Is this an I’m an atheist and don’t believe humans possess immortal souls remark, or an I’m a sociopath wisecrack?
I don’t believe in immortal, immaterial souls either. But I believe it is psychological injurious for a person to be engaged in an occupation requiring systematic and egular infliction of physical torment on another.
Punishment should be cruel and unusual.
It’s more effective that way.
And private property (specifically that of ProJammer) should be taken for public use without just compensation.
It’s more economic that way.
I can buy a box of ammo for a hell of a lot less than the 25000 or so a year it costs per prisoner in Connecticut.
1 round each, and I have most of a box left.
And yes, I would volunteer to pull the trigger, though I have been shooting up with insulin, so I have no qualms about shooting them up with pentobarbitol, or pulling a lever to electrocute them, or open a valve and gas them. I am a gimp, so someone would have to actually place the soon to be corpses in the location and position of execution for me.
Main deal is this - they are guilty, they have been adjudged guilty, so why it should take 15 years to actually make them dead is baffling. Take them to the place of execution and perform the sentence. Is there any question at all that they did in fact commit the murders [and robbery, and rape]? Then why do they need all the bullshit appeals? That is what is expensive about death sentences, warehousing them and sitting through appeal after appeal after appeal. I can understand if there is the tiniest shred of doubt over guilt [like with the pre-DNA cases] but did you even bother reading the article? I have, hard to miss this case - off and on in the news papers and television and radio since 2007 when it happened. It reads like something you would get in CSI or Law and Order, or a movie.
I’m off the mind that they should be killed- that’s a whole other level of crazy and I doubt there’s any recovering from that.
That said, am I misreading something? The bank teller called the police, right? Why didn’t they go out to the house immediately?
Aru, you seem to acknowledge that lots of defendants on death row have been eventually proven to be innocent (by DNA and other evidence). I’m really curious what you think the jury, prosecutors, Governor, etc. in those cases thought about the defendant’s guilt. Do you think they were less sure, but went ahead with the death penalty anyway? I mean, I’ve been wrong about things before. And probably I’m a lot more likely to be wrong about something when I’m really angry.
My attitude is that we all screw up once in a while. And (to paraphrase someone else), until we can bring people back to life, let’s not as a society kill them either.
How is it best for society to kill people?
Ah, okay, we’re talking about what you’d *like *to see happen to them, not which *legal *option you’d prefer?
1.) Our system is not perfect. Innocent people are convicted not infrequently, even in death penalty cases. The appeals process is necessary to give an innocent person as much of a chance as possible to have the mistake corrected. This means that even when there’s someone you really don’t like who you’re really sure is guilty, yeah, that guy gets his chances, too. Because we don’t get to selectively apply justice based on our personal whims, even when this time you’re so totally sure that the guy did it (and most certainly did). Because all those other convictions? Well, damn, they were *so sure *those guys did it, too.
2.) People who are poor and/or part of a minority group are much more likely to be given death penalties than rich white people for the same crimes.
3.) The kinds of crimes that rich white people tend to commit, even when they are horribly damaging and may cause the equivalent of many murders, generally are not eligible for the death penalty.
4.) Executions do not act as deterrents. In the U.S., they are not timely, local, or visible.
5.) What you are describing is revenge, not justice. They did something terrible, so you want to make them hurt, and the best way you can think of to make them hurt is to kill them. That’s not the job of the state–at least, it shouldn’t be.
What they deserve is a different question from what the state should do. They deserve to be hung upside down, peeled like oranges, rolled in coarse salt and fed to rats.
The state can’t give people what they deserve, though, the Constitution won’t let us, and it’s a bad policy even to kill them painlessly because we still have not figured out a way to gurantee we’ll never kill the wrong person. Giving them a shot and letting them go to sleep is not much of a punishment anyway.
Sometimes, in cases like this, I wish things could be taken care of “off the books.” Like the cops should drive these guys into some woods along with the surving victim. Bind them with plastic ties. Give the victim some things like gas cans, pliars, a blowtorch, and sander. Then the cops can go off to take a long piss, and when they come back, hey, these dudes have a series of stupid, painful accidents. They can’t even tell which perp is which anymore. Oh well.
I voted for life without parole as I do not agree with the death penalty. However, I would be happy for some criminals to be allowed to keep their belt and be kept in a cell with a convenient beam and chair.
My husband is firmly against the death penalty for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is the idea that revenge is useless. I am generally pro death penalty, because once someone is beyond rehabilitation, they’re broken, and need to be sent back to their manufacturer to be repaired, and/or disassembled.
