Damn murderers!

[Starving_Artist]

@mhendo

Starving Artist argues history and public policy based on personal anecdote. News at 11.Talk about begging the question.

Not quite. There’s a difference between supporting your arguments with personal anecdote and “basing” your arguments on personal anecdote. What I did was the former. I’m surprised that as an educator this distinction was lost on you.

@mhendo

I never suggested that drugs are currently legal, and i’m well aware that those who currently use and deal them do so in the knowledge that getting caught might lead to conviction and incarceration. The very point of my argument was that many practices that are currently illegal should not be illegal.

So what? If you think that, then gather up a bunch of like-minded dolts and get the laws changed. Until that time, if you want to be dealing drugs (and fucking up people’s lives) then you can expect to go to jail if you’re caught.

@mhendo

I assume that you can understand the difference between the two arguments “This thing is legal” and “This thing is currently illegal, but should not be illegal”?
I too believe that if you break the law, you deserve the consequences. The point of my argument is that i differ from you on what should be against the law, and what the specific consequences should be. Even you can probably understand that concept.

Certainly. I can also understand the concept that law is meaningless if everyone gets to decide for themselves which laws to obey and which ones they get to break. This is another thing which as an instructor I’m surprised you don’t already know.

@mhendo

And your stupidity is related less to your membership of some broader social group than it is to your own personal shortcomings. I don’t hold anyone else responsible for those.

I don’t think I’m the one looking stupid in this exchange, chum.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Brown_Eyed_Girl

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that there were allegations of police coercion given the fact that the police had a piece of physical evidence excluded from the trial due to improper search and seizure by threatening to break down Davis’ mother’s door. Coulter conveniently left that out, too. Probably because it’s not such a jump to conclude from those actions that the police had already decided who was guilty long before the trial ever started and failed to investigate any other possibilities.

To me that argues against Davis. For broader reasons, the legal system has to exclude improperly obtained evidence, so as to discourage the practice, but in reality it does have a bearing on his guilt. So while the legal system can’t consider this evidence, for others contemplating whether in fact an innocent man was executed, this type of evidence is fair game.

[Starving_Artist]

@Brown_Eyed_Girl

It’s kind of hard to take someone seriously who characterizes the appeals process as “legal shenanigans.” It’s especially appalling coming from an officer of the court.

Would you prefer the term “smoke and mirrors,” which is how one of Davis’ appeal judges characterized his attorney’s efforts to get him off the hook.

Those “legal shenanigans” are constitutionally mandated checks on criminal justice system…
[/quote]
Not if they’re bogus, they aren’t. They may be allowed, but I’m confident the Constitution didn’t have in mind that attorney’s make shit up out of whole cloth to try to get their obviously guilty clients set free.

@Brown_Eyed_Girl

As to the honesty of her assessment, she makes a point to note that 34 witnesses testified against Davis carefully implying that most of those witnesses were eyewitnesses, but omitting the fact that they were not all eyewitness, but included police and forensic investigators. The media, she charges, is misleading the public by reporting on only nine eyewitnesses, seven of whom recanted their testimonies.

You may have inferred that she implied all 34 witnesses were eyewitnesses but I didn’t get that impression. Instead I got the impression that several of the witnesses knew Davis beforehand and that three Airmen watched him kill the officer from their vantange point at the drive-through window, one of whom said afterward that you don’t forget someone when they stand over a person and shoot him to death. There is no question that Davis was the shooter. None whatsoever.

@Brown_Eyed_Girl

Bolding mine. She knows damn well those nine witnesses the media are referring to are clarified by Amnesty International as non-police witnesses, but she leaves that out because it doesn’t fit with her narrative that seven is not a significant number compared to 34. Other media reports list them as “key” witnesses, which makes sense given there isn’t likely to have even been a trial without those witnesses.

I don’t know how “key” they were. Coulter’s version says only two were significant, and Davis’ own attorney would not let them testify because their doing so would have invalidated their own affidavits. She says one of them was even on hand and ready to testify, but was prevented by Davis’ attorney. Do you suppose she just made that up?

