Uh, excuse me. That last line happenes to be homicide while in the process of comitting a felony. Capital Murder. The worst kind of murder in my opinion as well as in most states. Put him to sleep.
The man who killed the repo man trying to take his car was a whopping 3 DAYS LATE in his car payment. The scum who should be sued and sentenced is the dealer.
Maybe we should look at fixing whatevers wrong with our justice system that generates so many false convictions rather than throwing the death penalty.
A good idea, but if we kill one innocent person, that is too many.
So we don’t kill one innocent person in the gas chamber. But we do allow a murderer to escape in a prison riot because we didn’t kill him fast enough. That killer kills twelve innocent people while he’s out. So we trade twelve lives for one in that scenario. Jails aren’t escape-proof. You decide.
Care to back up this with a citation as to the liklihood of this? I know that I can dig up citations about the many people who recently had convictions overturned thanks to DNA evidence in Texas in a several-month period alone. This would not even include those already dead - we can’t do much for them now.
Care to show me all of the escaped prisoners who should have in your estimation been excecuted, broke out and killed a dozen people? A whole bunch of them too, because I’m sure that you know that your citation has to have statistical relevance, right?
I’ll wait over here…
Yer pal,
Satan
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satan, I am not sure if derleth can come up with any good stats, but I can tell you that according to the SCCDoC, there are some 1000 sucessful violent felon escapes each year. How many are cold blooded killers, who will kill again? Few, i would imagine, as that type of killer is rare anyway. But when they DO escape, they do damage all out of proportion to their numbers.
But, on the other hand, you have numbers which show the amount of convictions overturned before exection, which in my mind shows that the justice system is working. Do YOU have any reliable stats on how many persons have been wrongfully executed in the USA, in the last decade? Ill wait over here…
This site claims 23 wrongful executions between 1900 and 1985, but sadly does not detail any of them. There is a book that does, but it will take me a while to find it.
Many have had death sentances reversed because of new evidence found, but does that mean we are to assume that the justice system catchs all it’s mistakes?
And even if did, I wouldn’t call it proof that the systems works that well, seeing as many of these people had to spend many years on death row before someone figured out they were innocent.
If Captial punishment turns the State into a murderer, does prison turn the State into a Gay Dungeon Master?
-Emo Phillips
It doesnt mean that they were innocent either. Cases are overturned on legal technicalities, where it was obvious the guy was guilty also.
Here is a scathing indictment of the Illinois death penalty, and it’s justice system as a whole. It’s a five part piece written for the Chicago Tribune in 1999 that details some very disturbing facts. These facts include:
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The use of jailhuse informants to get convictions, including one that even the FBI called a pathological liar and that had previously perjured himself on at least 2 occasions.
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A police commander and his officers used torture to obtain confessions over a 20 year period.
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Many defendants had inadaquate and inept counsel, including lawyers that were disciplined and bisbarred.
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A trial judge was actually convicted of ‘fixing’ murder cases for the prosecution.
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Widespread jury improprieties, including all-white juries, and a Chicago policeman who was allowed on a jury, became forman, brought his gun into the jury room, and ‘vouched’ for the police work done on the case.
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Prosecutors had hidden and lied about exculpatory evidence, suborned perjury and mischaracterized evidence in opening and closing arguments.
It doesn’t do much for my faith in our justice system, let alone the death penalty.
My bad. It wasn’t the FBI, but a federal prosecutor.
I propose a plan which I believe will satisfy everyone’s blood lust and sense of justice. We’ll call it “The Campbell ‘Three Strikes’ Plan”- I’m not sure why, but it sounds really catchy. Plus, the baseball reference is really 'merican.
A killer kills somebody and goes through the system as usual (here in LA, they’re usually out in a couple of years).
The same killer kills again. Again, through the system as usual.
When the same killer kills a third time, he gets whacked.
After killing three times, on three separate occasions, it can safely be figured that this person needs to go. Plus, it would be pretty hard for the crooked prosecutors to successfully frame somebody three times in a row.
I am currently contacting big CP states regarding distribution rights for executions. I love reality TV!
It would really suck to be the second or third strike, no?
