Those sentenced to life don’t do expanded appeals?
Quit segregating them.
My logic is that those who have shown themselves to be so incapable of living with normal folks that our choices are to lock them away for life, or execute them, I choose to go with what costs less.
No, lifers don’t get expanded appeals, or at least not to the same extent. Various SCOTUS rulings and state statutes have effectively guaranteed several levels of appeal to capital convicts that non-capital offenders don’t have.
The math is also slightly misleading, because the cost of execution is based on the number of executions actually carried out. Most people sentenced to death die before being executed, so while the cost of sentencing someone to death is relatively low, the cost of executing someone (ie., dividing the additional cost of a capital punishment system by the number of people capped) is incredibly high.
Anyway, people don’t get sentenced to death because they’re incapable of living with normal folks. They mostly get sentenced to death because they’re black and/or [have poor legal representation](There was a strong association between a lower cost defense representation and an increased likelihood of a death sentence at trial. For trial cases in which defense spending was among the lowest one-third of all trial cases, the rate of death sentencing was 44 percent. For trial cases in which defense resources were in the remaining two-thirds of cost, the likelihood of a death sentence was 19 percent. Thus, the lowest cost cases were more than twice as likely to yield sentences of death).
What is required is the willingness to apply those resources to the humane confinement of prisoners.
Two words: mandatory appeals. And for fun, two more words: death row.
I realize this site has a certain agenda; however, it does seem to provide reliable information regarding costs: Costs of the Death Penalty.
Ah. Well, then, they should get rid of that since I assume you are telling me that the taxpayer is paying for this?
You are trying to say that the people too poor to buy their way out of a death sentence didn’t do the crime?
What resources? Are you aware of how little money we have in our government here?
You are trying to change the rules - why can’t I? As I said above, quit allowing them to spend 20 years on appeals. Problem solved.
Would you be willing to be tortured and repeatedly raped by Willie Horton, or murdered by a prison escapee? Because we know for a fact that things like that do happen when people are sentenced to life in prison instead of executed.
Hell, are you willing to spend the rest of your life in prison for a crime you didn’t commit?
Regards,
Shodan
My view on the death penalty is simple: Anyone who is clearly guilty of showing a depraved indifference to another person’s life should be ezecuted. Period.
If you don’t think this applies to Lawrence Russell Brewer, you have a serious problem.
BTW, isn’t Death Row a great place for a White Supremist to spend the last ten years of his life? What with the higher percentage of “those people” there?
Um… we know for a fact that things like that happen when lifers are furloughed. Hardly a difficult problem to solve.
My view is that anyone clearly guilty of showing a depraved indifference to proper spelling should be sentenced to life in second grade.
Imagine if we could all have our wishes. What a wonderful world this would be.
papergirl, I really was unduly bitchy yesterday and I apologize. But (and I’m not trying to be snarky, I’m just trying to understand) I’ve been thinking about this, and I just do. not. get it. By this logic, hell, people are gonna die anyway, what’s the point of not killing them?
Or escape, or kill people while still in prison, or when they are paroled even when we say they won’t be.
Why is it that you demand absolute certainty in executions, but not for the threat that prisoners who are not executed continue to pose?
Or are you alleging that innocent deaths are horrible and degrading to our society, but only some of the time?
Absolutely. Execute them, and the problem is solved.
Regards,
Shodan
Which happens all the time of course. Oh wait, it really doesn’t. Well, I suppose that second one happens sometimes, but why on earth would you give a shit?
I don’t demand absolute certainty in executions. I demand no executions. Have I been somehow unclear about this, or have you simply failed to understand. Again. Some more. Like you do.
I say that state-sponsored murders aren’t okay. Try not to be such a fucking moron all your life.
Bite me,
Diana
In Michigan, the penalty for first degree murder is life in prison with no possibility of parole. If you’re truly guilty, you have no chance to be a repeat offender. If it turns out we got the wrong guy, the mistake is correctable. Why do the backward states have to execute people?
How is the mistake correctable? Does the state have a way of giving the innocent person their life back. All the time they missed with their families, job, etc.? Are they somehow magically given extra years tacked onto their lives to make up for the time wasted in prison?
What about the psychological effects on an innocent person being in prison? Can they take those away?
What about the public opinion of someone who was in prison, even innocently?
The idea that an innocent person subject to prison can have the mistake correctable is laughable.
Totally correctable? No. But a damn sight more correctable than capital punishment. I’d much rather have the state tell me “sorry, but we put your brother in prison for the past 10 years because of a mistake” than “sorry, but we executed your brother because of a mistake.”
It’s certainly not, entirely. It is, however, generally considered better than being dead.
After all, if you didn’t think that being alive is better than being dead, you wouldn’t be so on fire to kill these people, right?
If we get rid of the appeals, you can be certain that innocent people will be executed. Right now it’s almost certain that we’ve executed someone, somewhere wrongly, but it’s also clear that the lengthy appeals process weeds out lots of wrongful convictions.
Well, yes, in some cases. However, for the most part the point is that the people who get sentenced to death are the ones who couldn’t afford enough attorney time (or a good enough attorney) or expert time to get them a more lenient sentence.
Your question suggests that if they’re guilty, we shouldn’t care why they got the death penalty - but if the point is to ensure the worst criminals get the harshest punishment (or are absolutely prevented from harming anyone else) then presumably we should care.
We have lots of resources. We’re the richest country in the world. In fact, we have so many resources we have the developed world’s largest per capita prison population despite a moderate overall crime rate.
Okay, so we’re back to executing innocent people. Also, the appeals process doesn’t take 20 years because they’re litigating stuff the whole time. It’s because courts have other shit to do. Some of the delay is the result of the numerous mandated appeals, but most of it is down to states generally not giving a shit about how long people are kept on death row.
Because Phelps has not murdered anyone. Phelps is an asshole and SOB but he is not a murderous monster like this fellow. God demands justice.
We don’t write laws based on a 15 year old’s perception of the demands of God.
Here’s a good question for those of you so bent on execution: Have you, personally, ever been falsely accused of any crime?
No. Have you?
Regards,
Shodan