@Brown_Eyed_Girl

Further, while lambasting weepy liberals for their questioning of the validity of the conviction, she conveniently fails to note that former U.S. Attorney, U.S. District Judge and Chief Judge for the Western District of Texas and former FBI Director (appointed by Reagan), William S. Sessions also called for a stay of the Davis execution, not just on eyewitness recantation alone, but on multiple allegations of police coercion and lack of relevant physical evidence.

Yes, Sessions’ comments came up in the other thread. A quick reading of them made obvious that his knowledge of the case was based on inaccurate and misleading media accounts and that he had no knowledge of the details revealed at trial or set out by the 12 various appeal judges.

@Brown_Eyed_Girl

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that there were allegations of police coercion given the fact that the police had a piece of physical evidence excluded from the trial due to improper search and seizure by threatening to break down Davis’ mother’s door. Coulter conveniently left that out, too. Probably because it’s not such a jump to conclude from those actions that the police had already decided who was guilty long before the trial ever started and failed to investigate any other possibilities.

Oh, come on. People who knew Davis personally pegged him as the killer from the very get-go. Obviously the police knew who they were looking for and were concerned he would either get away or harm someone else.

@Brown_Eyed_Girl

Then she concludes with the accusation that people who oppose Davis’ execution want to return “sociopathic cop killers” to the street which is pure hyperbole. The fact is that clemency is not synonymous with full pardon and release. She knows this. Among those who’ve questioned Davis’ conviction urge for a new trial or at the very least, as in Session’s position, commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment. It’s character assassination to allege that death penalty opponents prefer sociopathic killers be allowed to roam free and a misrepresentation that all of those questioning the Davis’ conviction also oppose the death penalty.

I have no quarrel with this. Coulter was clearly playing to her audience with those remarks.

@Brown_Eyed_Girl

In her defense, we all know that Coulter is just trying to make money by riling up conservatives (which is why it also doesn’t surprise me that you indulged in her particular brand of fruit punch). It’s amusing that you thought you’d have much company at her punch bowl around here, though.

I don’t care much who information comes from as long as it’s accurate. I’ll accept a cite from the Daily Kos just as readily as from Fox. If other poster’s here refuse a cite out of hand because of where it came from, that speaks worse of them than it does of me.

[mhendo]

@Starving_Artist

Not quite. There’s a difference between supporting your arguments with personal anecdote and “basing” your arguments on personal anecdote. What I did was the former. I’m surprised that as an educator this distinction was lost on you.

If you ever offered anything but personal anecdotes as evidence, this argument might have some merit.

@Starving_Artist

Certainly. I can also understand the concept that law is meaningless if everyone gets to decide for themselves which laws to obey and which ones they get to break. This is another thing which as an instructor I’m surprised you don’t already know.

If you can find a place where i suggested that we should be allowed to decide for ourselves which laws to obey and which ones to break, i’ll happily concede your point. And i don’t mean some guy, from the '60s, who made the argument to you that one time.

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

@mhendo

But, given that we know that (at least)17 people (by the Innocence Project’s count) have been exonerated by DNA evidence while on death row, we have strong evidence that innocent people can end up on death row. The only thing that prevented those 17 people being killed before the DNA evidence was tested was the slowness of the process. And a lot of people who support the death penalty also support reducing the number of appeals and the length of the appeals process.

And if 17 people seems like an exceptionally small number, consider those who don’t have the benefit of DNA evidence to be reviewed as well as those convicts for whom the Innocence Project’s limited resources cannot assist, well there’s potentially a significant number of innocent people sitting in prison, and on death row, who are unlikely to be exonerated.

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

To me that argues against Davis. For broader reasons, the legal system has to exclude improperly obtained evidence, so as to discourage the practice, but in reality it does have a bearing on his guilt. So while the legal system can’t consider this evidence, for others contemplating whether in fact an innocent man was executed, this type of evidence is fair game.

I don’t see how. Just because the police obtained something from Davis’ home that the prosecution entered as evidence, it doesn’t mean that it’s compelling evidence of the crime of murder. For all I know, it was nothing more than a pair of shorts that resembled a pair of shorts eye witnesses described.

For example, O.J. Simpson’s prosecutors got plenty of physical evidence against him admitted, but none of it evidently was compelling enough to convince that jury to convict him of murder.