I would feel better to be the victim of a first time murderer, not the victim of some killer that had been in and out of prison twice before. That is why we should keep each and every convicted murderer in prison for life, a much worse punishment than death in my opinion.
Most of the “wrongful executions”, which have been pulicised, are those in the South, early this century, and were “legal lynchings”, ie “Bailiff, take this nigger out & hang him” (sorry for the word, nessesary in context), with a kangaroo court, and no appeal. I actually thought the number was higher. But these are murders by a bunch of racists pretending to follow the Law, not “wrongful executions”. After all, those killed WERE guity of their REAL crime- they were black. :rolleyes:
Notice I asked for “wrongfully executed” in the last decade, and it was a trick question, sorta, for as far as I know, there have been NONE.
And I could go for the “campbell” plan, as long as it was “2 strikes”.
And jabe- folks DO escape, or kill guards, or other prisoners, you know. Why give them a FOURTH chance?
Hi Daniel.
Did you look at the link to the Chicago Tribune story? It made my blood run cold. People convicted with perjured tesimony, with confessions coerced with torture, with prosecuters suborning perjury and ignoring the rules of evidence, with defense lawyers so grossly incompetent and unethical they were later disbarred, all white juries for black defendants, and at least one judge who forgot he was supposed to be impartial.
After all the people wrongfully convicted, some of them who were literally minutes away from execution, is it so hard to believe that some innocent people were actually executed? With all that, you have to admit it’s possible.
Since the 23 executions mentioned in the other site were not detailed, I don’t believe that we can assume that they were all ‘legal lynchings’. At least, not yet.
Care to show me all of the escaped prisoners who should have in your estimation been excecuted, broke out and killed a dozen people? A whole bunch of them too, because I’m sure that you know that your citation has to have statistical relevance, right?
I’ll wait over here…
Yer pal,
Satan
Satan: Care to talk to the families of the five people
Ted Bundy killed and the two women he almost killed
when he escaped from jail in Colorado and then went
to Florida. Were those five (almost seven) lives
insignificant? Fortunately, Florida was smart enough
to fry his ass.
Thanks, annie: OK, satan, it’s 5 “innocents killed by someone who should have been exceuted” (within the last couple of decade) vs 0 “innocents wrongfully executed”.
Dr. What’s-His-Name, whose case they used for “The Fugitive” was innocent.
If a bad guy kills a bunch of people, he is evil.
If we convict and kill one innocent person, we are evil.
I must agree that I would have had a “Burn Bundy” bumper sticker. I knew he was guilty. I presume that every person on every jury who convicted an innocent person knew he was guilty.
The judge who ruled against me when Emergency Plumbing destroyed my property and left bare electrcial wires on the ground where my daughter would play knew I was guilty because I wore a tie and the other guy wore jeans and a cowboy hat.
The motivation behind the death penalty is simple; remove permanently from society those who prove a danger to it’s individual members.
Let’s see, people I figure deserved to die: Hitler, all of his commanders who ran the death camps, the Japanese commanders who encouraged and demanded no mercy be shown to prisoners of war, the Japanese Military leaders who lied to the Emperor of Japan to get into the war for their own gains and Stalin. The Nazi commanders who killed prisoners in the death camps for sport need to be in there also.
The way I look at it, the more heinous the crime of murder, the more the death penalty needs to be used. Bundy was a classic example, so was Gacey. There was a guy who not only murdered another one, but hauled his body into a bathroom and left him gutted like a deer. I figure a lot of Mafia hit men who take time to slowly suffocate their victim, after beating him nearly to death, hammering his teeth out and breaking most of his bones could use being exterminated.
I don’t want to pay my taxes to keep such people alive, nor do I ever want the possibility of anyone managing to get them placed on parole. There is a difference in murder from simple – where one shoots the victim to cruel and lingering where one sadistically inflicts much pain over a period of time. Not to mention where one kills again and again for whatever motive.
Some people, in my opinion, if not executed, need to be locked forever away in some place secure, away from other people with limited luxuries like TV and phone, but who wants to pay for that? Monies going to keep them locked up and healthy could be used to provide food and shelter for the local poor who have not killed anyone.