Well. again a kid is found dead thanks to a violent ex-con. Caught on video. Refused to cooperate. Body is found. Just wondering on Vegas odds for this question.
Which shit-heel Holywood liberal will lobby for compassion?
This is why I will always support the death penalty. This Smith fuskshit should have died long ago. Maybe this 11 y/o girl would still be alive today?
Before you answer, imagine you were Carlie’s parents.
What pisses me off is I know there are going to be people here to defend this demon.
That’s all, I’m getting despondant that there have been so many reasons to vent the same rage lately.
Well I guess I’m the designated ‘evil liberal’ here to ‘defend’ this piece of excrement.
Because we all know that being opposed to the death penalty equates to loving child murderers and kidnappers, and of course bank robbers, we love them to pieces you know! :rolleyes:
Reminds me of the shouts claiming those opposed to the war are in support of terrorism. Give me a fucking break.
The reason the death penalty should no exist is the problem with our legal system. It is not perfect, not perfect by a LONG shot.
Such a final solution to a problem should not be part of a system that makes so many mistakes.
1 innocent person killed by the state is 1 person too many IMHO, YMMV though specially depending on your moral perspective.
IF the guy did it and the cops and prosecutors can prove it in a court of law, then throw him in jail for the rest of his miserable life, and throw away the key.
Problem solved. He’s removed form society where he can cause no one harm, and we didn’t have to stoop to the (expensive) barbarism of putting him to death.
You also asked to put myself in the shoes of the victim’s parent’s. I’m guessing you wanted me to see the situation from their eyes, through their hatred and suffering. And sure, in their position I can understand their feelings, I would too want to see this guy hang. But that’s when society is supposed to step in. Help me get through this situationas best it can, and solve the problem of removing this bastard from society by IMPRISONING him. Not killing him.
Suppose there is no doubt a guy committed multiple, horrible, murders. He’s on videotape, with fingerprint and DNA evidence, a confession, and he gets on the stand and admits to the killings. Say it’s the perfect case of guilt. Would you support the death penalty in that case?
There is no such thing a ‘perfect’ case of guilt. there have been cases where the guy confessed, only to later find out someone else commited the crime.
It’s a moral objection. I don’t think anyone has the right to kill another person unless in immidiate threat of bodily harm, in self defense.
The same service to the community can be accomplished by sending the dirt bag to jail for the rest of his miserable existance. And in case we have made a mistake sending him free would be alot easier than resurrecting him.
A) I personally feel life in prison is a much harsher sentence.
B) It’ll cost three or four times more to convict him than slapping him in a cell for the rest of his life.
C) As long as the death penalty exists, there will be mistakes and problems. How many perfect cases of guilt as in your example are spared the DP every year? How do we justify a system that hands out wildly different sentences for the same crime?
Oh, and by the way - in your example you should have mentioned that the defendant is black, and the victim white. Then you have a locked up DP case.
People who say “put him in prison and throw away the key” should talk to someone whose relative was murdered by a “lifer” who escaped prison or was murdered in prison. The only guarantee a convicted murdered will not kill again is death.
Calling for compassion is NOT the same thing as defending someone.
Hamlet: (assuming your question was “open”): I still wouldn’t support the death penalty:
[ul]
[li]Complete certainty is rare in the real world, and to allow the death penalty is to acknowledge that some innocent people will die.[/li][li]I think some people have the capacity for great change, even if that change is “only” reaching an understanding of the immorality of past actions. I think it’s wrong to deny that opportunity by ending their life. This makes me a shit-heel Hollywood liberal, I guess.[/li][/ul]
Hamlet, given your perfect scenario, I’d support the death penalty. Maybe if the rules for the DP were “absolute certainty” I’d support it in the real world… maybe.
Too many people have been convicted and sentenced to the DP with sketchy evidence, or evidence later found incorrect, for me to give the DP the thumbs up with our current system.
Why? Which is more humane, leaving this sick fuck to rot for fifty years in a cell surrounded by inmates who’ll beat him, abuse him, spit and piss in his food and generally make his life an utter, utter misery, or giving him a taste of prison and then humanely putting him out of his misery?
I’d say the former and if I were Carlie’s parents I’d want him to suffer hard for those fifty years, die an ignominious death and be dumped into an unmarked grave to rot. Nothing less.