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

@Starving_Artist

Would you prefer the term “smoke and mirrors,” which is how one of Davis’ appeal judges characterized his attorney’s efforts to get him off the hook.

Those “legal shenanigans” are constitutionally mandated checks on criminal justice system…

Not if they’re bogus, they aren’t. They may be allowed, but I’m confident the Constitution didn’t have in mind that attorney’s make shit up out of whole cloth to try to get their obviously guilty clients set free.

Can you be specific as to what an appeals judge would characterize as “smoke and mirrors”? It appears that the same judge noted that the evidence presented by his attorneys did cast some additional doubt on the case against him and characterized the prosecution’s case as “not iron-clad.”

Further, I see there is no accusation or evidence of impropriety on behalf of Davis’ attorneys in the appeals process, so I’m curious as to what “bogus” actions you’re referring to. Do you have evidence that Davis’ attorneys “[made] shit up out of whole cloth” which I understand is better known as lying? I’m pretty sure there are some pretty serious repercussions for that type of behavior.

You may have inferred that she implied all 34 witnesses were eyewitnesses but I didn’t get that impression.

Where do you get that I inferred she meant that 34 witnesses were all eyewitnesses? I knew exactly what she was doing. You couldn’t possibly be *that * gullible, can you? What exactly does “in full view of dozens of witnesses” mean to you? Dozens. You know, at least 24, possibly more. It was calculated to make you accept her as setting the record straight while alluding that the media wasn’t telling you the whole truth. Apparently, Ann is smarter than I thought because you fell for it. She mentions there were dozens of eyewitnesses to the shooting and then in the next paragraph she notes that there were 34 witness for the prosecution. Finally, she misrepresents media reporting on the nine non-police (or “key”) witnesses as if the media were sinisterly omitting the full story of the many people, dozens even, who witnessed the shooting. Clever.

Instead I got the impression that several of the witnesses knew Davis beforehand and that three Airmen watched him kill the officer from their vantange point at the drive-through window, one of whom said afterward that you don’t forget someone when they stand over a person and shoot him to death. There is no question that Davis was the shooter. None whatsoever.

Unless, of course, they were mistaken (which seems likely considering the verifiably incorrect, but absolute, certainty that witness had that no one forgets what a shooter looks like) or had other reasons to identify Davis as the shooter. Because *that *never happens. Nobody ever makes mistakes in reporting what they saw accurately or lies under oath for their own benefit, right?

I don’t know how “key” they were. Coulter’s version says only two were significant, and Davis’ own attorney would not let them testify because their doing so would have invalidated their own affidavits. She says one of them was even on hand and ready to testify, but was prevented by Davis’ attorney. Do you suppose she just made that up?

Right. Coulter never told you how “key” they were. Coulter wants you to believe that these few the media reported on were outliers and that the vast majority of the witnesses stood behind their testimony. Well, of course, they did. They weren’t the ones who were reportedly being coerced by the police because it’s probably kind of hard to coerce yourself. You know, the same police department who threatened to kick in Davis’ mother’s door.

Yes, Sessions’ comments came up in the other thread. A quick reading of them made obvious that his knowledge of the case was based on inaccurate and misleading media accounts and that he had no knowledge of the details revealed at trial or set out by the 12 various appeal judges.

Really? You don’t think a former FBI director and district judge reads court opinions? You think makes public statements condemning judges’ decisions based on media reports alone? That’s a bold statement. Got any evidence or is it just your opinion?

Oh, come on. People who knew Davis personally pegged him as the killer from the very get-go. Obviously the police knew who they were looking for and were concerned he would either get away or harm someone else.

Yeah, from the get-go the guy who pegged him as the killer just happened to be Redd Coles, who just happened to be the guy who was arguing with the homeless man MacPhail got involved to defend; the same guy that was originally identified by the homeless man’s girlfriend; the same guy who initially hid from police.

I don’t care much who information comes from as long as it’s accurate. I’ll accept a cite from the Daily Kos just as readily as from Fox. If other poster’s here refuse a cite out of hand because of where it came from, that speaks worse of them than it does of me.

There is plenty of doubt about this case. I’ve just discovered that even Bob Barr, former prosecutor and Republican congressman who voted to limit death penalty appeals, spoke out against the execution. What the hell is his angle, Starving?

