct. I’ve done bad stuff to other people in the past, but I can empathize with them (and indeed, after I realized what I’d done, I felt bad). But sometimes people just don’t take the time to think. Or figure that what they’re doing, while wrong, won’t make any victims.
It’s true, though, that this may not be true of the kinds of crimes for which people seem to advocate the death penalty (mostly murder I believe).
This is why, while I believe judges should have discretion when imposing sentences in order to make them fit the offender and the particular crime, I’m not sure I want the victim or their family to have any say in the process. What we’re doing is expressing society’s condemnation of someone’s actions (and attempting to rehabilitate them, etc.) I don’t know why I should get a higher sentence if my victim wants to kill me, and a lower one if he/she thinks I haven’t done anything wrong in the first place.
I agree completely with this. Victim impact statements and the like should be removed entirely from the system. The most pointless part of the last case I was on a jury for was the family talking about how he used to do the bills and was a great guy etc. Please just stick with the facts that are available and stop trying to play on emotion!
Then you don’t have a quote saying anything like what was claimed.
Regards,
Shodan
Part of why we punish people who commit crimes is to provide a measure of personal vengeance. It keeps those who are victims from seeking their own vengeance. If the victim thinks they have input into the sentence, they are less likely to think that their need for retribution has not been addressed.
As to the OP: I do not think we should put people to death. What is wrong for individuals (killing humans) is wrong for the state as a whole. Yes, I’m aware that’s an overly simplistic way of looking at it (you can, for example, choose to see the death penalty as a state-wide extension of the right to kill in self-defense). But I believe that, of all of the laws we cherish as being basic, the admonition not to kill except in the most extreme of needs is so fundamentally important to follow, that I see no reason to allow us as a society to violate it, especially when there are other, albeit expensive, ways of dealing.
In my 30 years of crime free above average life I have walked around Detroit at least once a week and I don't think we have an issue that you would need to compare it to the streets of 16th century London or 16th century Genoa or Florence or Barcelona in an effort to push forth your capital punishment agenda. All your responses have been harsh, simple, shouts of angst where you even said it would be okay to kill innocent people to try and quell threat of danger from people who haven't even committed the crime yet. By your own ridiculous methodology, you would be susceptible for the death penalty being an innocent or guilty.This New Yorker article is pretty long, but well worth reading and thinking about.
You understand that it costs a great deal more to keep somebody on death row for 10 years than to imprison them for life, yes?
Yes, I do.
But cost is not the only issue. It’s what you’re paying for.
I don’t mind paying $1,000 for a good guitar. I do mind paying $20 for bad strings.
By the same token, I don’t mind paying to make sure justice is done before executing someone. On the other hand, I do mind paying to keep someone fed, clothed, housed, and medicated who has tortured a dozen girls to death.
Comparing the raw costs of those 2 very different items is irrelevant.
I haven’t seen it mentioned in this thread yet, but I have a question for all those with an itchy trigger finger just waiting for positive DNA evidence. What about the fact that DNA evidence can be fabricated?
Oh my god. That is so wrong on so many levels. What I have the most difficulty understanding or accepting is that so many people in the system don’t seem to care whether they may be railroading the innocent. I would think that in the case where your decisions and actions may result in the death of innocent people (and further, justice eluded), you would take it more seriously than the original defense attorney and clemency board seem to have taken that case.
The Texas criminal justice system is so fucking broke it’s utterly nauseating. I’m sickened.
Why just point fingers at Texas? Do we need to come up with examples like this from all the states that have the death penalty before we can say “this has to stop”?
Evidently so? I wish it wasn’t the case, but I don’t see enough people “shouting from the rooftops” to stop the atrocities. Of course, you have to ignore the people protesting outside the prisons, but that’s easy enough for a black-robed visionary to do.
Yipes. That is indeed worth reading.
Something that’s near the end of davidw’s New Yorker article should be mentioned. Actually, it’s deserving of its own thread. Cameron Willingham’s case was one of the two first to be investigated by the relatively newly formed Texas Forensic Science Commission, a state agency formed by the legislature to investigate professional negligence and misconduct in criminal cases. To that end they hired arson investigator Craig Beyler to conduct an independent investigation into the arson evidence presented at Willingham’s trial. His report has been due any day now for months, so I check periodically to see if it’s been completed. It came out last Tuesday.
Cameron Todd Willingham case: Expert says fire for which father was executed was not arson.
Bear in mind this is not just some random guy, this is the expert the State of Texas hired to conduct an investigation on its behalf. Should be an interesting Texas Monthly article next month.
It seems when a murder happens, some people will not be satisfied until a person gives up their life for the crime. It would appear that it does not have to be the guilty one. Just someone who they think is bad enough to deserve to die anyway.