It seems to me that there is overwhelming evidence that people who are innocent of their crimes are either being executed, getting off after years on death row thanks to DNA testing, or having their cases revisited due to problems in due process (i.e. lying witnesses, trial procedure errors, people being framed, etc.).
If nothing else, it can easily be demonstrated that the system as it is has the potential to execute wrongly convicted people even if it hasn’t already.
When you throw in other documented statistical anomalies with regard to capital punishment - how things such as race and class have more bearing on the sentence than the crime itself - how do you continue to support a system that is flawed?
My whole trip is that on paper I am for the Death Penalty. Some people’s crimes are so heinous that I shed no tears if they are killed and sure, if I witness a loved one being killed I would want a measure of vengeance.
However, if the system is not reliable, I cannot in good conscious support it even if I might agree with the goal and given human biases and the many shades of gray that always come up in any emotionally-charged criminal cases, I don’t think it’s possible for us to ever have a system that works 100% of the time.
How are those who still support the death penalty able to get past the facts that the system is flawed, possibly fatally (pun unintentional)?
I haven’t had any interaction with the death penalty that I know if. I’ve never been murdered or killed anyone, or known anyone who’s experienced either of those, or been on a jury or involved in a trial of that nature. I’ve never known anyone who has been executed, or executed anyone. So, I feel somewhat distanced from the crime and the laws concerning it.
I know we have to have some kind of law system, and some kind of punishment system. The punishments need to be a continuum, with something really dire at the far end. People are in disagreement as to which is most dire–death, or life imprisonment.
I’m not okay with the idea of the death penalty. I’m also not okay with the idea of murder. I don’t know how many people have been deterred from committing a murder because of the death penalty, but I would not be surprised if that number was larger than the number of innocent people who have been executed, and I would also not be surprised if there were a great many murderers who have gotten away with it.
I support the death penalty because it is the system that has been chosen by our government as the dire end of the major crimes. I will support a reasonable substitution when one is presented, but I do not believe that changing the existing system to keep innocent people from getting executed is as important as changing the system to keep guilty people from getting away with it.
The “death penalty is a deterrant” is something that has been discredited so well that most proponents don’t even bring it out anymore.
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I support the death penalty because it is the system that has been chosen by our government as the dire end of the major crimes.[/quotwe]Do you support everything that our gofernment chooses?
So you err on the side of wrong convictions then? Interesting… My conscience doesn’t allow me to. That and self-preservation - I’d so hate it if I or a loved one was the person who was wrongly convicted. Wouldn’t you? Or would you just accept it as the price you have to make so society doesn’t let some guilty people go free?
Heck, change the Constitution so that district attorneys must get permission of their governors before seeking a death penalty, and the governors are limited to one case per year per five million population of their states. At the very least, it would ensure that only the cases where guilt was the most certain would be involved.
Cute but it would cause the same problems as Mandatory Sentencing laws, and that is something that I am also against. I won’t start a thread about that anyway. Not this time at least…
Why would it? The governor can elect to not seek the death penalty for any cases, and simply seeking the penalty doesn’t ensure it’ll be pronounced by a jury or allowed after going through the lengthy appeals process. The point of my proposal is to allow the death penalty but to put strict limitations on the numbers of death sentences, hopefully encouraging a much higher ‘quality’ of capital prosecution.
Simpler still is just to do away with the damned thing, since it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
No. I am opposed to a great many things the government does. One reason why I voted for Kerry. But the actions of our government as a whole isn’t really the issue here.
I err on the side of supporting a system which seems to be working. We have executed lots of people, and this is one of the few times where we know we executed the wrong guy. If the odds of winning the lottery were the same, they wouldn’t be able to sell tickets fast enough.
I would also like to point out that my supporting the death penalty is also based on the hopes that, now that we have more information on this case, this case isn’t closed–I would like to see the estate of the man who was executed compensated for court costs and the loss of ten years of income. I would also like to see that witness tried for perjury.
Therein lies the crux; you see it as working whereas I not only do not see it as working but also cannot envision it ever working.
What is your definition of “working” here?
I wouldn’t buy that ticket quite yet… You’re not taking into account two factors:
Generally when people are executed, not a lot of effort goes into disproving the person’s guilt since it is quite difficult to reverse the sentence.
You are ignoring the fact that there are many people who have not been executed because new DNA technology or other evidence has come to light which cleared the convict.
Logic dictates that if people are getting saved now that before the technology those same types of cases were simply executed. The state of Illinois simply stopped commencing the penalty when the governor saw an alarming number of such cases, for example, so it’s not just logical conclusions but conclusions in the real world.
Bearing these things in mind, I would say that the numbers are a lot different than what you posit, probably exponentially so.
Still, even if we take your position without critical analysis, it begs the question: How many incorrect executions are within parameters to still call the whole system “working?”
You also do not broach the topic of whether you would accept being a martyr for this cause, or whether you would have no problem if a loved one was one of the x-number of innocent people executed under this system.
Even if the system just makes one mistake a year, you could be that mistake even if the odds don’t make it probable.