[Cheshire_Human]

@George_Kaplin

You’re being obtuse. Derek Bentley was an English prisoner who was hanged in 1953 and posthumously pardoned in 1998…

This doesn’t work. You have presented someone who was obviously guilty, under the (at the time) existing legal standard of guilt. He was demonstrably as guilty as it gets under that standard. You instead present him as an “innocent”.

Not according to the standards of the time and place, he wasn’t. It’s a good cite for why the legal standard of guilt should be changed. It’s a sucky (REALLY sucky) example of an “innocent” wrongly executed.

Nevertheless, I disagree with Shodan and instead side with Bricker. See? All us “right-wingers” agree. We’re all monolithic, and we all agree with Palin and Perry. (NOT!).

[voltaire]

@Hamlet

Finally, the difference between murder and the carrying out a death sentence are absolutely different.

(Hamlet, I know you’re against the DP, and I mostly agree with your admonition of the hyperbole you were responding to, but this statement is useful for me to intentionally take out of context. Forgive me…)

The difference between murder and the DP is that murder is usually done out of passion, desperation, and/or derangement. The DP is by definition the most premeditated and conspiratorial form of murder possible, perversely performed by the government that is ostensibly trying to convey the message that murder is wrong. Um, yeah… they’re doing it wrong.

Obviously, I’m for abolishing the DP. But if it must remain an option, the next-of-kin of the victim should at least have the right of approval/refusal. If I had someone in my family murdered, there’s no way I would want the murderer getting the easy way out via lethal injection.

If I were ever convicted to life in prison without possibility of parole, and there was no hope of winning on appeal, I would vastly prefer the DP applied painlessly via needle.

Modern day execution methods have progressed to the point where it seems to me that life without parole with virtually solitary confinement would be a MUCH more effective deterrent and punishment.

[voltaire]

BTW, I think Troy Davis was most likely guilty, and DP opponents do a disservice to the cause by arguing about his guilt instead of just against the DP itself. The whole point is that even if he was guilty of killing someone, we still shouldn’t be killing him. Arguing his guilt is almost like conceding that execution is only wrong if the person might be innocent.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@voltaire

The difference between murder and the DP is that murder is usually done out of passion, desperation, and/or derangement. The DP is by definition the most premeditated and conspiratorial form of murder possible, perversely performed by the government that is ostensibly trying to convey the message that murder is wrong. Um, yeah… they’re doing it wrong.

How should we convey a message to kidnappers that it’s wrong to lock innocents in a cage? How should we convey a message to thieves that it’s wrong to threaten innocent people into emptying their pockets? I prefer locking 'em up, maybe fining 'em; what do you suggest?

[voltaire]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

How should we convey a message to kidnappers that it’s wrong to lock innocents in a cage? How should we convey a message to thieves that it’s wrong to threaten innocent people into emptying their pockets? I prefer locking 'em up, maybe fining 'em; what do you suggest?

A bit disingenuous, don’t you think? Murder and the DP are on a completely different level than those crimes and punishments.

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

@voltaire

BTW, I think Troy Davis was most likely guilty, and DP opponents do a disservice to the cause by arguing about his guilt instead of just against the DP itself. The whole point is that even if he was guilty of killing someone, we still shouldn’t be killing him. Arguing his guilt is almost like conceding that execution is only wrong if the person might be innocent.

To an extent I agree with this. However appalling the death penalty is to me, it’s even more disgusting to me that some people accept a margin of error in executing people who were wrongfully convicted.

It’s not my intention to argue Davis’ innocence, but rather that certainty of guilt is an illusion.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@voltaire

A bit disingenuous, don’t you think? Murder and the DP are on a completely different level than those crimes and punishments.

You think killing people fails to send the message that murder is wrong. I’m genuinely curious as to what message you think is sent when we lock up people who locked people up – in much the same way that we likewise take money from people to emphasize that it was wrong of them to take money from people. The parallel is so obvious that I find characterizing said question as disingenuous is disingenuous.

