A little while ago, there was a thread on the death penalty, with the suggestion by the OP that everything should be sped up. Several of us went back and forth with the OP and others until I saw that there were points we’d never agree on. I know the thread went on after that, but I didn’t pay it much attention (for one thing, I was out of town for 5 days right about then).
Anyway, one point raised then was that of the flaws in Illinois’ death penalty system. These flaws were so blatant that, after the Chicago Tribune investigated and exposed them, the conservative, pro-death penalty governor of Illinois put a halt on all executions in the state.
Others suggested this was only a problem in Illinois, since such things had not been found in, for example, Texas. I suggested that perhaps it was merely that nobody had yet really looked. Well, it appears that I had a psychic episode.
The Tribune did another investigation – this time of Texas under George W. Bush’s leadership. They found a lot of the same problems as in Illinois: Poor defense attorneys, jailhouse informants, prosecutorial problems, bad science in determining evidence, psychiatric testimony that is prejudicial and condemned by the APA, even a forensic scientist who was let out of a psych ward to testify against a suspect!
You can read all about it (it’s long – over two full pages in the newspaper) here:
Here is another good article along these lines from today’s Observer. It’s mainly about the Texan prisoners who’ve been sentenced to death on the basis of a state psych’s opinion that their race (black/hispanic) made them more likely to kill again.
“. But even if we got rid of everything mentioned in that article, we still have the simple problem of human error.”
Which is ineradicable from all human endeavors, so why stop at the DP? Let’s outlaw cars, walking, construction, and everything else where accidental or wrongful dealth is a possibility.
WHy does the human error argument only apply to the DP?
Governor Bush makes me sick.How could he justify the murder of 133 men? How could he say it’s ok? Especially now when there is evidence that the system is in dire need of repair? I’ve never been much of a Democrat, but I pray to God that Bush doesn’t win this year.
The difference is, cars, walking and construction are not used on a regular basis with the intent to kill. Cars were not invented with the idea of death behind it. Construction workers do not wake up in the morning and say “I’m going to kill somebody today.”
Besides, just because there is human error in other places, does that make it OK with the DP? The problem with your argument Scylla, is that it’s a cop out. “Well look, people are dying because of this, this, and this, what’s wrong with the DP?” Maybe if it’s possible to end the murder of innocent people, society should step up to do it. Car manufactures are always improving the safety of their vehicles. Construction workers take safety percautions. Not enough precautions are used when it comes to the DP though. And I doubt very much that the DP process will ever be fool proof.
Because the death peanalty allows innocent people to be coldly murdered.
My favorite aspect of the death penalty was the supreme court ruling that decided it was ok to kill innocent people because it was to much of a burden for states to have to retry old cases.
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Governor Bush makes me sick.How could he justify the murder of 133 men? How could he say it’s ok? Especially now when there is evidence that the system is in dire need of repair? I’ve never been much of a Democrat, but I pray to God that Bush doesn’t win this year.
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The state of Texas didn't murder 133 men. (Let's not forget the two women executed in the past year.) Those who were executed were guilty of murdering people. As such the punishment they faced was execution. It is not always immoral to kill someone.
Bush has never murdered anyone. In fact, by allowing the execution of convicted murderers; he is most emphatically saying that murder is not okay. That is the main point of capital punsishment; we, as a society, taking a stand to say that we will not tolerate murder. Now, I understand that many people do not agree with that, but to say that proponents of capital punishment justify murder is assigning motives that are 180 degrees from reality.
Murder has a specific legal definition. Several types of killing do not constitute murder; legal execution being only one.
Your statement is a bit off. While race was considered it wasn't the primary reason they were sentenced to death. I support the death penalty but I don't think race should be considered at all in the sentencing phase. That's why I think they should redo the penalty phase of the trial.
One thing that should be noted is that their guilt is not in doubt. Victor Saldano kidnapped Paul King out of the parking lot of Sack and Save in Plano. He drove him to a wooded area near Lake Lavone where he robbed him and shot him five times. The police found him in Paul King's car and wearing his watch. He murdered a man in cold blood and because of that he received the correct sentence. He'll be retried and hopefully he'll be executed.
You left the “partly” out that was included in your link. As in the death sentence was assigned partly on the state psych’s opinion. Just a guess, but I bet the other part of the decesion has something to do with the fact that the prisoners, umm, committed murder?
I agree that race has nothing to do with whether one is likely to kill again. However, who really knows what the psych report actually said? I hesitate to trust a newspaper report that conspicuously avoids direct reference to the origninal article. We still don’t know what the report actually said.
