You are certainly welcome to present your arguments to Judge Taurus.
Come back and let us know how that works out for you.
It prevents someone from killing again, including other prisoners.
I think prison is far worse than the death penalty but I would chain them in such a way as to never be able to harm someone else.
I would rather not convict innocent people. I’m not perfect. I try to do the best I can. Are youstarting from the position that people usually make mistakes and are malfeasant - people seek to kill people who didn’t do it rather than find the guilty? I start from the position that most people want to find the guilty and that there are then mistakes and malfeasance. Do you … care that many people have been convicted and found guilty? Or do you want everyone else to suffer for their misdeeds? Am I willing to be accused if innocent? No, I’ll dispute it. Would I think that everyone is out to get me if I was suddenly arrested? No.
Don’t forget, everytime the state kills a guilty person, the innocent people can breathe a little easier.
My timetable is my opinion, considered, open to discussion, and not heckling, by the way.
“Breathing easier” is in any way analogous to killing an innocent person? How many victims relatives are you willing to have “breathe easier” for every wrongfully convicted person who will never be able to breathe again?
Give them the choice. Life in prison without parole, or a quick painless death whereupon their organs will be donated. They can save some people on the way out, at least. I think this choice should be offered to anyone convicted of a capital offense, but I don’t think the state should be the one making the choice.
Your questiona are all meaningless, and you never really answered my question. Woud you be willing to be one of the innocent people executedm yes or no?
As for your other questions, basically I satrt from the KNOWLDEGE that people are fallible and fuck up. Theur motivatios or “malfeasance” is neither here nor there. They are fallible. As long as we have a human system, we will have error. As lomg as we have error, we will kill innocent people.
By the way, solitary confinement works perfectly well at protecting society too. We are not scarificing security by not killing them.
It disturbs me greatly when I agree with you.
I thought someone would jump at “breathing easier”. Try to phrase a question less like the proverbial “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
You worry so much about making a mistake that everyone else must suffer. “They might have been framed or the prosecution might have just been trying to get their stats up”. Better to err on the side of believing the police/prosecution/judge is guilty of mistakes and vengence than a trial found a guilty man. That way you don’t have to be responsible for a choice. “No, I didn’t kill him. I thought the evidence didn’t quite add up and that mistakes could have been made - so I just locked him in a small room and gave him limited human contact until he died of his own accord”.
In the past I am certain that innocent people were executed [or incarcerated until they died/were killed by other prisoners] however there are cases where we are literally 100% certain that the person/s are in fact guilty [some even have confessed, and actually led police to even more bodies] Why should we warehouse these broken individuals where they can possibly escape or harm others [even if the others are also criminals]?
Executions are not timely mainly because of the prolonged appeals process. And I don’t want revenge, I don’t know the victims from jack shit. Those killers are just like rabid dogs to me. They are permanently broken. They are career lifetime criminals who have demonstrated they have no compunctions about torturing and killing. They are permanently broken, exactly like a rabid dog and need to be permanently rendered incapable of harming anybody, and I do not see why my tax money needs to go towards warehousing them when I would prefer it go to buying school supplies. I am not responsible for white collar criminals legal punishments either, though in general they tend to be a lot less permanently damaging and rarely actually kill people. I would actually be perfectly happy with caning and flogging for lesser crimes, to be perfectly honest. I bet that fucking asshole from Singapore will never break the law in Singapore again. [if he ever grew a pair of nads and wanted to go back that is.] Would you litter if it meant 5 lashes of a bamboo cane instead of some amount of money?
Sometimes society needs to treat a damaged individual like a rabid dog or a cancer and remove it permanently. If the sentence was carried out within the 6 month limit, it would definitely be a deterrent. Now, you get a death sentence you spend 20 years on death row, just like being a regular prisoner. You know that you can legally jerk the court system around until the cows come home. With newer technology, fewer and fewer incorrect convictions are being handed down.
Yes mistakes can and will be made, but they are getting to be harder to make.
My questions are the opposite of yours and are just as easy to answer as “Have you stopped beating your wife?” Would I be willing to be an innocent person executed? What kind of stupid question is that? “Yes, I would like to be an innocent person executed.” - “No, I would not like to be an innocent person executed.” I’ll choose no, thanks. What’s your point?
I think what you are unable to communicate clearly is the question:“Are you willing to live in a society that might make a mistake and kill an innocent person?” Yes.
Or perhaps it’s: “Must a society have absolutely positively no doubt that there were no mistakes, no vengeance, no coverups, no holograms, no nanobots changing DNA, no clones, no alternate universe personas, etc. that were really responsible?” No, that’s ludicrous.
So apparently you want a non-human system (or at least one without humans in it) so that we can prevent error and never kill an innocent person? Good luck with that - Actually, no. I would rather have a system with people judging people. I start from assuming people make the best choice first and want to find the guilty, not the innocent. I guess your username really fits.
Newer technology will make more and more ideas that defied common sense look like loopholes to the people who want to assuage their guilt.
“That video tape could have been doctored even though the expert witness says it wasn’t.” “That DNA only matches 97% and there are still statistically 2 million people it could match.” “The officer only saw one side of the bus he was chasing and the thief could have gotten off as my client got on.” and on and on. Statistical noise now becomes weightier than evidence.