(Of course, my spiritual beliefs about why we’re here and how we got here allow for these things.)
Anyway, what about a nice compromise? What if we were to make sure that along with keeping them alive in a miserable environment, (prison) we remove their ability to harm others by removing hands and teeth? That way, they won’t be able to hurt again in case they escape, get let out somehow, or want to be predators within the prison system?
I don’t know, but the reason I’m still leaning towards removing the worst of the worst from the planet is because I can’t wrap my head around allowing someone to keep something they took from someone else in violence. I understand the arguments against, and I understand gray areas, too. I just can’t get over that one thing.
It’s kind of hard to suss out, but from what I’ve read the teller did call the police, as did a neighbor. I’m not sure of the time frames. And the police did arrive shortly after the doctor was able to contact his neighbor.
Very weird story.
This thread reminded me of a case from 1990 here in Quitman County.
Yeah, this is what I’m so confused about. Like, if the bank teller had IMMEDIATELY called the police-- she has the woman’s contact information, including her address-- the police should have gotten to the house at about the same time as the wife and the attackers got back (in fact, I’m sure there were cops closer to the house than the bank was, but who knows specifics). So, either the bank teller didn’t call the police fast enough or the police didn’t take the report serious enough. Somebody dropped the ball. Don’t get me wrong- it’s not their fault, but definitely an unfortunate way in which things played out.
Hell, don’t bank tellers have little emergency buttons to push if they are being robbed? Or is that a movie thing? I’d imagine a woman saying she’s being held hostage and having to remove a large sum of money from her account would warrant a bank’s emergency procedure.
I hear the case for life in prison, the concern that the justice system is broken, and the wish/obligation not to exact revenge. Once anger and fear subside and I consider keeping a murderer/rapist/pedophile/etc. in prison for life, I don’t understand it. Indirectly, everyone grows to become a part of a society and indirectly agrees to act within the implied rules and morals of it. What good (or right or benefit) does it serve society to declare “we will take you out of society until you die of natural causes”?
You say it is cruel and unusual to kill a murder/rapist/pedophile/etc., but not cruel to lock them away from most human contact until they expire? It’s cruel to deprive them of visitors, books, exercise, but not cruel to have the victims, or their families, or the public fear escape, retribution, and victimization of others? Why are the assailants rights more important than the victims?
No system is perfect. The worst criminal, caught in the act, unrepentant, boasting about doing other crimes, could come to see the light while in prison and turn into a saintly person who saves millions. I don’t like the odds and the risk to society.
I think murders/rapists/pedophiles/etc. - those who physically, mentally, or emotionally remove a person from society - need to be given one appeal, six months to exercise it, and if the conviction is sustained then they be executed immediately and painlessly. Why doesn’t the above apply to the executioner? Because the convicted have already removed themselves from society due to their acts and the execution is a mercy for society.
Here’s a newspaper article outlining the timeline of events based on police dispatch records. http://www.courant.com/community/hc-petit0122,0,6963914.story
Except for when we kill people who didn’t do it. Do you give a shit that dozens of people have been released from death row because DNA proved they were innocent? Are you willing to be one of the innocent people wrongly exceuted?
And don’t forget, everytime the state kills an innocent person, the real guilty person got away with something.
Your time table for appeals is asinine, by the way.
I was infuriated reading about the case. I really feel like punishing them somehow.
And the police may be absolutely certain these particular guys are guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt, and they may be right about that.
But it bears mentioning that the truly outrageous, infuriating crimes are the ones we most need to be careful about. When our emotions are worked up – and especially when everyone’s emotions are worked up – it’s possible that honest mistakes will be made, or details glossed over in the rush to get these guys punished, or some cocksure detective might hide one piece of evidence that doesn’t fit just to make sure the guys he knows are bad go down, and so on.
We are most at risk of making a mistake when we are least in control of ourselves.
I don’t remember where or when I saw this, or even what state it referred to, so no one ask me for a citation, but maybe two years ago I saw a list of people who had been exonerated, in part due to DNA evidence, from the death penalty in some Southern state, and all but two of them had race and sex in common. That said, I’m against the death penalty for a host of reasons, which you’ve essentially encapsulated, but my take on this thread can be most accurately and succinctly stated as follows:
Sometimes I feel like life in solitary confinement without parole might be a worse punishment than death anyway.
I’m a “please explain”.
I’m unalterably opposed to the death penalty, and I find myself becoming opposed to life without parole as well.
This doesn’t mean that I think parole should be granted just because it can be, but that the option should be there, on the chance that there is a valid use for mercy.