It could be, and I’m totally guessing here, that the report referenced a particular convict’s socioeconomic background–let’s say involvement with the drug and gang culture, preying on the weak consigned to ghettos by our welfare system. Perhaps the psychologist actually interviewed the convict, felt that the convict was unrepentent in his “thug life” personna, and would likely fall back into the life of crime. Maybe the psychologist felt that lack of education and marketable skills would contribute to anticipated recidivism.
Now, how many code words can you find in the above scenario that would cause a reporter (one with a probable bias) to report that “that race made him more likely to kill again”?
Now, we can certainly debate the living conditions or lack of economic opportunity, etc. that may contribute to a culture of crime. But a pshycologist’s report, or a newspaper article for that matter, can’t change the fact that these men committed murder.
Um, obviously they were not ALL guilty of murder, that’s why this is a problem. They were found guilty, and according to the article, some of them didn’t even have a chance to prove their innocence. The person who is ultimately responsible for that is the Governor, in this case Bush. If he can’t even protect the innocent in a single state, I shudder to think of what he can do to the country.
Bush is directly responsible for the death of innocent men and women. This is just one example of how he could have improved things that he ignored. How can this be OK?
Murder is murder. Whether I murder you. Or the state murders me. And Bush is responsible for over 100. By refusing to better the conditions and pass certain bills, he is demonstrating that he is blood thirsty, and that he just doesn’t care how many innocent people have to die. The only thing keeping innocent people from prison is their attorney, and he won’t even give the accused the benefit of a fair trial. He hasn’t tried to do anything to have a mandatory DNA testing. At least 9 people were innocent, God knows how many more.
Did you read the article? It quotes the psych in question as testifying at the convict’s trial that ethnicity “was a factor weighing in favour of future dangerousness”. No code words, no biased reporters; the psych called it a factor flat-out. That’s why the Supreme Court threw out the sentence, and why eight more cases in which the same psych said the same thing are under review.
divemaster, the point is that it’s questionable whether they all did commit murder. A state that admits evidence based upon race appears to me to be a state that cannot be trusted to accurately make that determination.
Umm, Pepper? It is NOT obvious that they weren’t all guity, in fact it IS likely they WERE all guilty. I will accept it is POSSIBLE one or two was innocent, but there is no evidence to show that. The very low number of innocent persons executed in the last few decades, makes it statisicly unlikely that any of the killers executed were innocent. This does not mean that the “Death railroad” Bush has set up is right, clearly we must be MORE sure before executing anyone. I believe Bush’s large number of executions is politically motivated, which is immoral.
If some innocent people weren’t killed, this would not be an issue. Even if I didn’t have numbers, it would be logical to infer there is a problem because some innocent people met their death at the hands of the State for no reason other than the thirst for blood and soothing the public by pretenses of “justice”.
The fact that very few people executed are later proven to have been innocent does not mean that they were not in fact innocent - any more than the fact that OJ was acquitted of killing Nicole means he actually didn’t do it. We simply don’t know how many innocent people have been executed. We do, however, know that there are great flaws in our justice system - from incompetent defense attorneys to corrupt cops to institutional racism etc etc - and it simply defies logic to suppose that somehow we’ve managed not to let any innocent person slip through the cracks.
What percentage of the people executed for murder do you think it acceptable to be actually innocent (but convicted by mistake)? I suspect that if you forced most people who believe in the death penalty to answer this question, they would give an answer between one in a thousand and one in a hundred. It looks to me from looking at this article (and others I’ve read about the subject) that the percentage of murders executed who are innocent is about two or three percent.
Many of the worst problems in the administration of the death penalty could be eliminated if the states would just spend a decent amount of money on the trials of murder suspects. Often the poorest lawyers in the county get the case because no one is willing to spend a reasonable amount of money on murder trials where public defenders have been appointed.
It doesn’t help that district attorneys run for office in some states boasting about how many death penalty cases they won. This just makes it easier for some states to spend nearly all their money on the prosecution of murder cases and very little on the defense.
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Um, obviously they were not ALL guilty of murder, that’s why this is a problem. They were found guilty, and according to the article, some of them didn’t even have a chance to prove their innocence. The person who is ultimately responsible for that is the Governor, in this case Bush. If he can’t even protect the innocent in a single state, I shudder to think of what he can do to the country.
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Which one of the people executed in Texas were innocent while Bush has been gov?
But not all killing is murder. Which 9 people who were executed were innocent?
Kill to save lives Mmmmm… where have I heard this before?
Oh yah 1935 Nazi Germany
OK but really I do think that there is a almost negligible effect on murders by killing offenders. I almost think that keeping them alive and letting them live with there mistakes would be more of a punishment.