[sub]Wow, that nested quoting could really get hairy if you let it get away from you.[/sub]
I would probably get banned for specifying what should happen to them. Did that you find that description of the crime disturbing? Well you wouldn’t be able to handle what I have in mind for them.
Your questions are bullshit non-sequiturs.
The point is that you have already said you are willing to kill innocent people. I’m just trying to clarify whtehre you would insist that those innocent people be somebody besides yourself, or whether you believe that you’re special.
No. I already knew your answer to that question My question is about whether you’re willing to BE one of those innocent people. It’s not a trick question. It’s just one that you aren’t willing to answer.
No. My question is whether you are willing to be one of the innocent people killed in order to have the system you want. We already know you’ve decided it’s ok to kill innocent people. What wehave not established is whether you’re willing to be one of them. Clearly you are not. You’re only willing to kill innocent people who are not you.
Judgements about the motivations of people are completely irrelevant. They will fuck up regardless. That whole line is a bullshit red herring. It’s SUCH bullshit, and SO beside the point that I have to wonder if you’re really even tracking the conversation. I also never said anything about wanting a different system. We already have about the best we’re going to get. BUT this system still has an error rate. BECAUSE it has an error rate, we need someway to correct errors when we find them. Executions are irreversible. Life in prison is not. Nothing is accomplished by executions that is not accomplished by life without parole, an life without parole is cheaper (no, you don’t just get to sweep away the Constitution and the appeals process).
If you really want a system which will guarantee – GUARANTEE – that innocent people will die (and please don’t raise that horseshit about peple’s intentions Good or bad intentions have nothing the fuck to do with it. People with good intentions still fuck up, especially in highly emotionally charged cases), then you ought to be willing to be one the innocent people executed (because you are certainly willing for the next guy to be one. If you are not willing, then your argument has no moral validity or consistency because you want a special exception for yourself. You’re saying you want everybody else to play Russian Roulette except for you.
You really find reasonable doubt to be annoying, don’t you?
No death penalty. It makes us guilty of murder. We execute innocent people . It puts us in a group with the middle east countries that believe in it. We are supposed to be on a process of elevating our species. It is an atavistic, throwback to a less sophisticated, cruel and stupid time.
I guess you’re entitled to your beliefs.
I’m not trying to doge the point. It’s just that you are being so absolute in your requirement for 100+% evidence. We’re not perfect so we can’t be 100% sure of anything, but I don’t want to act like that means we’re 100% uncertain.
“I’m just trying to clarify whtehre you would insist that those innocent people be somebody besides yourself, or whether you believe that you’re special.” Well, I don’t think you’ll believe me, but, yes, if I was caught in a house standing over a dead body with the smoking murder weapon in my hand, a video tape showing I did it, and I knew in my mind I was innocent - I would fight to find evidence to exonerate me, plead and work and want all the appeals I could muster, [sub]and here’s the part you won’t believe[/sub], I would understand if I was convicted, sentenced to prison, and executed. I wouldn’t like it. I would yell against it! I would know it’s wrong since I knew in my mind I was innocent, but I really would understand. Geeze, I was caught with the gun in my hand! I’m really not trying to be evasive. I would undstand if I was one of the “innocent people wrongly convicted” Does that answer your question?
What I don’t feel is that people are behaving in a way or with motices such that innocent people are wrongly convicted most of the time or mostly on purpose or mostly anything. But it’s just a feeling, I have no cites.
“My question is whether you are willing to be one of the innocent people killed in order to have the system you want.” I think we have that system. That mostly people are guilty when convicted and not innocent. Every system needs improvement, but I think we have a damn good one.
“…an life without parole is cheaper (no, you don’t just get to sweep away the Constitution and the appeals process).” I defintely don’t want to sweep these away. I was talking about the society coming around to a majority voted opinion that the appeals process needs to be streamlined. It’s just an opinion open to debate, not a mandate. I like to question ideas, not be dogmatic about them.
“If you really want a system which will guarantee – GUARANTEE – that innocent people will die…” When did I want that? It is the sad part of an imperfect system. But a system that had no death penalty I feel is a less perfect system.
“You’re saying you want everybody else to play Russian Roulette except for you” I never exempted myself. I think that a system where the “preponderance of evidence” points in one direction is better than “no shadow of a doubt”. But then we get into what’s a preponderance and where does it overlay a shadow and all that. I don’t know, I’d have to have examples. And before you go off again, I’m not talking about sweeping away the Constitution or the appeals process. I’m talking about talking about them. Give me the sole power right now to change the system and I wouldn’t make a single move without some years of thought. I’m just expressing a point of view. I like to be Devil’s Advocate [sub]No, you don’t! Oh, shut up, yes I do![/sub] - and I do believe what I’m saying, I’m not just engaging in what-ifs.
No, I find unreasonable doubt to be annoying, don’t you?
Why should they get to enjoy three squares a day? I would give them some drink mix with everything they need to stay alive, flavored with an obnoxious tasting (but totally harmless) chemical.
snork 
I’m wondering what the defense strategy of these two perps is.