Have you ever heard of a fallacious appeal to emotion, Gus?
I wouldn’t want the perp killed because it’s too damn easy on them. Why should they just get a shot and go to sleep? As far as I’m concerned that’s not much a price for someone like Ted Bundy. I’d rather see them suffer for a while. Life in prison is a much worse punishment than the DP.
Of course,Gus’ manipulative little bit of demagoguery is a red herring anyway. The issue is not whether some people deserve it (you will find very little argument on that score) but that we have no way of ensuring that we kill the right person
But there’s no position to defend here. Folks are rallying around a reason to be anti-death-penalty, this isn’t the place to start a debate or reasoned conversation. If someone started a Pit thread about people who paint their fingernails, and most of the posts went along the lines of “there is never a reason to paint your fingernails, period,” would you expect a bunch of fingernail-painters to jump in? There wouldn’t be a point. Start a GD or IMHO thread about it, and that’s a different story. But I’d wager that most pro-death-penalty folks aren’t stupid* enough to jump into this Pit thread and try to “defend” anything.
So start a GD thread.
“Common?” I’ve never heard that argument, save for the Shodan quotes provided in this thread (which I think may have been misunderstood). Again, if you want discussion on this matter, start a GD or IMHO thread: instead, it sounds like you’re almost daring people to come into a clearly biased thread and pick a fight. There’s nothing constructive to gain from that.
*I’ve seen a few pro-DP folks in this thread, and I’m not calling them stupid … I’m just saying that a Pit thread on such a hot topic is a poor place to expect any kind of reason, and that’s why there aren’t the hordes of pro-DP posters that plnnr was apparently expecting.
I hadn’t heard this, any linkys around where I could read up more?
It’s kinda funny that the biggest supporters of the DP are, on the whole, those who have the least faith in the government’s ability to act correctly and effectively. But they believe in the ability of the government to make the correct call on a man’s life.
You’d think their heads would explode at the contradiction, but their heads apparently have some powerful contradiction-dampening property.
I think that some of those (George Will, for example…I think I’ve read similar stuff from other conservatives) are slowly changing their mind on the DP for that very reason.
This brings us back to what Elvis touched on.
If someone was wrongfully convicted of murder and got life in prison, they still have a lifetime of torturous agony to live. Would the mental anguish of having to spend another 75 years behind bars for something you didn’t do be of any consolation? That sounds like cruel and unusual punishment, yet I bet it’s happening right now, and not necessarily in Texas.
So life in prison is a punishment worse than death in your eyes, and that’s the alternative to being wrongly executed as in this case. Hard choice to make.
I don’t know that I’ve ever agreed with a single post ** Elvis** has ever made, but I agree with his post on this:
Well, I didn’t think to tape it at the time, but I do recall one night, when my mom returned from standing outside San Quentin holding a placard, she made me promise something. If she were ever murdered, she wanted me to do everything in my power to see that her killer did not receive the death penalty, because she didn’t want the death of another human to be on her hands, even in such a roundabout fashion. And you know, I’m pretty sure I could keep that promise. I’m not saying that if someone murdered my mom, I wouldn’t want to kill the guy. I don’t think there’d be anything in the world I’d want more. (Except to have my mom back, of course.) But that’d be revenge, not justice, and I don’t think that the American government should be in the revenge business. Besides which, if someone else kills the guy for me, it’s not really revenge. It’s something I’d have to do with my own two hands, or else, what’s the point?
I do take issue with your take on public defenders. Despite being notoriously underpaid, and outnumbered, and outgunned as far as available resources, most public defenders DO care – else they’d be doing something else. It’s not a lack of care… it’s a lack of resources.
Why…yes. Fucking yes. I would try to make sure the police didn’t trick the “killer” into admitting (or lay a heavy arm on the witness as in this case.) Because that’s exactly how the wrong person gets convicted. And if you really don’t give a fuck about the innocent person who’s convicted, how 'bout the guitly one who, by this method, isn’t?
You’re really opposed to looking at the POSSIBILITY that you have the wrong man? In other words, you’re just fine with the real killer of you wife and children going free? (See, I can do emotional hyperbole too.)
And for the record, I don’t have kids but I told my mom that if she’s murdered I wouldn’t seek the death penalty. She said she wouldn’t either in my case. We’re fine with that. We don’t believe in the death penalty. Sorry, no video.
I was going to explain why your reasoning is fallacious and your righteous indignation counterfactual, but others have done that before me. So I’m just going to call you a boob.
Anyway, dp-penalty proponents have been hiding behind the lack of a provably innocent person being executed for years; now they can’t do that. Hopefully this will force them to admit that they believe it’s worth murdering innocent people to “achieve” the completely-ineffective goal of deterring murderers, none of whom are detered by the death penalty anyway.
–Cliffy
I’d be happy if we got rid of the death-qualified jury. That alone makes the unreliability of death penalty cases higher than cases in which the death penalty is not on the table.
Here’s the Houston Chronicle article that broke the story:
http://www.thehoustonchronicle.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3471520.html
I’m in favor of the death penalty in certain cases, but I would not have called for it in this case based on what I’ve read.
For about 20 minutes.
Did you know that the guys from Duran Duran were witnesses?
It makes me ill just to think of this.
I could not agree more. The lack of perceived “care” may be more indicative of high caseloads and the social pressure of the courtroom workgroup. Many public defenders, who remain in that field for extended periods, are those who really believe in what they are doing.
Well, thats one theory as to why they’re not posting a defence of the death penalty here. Another is that its indefensible in light of cold, hard proof that an innocent person was executed and that even people who support the death penalty are able to realise that. Except, apparently, Shodan.
Ah, I see astro beat me to it. However:
No, he didn’t; that’s a different article. So phhpth. 
Quite so, looked the same at first glance. I take back what I said to astro.