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

You think killing people fails to send the message that murder is wrong. I’m genuinely curious as to what message you think is sent when we lock up people who locked people up – in much the same way that we likewise take money from people to emphasize that it was wrong of them to take money from people. The parallel is so obvious that I find characterizing said question as disingenuous is disingenuous.

I think it fails as a deterrent for several reasons:

1. For crimes of passion, consequences are not considered before action occurs. No consideration of consequences; no deterrence.

Additionally, criminals who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol have lowered inhibitions and impaired judgment also resulting in a lack of consideration of logical consequences of their actions.

2. If the crime is premeditated, the criminal will do everything they can to avoid being caught, ergo they have convinced themselves that they can get away with murder because of their efforts to avoid detection. No conviction expected; no deterrence. Sociopaths fall into this category as well.

Further, persistent income inequality, class stratification and poverty leave youth with little potential for escaping environments filled with violence and drug abuse, as they come to accept the violent culture they live in as a norm and assimilate into it for survival.

3. People who do not kill other people do not do so because they are afraid of the death penalty but because of the social contract and their morals prohibiting killing others. No reason to kill; no deterrence.

Finally, the vast majority of evidence does not support a deterrent effect, but does present a correlation between capital punishment and brutalization.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Brown_Eyed_Girl

You think killing people fails to send the message that murder is wrong. I’m genuinely curious as to what message you think is sent when we lock up people who locked people up – in much the same way that we likewise take money from people to emphasize that it was wrong of them to take money from people. The parallel is so obvious that I find characterizing said question as disingenuous is disingenuous.

I think it fails as a deterrent for several reasons

That’s super. Just to be clear: the other guy was objecting to the message sent by killing killers, which is why I asked about the message sent by (a) locking up people who lock people up, and (b) taking money away from people who take money away from people; if you’re not making the same objection, I’d gladly move on to whatever separate point you’d like to cover.

(Or are you arguing that, no, it’s the same point? If so, I’m not quite following you; the reasons you lay out for thinking this fails as a deterrent seem to apply just as much to imprisoning folks or fining them: don’t those likewise await people who commit their crimes because they failed to consider consequences, or failed to expect conviction, or assimilated a norm, or have impaired judgment, and so on for what you say about “the social contract and their morals” and the rest?)

[freep5637]

ugh, more bleeding heart liberal shenanigans… i’m not a coulter fan; i think she’s too extreme but i fact checked her article against multiple sources and she’s right. the guy murdered two people in cold blood. i love how (not necessarily in this particular thread) ppl will often point to a couple of prosecutors who were wrong on a major case once in their career and use it as a basis to essentially say that everyone involved with the case that is dead sure they have the perp is wrong…

also, instead of basing your opinion on a bunch of left wing biased liberal reporting why not try reading a bunch of different sources and political opinions from different sides of the issue and come up with your own conclusion? so many sheeps today…

when i heard about the story the liberal in me was appalled. then the conservative in me did a little research and i’m happy to say that the independent in me decided that executing the man was the right choice. morally right? maybe not, but that was the penalty decided for the crime(s) that he most certainly did commit.

[George_Kaplin]

@Cheshire Human

This doesn’t work. You have presented someone who was obviously guilty, under the (at the time) existing legal standard of guilt. He was demonstrably as guilty as it gets under that standard. You instead present him as an “innocent”.

Not that Bentley’s guilt or innocence really makes much difference to my argument, but you could not possibly be more wrong.

Bentley was convicted of the murder of Sidney Miles. Miles was a police officer who interrupted Bentley (along with his 16 year old friend Chris Craig) during the course of an armed burglary. Miles was actually shot by Craig, and this was never in dispute. However, Craig, as a legal minor, could not receive the death penalty. Bentley, on the other hand, was over 18 and thus eligible.

The decision was made to charge Bentley with capital murder, rather than a lesser crime such as manslaughter. In fact, manslaughter was actually not a legal option. The reason for this lies in the (subsequently abolished) British legal doctrine of “Constructive malice”.

Constructive malice was a legal doctrine which stated that ‘malice aforethought’, the mental element for capital murder, could be attributed to a defendant if a death occurred during the commission of another felony. In other words, if a person was killed by a defendant during the commission of a felony, even if the killing was accidental or an act of blind impulse, that defendant could be charged with murder in the first degree (which requires premeditation) because, although he didn’t plan the murder, he did plan the crime which led to the murder.