Why are you advocating giving this fucker an easy way out?
On a more serious and less hyperbolic note, as long as the death penalty exists there will be mistakes. It’s not a risk, it’s a mathematical certainty. States which employ the death penalty are aware of this and are condoning innocent deaths in pursuit of some Utilitarian idea of a greater good. Repeatedly. I object to the death penalty, partially because I feel that life imprisonment is a harsher punishment but mainly because I object on general principle to living under a Government that kills innocent people in a far crueller and more deliberating fashion that the murderer’s we’re supposed to be punishing.
First, there is a strong, compelling case that child murder is such a repellent crime that the death penalty is the only appropriate punishment.
That said, the OP is an idiot.
“Which shit-heel Holywood liberal will lobby for compassion?” There are intelligent, respectable people who are deeply opposed to the death penalty as a matter of conscience. For example, the mental health nonprofit I currently work for is sending legal support to persuade the Texas governor to commute the death sentence of Scott Panetti, a schizophrenic who murdered his wife’s parents in 1993. The man is deeply delusional, believing his in-laws to be demons. Are the people working to save the life of a mentally ill person “shitheels”?
Second, although it does not apply here, generally, the death penalty is applied disproportionately to blacks and the indigent. Moreover, the Supreme Court has established precedent that largely eliminate the possiblity of overturning death penalty cases in which exculpatory evidence is produced after conviction. But, as I said, that doesn’t apply here because the man was caught on tape abducting the girl.
“Before you answer, imagine you were Carlie’s parents” Appeals to emotion are largely worthless. The girl’s parents are exactly NOT the people yopu want deciding a death penalty case; the death penalty should be meted out dispassionately and solemnly in cases where the crime is egregious and guilt clear.
In addition, the blood lust and perverted desire to torture the sumbitch in this thread is disgusting and unworthy of the Dopers. The US is the only developed country that has kept the death penalty–there is nothing to be proud of in sharing the status of countries like Saudi Arabia, China, and Cuba.
IMO, if the perp is found guilty, he should be executed, but to rejoice in it is loathsome.
Ah, but all are saying “lock the murderous animal away for the rest of his life”
How many times does that actually happen? Now, the Canadian legal system appears much more pathetic in letting murderers and rapists out nice and early to wander the streets and commit the same crimes…I WISH I could count on one hand the number of rapes and murders which have been committed by criminals who had been let out early. I can’t - there’s too many.
Please don’t interpret this as a vote for the death penalty; because I’m not certain how I feel about that - I just wish a life sentance really was a life sentance.
Is the Pope a “shit heel liberal?” Was Mother Teresa?
“Compassion” has fuck-all to do with it and you won’t find any “Hollywood leberals” who say that it does. The problem is that the government makes mistakes. The problem is that hordes of death row inmate have been released after DNA tests proved them innocent. The problem is that we have killed innocent people.
There is no chance that the death penalty can ever be applied without error, therefore there is no excuse for ever using it.
Hamlet, are you suggesting we use a different standard of proof for the the death penalty than for standard convictictions? How would that standard be defined? WAY beyond a reasonable doubt? Beyond any shadow of a doubt? Would such a standard be an admission that standard convictions carry a degree of uncertainty?
I also think that the death penalty is unsatisfying in that it allows the worst criminals to escape justice by getting a shot in the arm and going to sleep. I’d rather see people be punished for their crimes but that’s just me.
People like the OP just want an excuse to kill people. They get off on it. They masturbate to it. They’re no better than the perps.
It’s true that currently in a lot of places “Life Without Parole” actually means 40 years in prison. That’s how it is here in good ol’ Texas at least.
When I say I’d rather see these animals locked up for life, I mean that we should abolish the DP and estable True Life Without Parole, where life in prison means life in prison. I’m not saying we should just toss the death penalty and deal with convicts with whatever else we currently have installed.
And what kind of conversation would you have with the family of, say, Kirk Bloodsworth, who was sentenced to death for a heinous rape-murder, if we had followed your plan and executed him?
I ask only because Mr. Bloodworth, along with hundreds of others, was found to have been actually, factually innocent after DNA testing became available. If Bloodsworth had been killed, what would you tell his grieving family?