Constructive malice was used to charge Bentley with capital murder. Bentley was subsequently found guilty and executed. The fact that the actual murder was committed by Chris Craig was not legally relevant.

However, and here’s the point, in this case constructive malice was misapplied! In order for constructive malice to have been be fairly applied, the Crown needed to prove that Bentley knew in advance that Craig had a gun. The 1998 High Court ruling concluded that not only had the prosecution failed to prove this, but that the Judge in the trial had not made it clear to the jury that this was one of the prosecutor’s key responsibilities.

In his summation of the acquittal, the Lord Chief Justice referred to a separate case in which two men had conspired to rob a third. One of the men committed the robbery while the other remained parked down the street in a getaway car. The man who took the money actually killed their victim. Both defendants confirmed that the level of force used in the robbery was far greater than that which they had previously agreed upon. Therefore, the getaway driver was not charged with murder, because constructive malice could not be proven, because the getaway driver didn’t know in advance what level of force his accomplice would ultimately end up using.

Similar reasoning applies to the Bentley case. The prosecution could not prove that Bentley had any knowledge that Craig was carrying a gun. Therefore, they could not demonstrate that he had anticipated the likely consequences of a gun being used during the commission of the robbery. Such a demonstration was necessary for constructive malice to apply, and so the prosecution was unsound.

Put plainly, the Lord Chief Justice concluded that if Bentley were tried today, under the exact same rules which applied at the time, he would not have been found guilty of a capital crime. Robbery, definitely. Manslaughter, almost certainly. But not murder in the first degree. Therefore, he was wrongly executed, even by the standards of the time.

But this is all a big digression as far as I’m concerned, anyway. The central point is that in a state which employs the death penalty, the execution of innocents is a statistical inevitability.

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

That’s super. Just to be clear: the other guy was objecting to the message sent by killing killers, which is why I asked about the message sent by (a) locking up people who lock people up, and (b) taking money away from people who take money away from people; if you’re not making the same objection, I’d gladly move on to whatever separate point you’d like to cover.

I don’t really see the correlation. Fines are just lesser punishment than incarceration and serve a completely different purpose. Fines are useful when the crime is non-violent or victimless and the court isn’t compelled to protect society from the actions of the criminal. Also, if the criminal has gainful employment and can be reasonably expected to continue to contribute in that manner to society, incarceration has a negative result of reducing his potential future income from gainful employment whereas fines allow him to return to a productive life which is likely to have a greater deterrent effect.

Incarceration, OTOH, in this country is nothing more than warehousing to primarily keep violent people from hurting people outside of prison and increasingly to satisfy the public’s perception that incarceration is a deterrent. However, there is very little deterrent effect in the sense that many of those habitually incarcerated are accustomed to that lifestyle. Prison does more to desensitize to violence and crime than deter as evidenced by the recidivism rates of 67%. It doesn’t help that many of those incarcerated today are in for drug-related offenses (and a significant number arrested for other crimes while under the influence) and unlikely to be receiving rehabilitation services for their addictions.

(Or are you arguing that, no, it’s the same point? If so, I’m not quite following you; the reasons you lay out for thinking this fails as a deterrent seem to apply just as much to imprisoning folks or fining them: don’t those likewise await people who commit their crimes because they failed to consider consequences, or failed to expect conviction, or assimilated a norm, or have impaired judgment, and so on for what you say about “the social contract and their morals” and the rest?)

No, I think fines may be a deterrent in petty, non-violent crimes of a first-offense nature, because these people are less likely to be dealing with deep-seated social disconnect. If there is a drug-related element to the petty crime and addiction issues, they can be fined as well as assigned to a treatment program to help them with their addictions. Incarceration in these instances is overkill and detrimental to society as it desensitizes and greatly reduces options for staying out of criminal situations upon release.

I don’t see a great deal of deterrent aspect to incarceration, frankly.

[bup]

@Brown_Eyed_Girl

It’s not my intention to argue Davis’ innocence, but rather that certainty of guilt is an illusion.

That’s gold right there. My opposition to the death penalty summed up: Certainty of guilt is an illusion.