MC, can you provide a cite for that assertion? I’ve heard it made many times in gun control arguments, but the only study I’ve seen cited proved nothing of the kind. Amaze me, please, and show me some proof.
In any case, even if concealed carry permits did deter violent crime, this would not demonstrate that the death penalty deters violent crime.
Well, Pepper, they don’t break down stats like that. But I can tell you that some 1000 violent felons escape each year. I can tell you that Ted Bundy escaped, and killed 5 more, and almost another 2. Kemp did another 9, and so did Lucas.
According to the Columbia Law review (quoted at more length last death penalty debate), between 1990>1994 810 convicted murderers went on to kill another 824 victims. Thus, if we had executed them, we would have save 830 lives. I do not believe there has even been a decent fraction of that number in total executions in the last 2 decades.
I’d rather be sentenced to life in prison then dead.
Marc
Let’s see…
I’m sure the USA owns some land somewhere on this earth that’s not inhabited. That’s the most logical idea, since it follows the UK/Australia model.
But, I had another thought: fly them all to Saudi Arabia, stick them in the desert, and tell them to walk north and say hi to Saddam. Sort of like Fidel’s Mariel Boatlift 20 years ago dumped half of Cuba’s unwanted in Miami, we could do the same to Iraq.
but here’s something I don’t quite understand. This is going off of what Pepper said, in a way
I agree with many death penalty opponents in that I think a large part of the desire for the death penalty is, in fact revenge.
Hypothetical situation - assume my SO is brutally murdered. Or my Mother, or Sister. Whatever. Why is it that “wrong” for me to desire revenge? I really hate feeling like I am an awful person, but of course I would want them to suffer, and be killed. I think I am pretty good about imagining myself in that place, and I can feel that that is what I would want. Does that make me evil? Misguided? Maybe it’s because my faith was taken from me, and I don’t have strong enough values? Perhaps there are two conclusions one can draw from this:
I don’t want to get flamed over this, especially by my dear pepperlandgirl, but is not one of the deeper questions really whether or not revenge is an acceptable practice in society?
I am in favor of the death penalty. I do not wish to pay for someone’s room and board for the remainder of their life simply because they have been deemed a menace to society and need to be isolated regardless of the conditions of their confinement. Having said that, I also feel that the current system is substantially flawed and purpose the following criteria for the rest of you to consider.
[ul]
[li]The only crimes applicable to the death penalty would be 1st degree murder, treason, 3rd conviction of a violent crime (armed robbery, rape, etc.), killing of a law enforcement officer, and the knowledgable witholding/planting of evidence by a proscecutor or other law enforcement officer that results in an innocent person being executed wrongfully.[/li][li]The accused in a capitol case will have a prominent, competant attorney appointed by the state parole board and approved by the governor (the attorney will be paid by the state).[/li][li]If found guilty, sentencing including the the decision to invoke the death penalty will rest with a commission of three federal judges who will review the case. Their sentencing decision will be final and in the case of death must be unanimous. No appeals. The state governor and the president will retain the right to pardon.[/li][li]Execution will be caried out within 3 months of the final verdict and the method of execution should be surgical organ donation (Hippocratic oath aside, this would allow society to be repaid in at least a small way).[/li][/ul]
Thoughts???
**
Who are “they”?
Several states (Illinois, I believe is one of them) recently overturned a slew of cases where someone was on death row for a crime they were subsequently cleared of.
Sorry that this was found out before they were killed. :rolleyes: That said, I’m sure there are certainly some questionable excecutions out there. I know I can dig up cases where it was questionable whether the person knew what they were doing, such as cases where the killer has an IQ of a turnip or similar special circumstances which I think throw a monkeywrench into this debate.
Now, as for the OP: It’s all about revenge. Nothing more, nothing less. Not that revenge is bad: In fact, I am in favor of the death penalty in theory. But in practice, I don’t see how humans can do it without killing innocent people.
Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions
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**
Life imprisonment costs far less than the death penalty.
**
I’m sure the Johnny Cochran’s of the world would just line up for state jobs such as this. You think that the states can pay as much as OJ? You really think that the quality of a public defendant will be great? Who would you rather have?
**
So to hell with due process, huh?
Maybe some people are willing to give up their civil liberties for a facade of safety, but I am not among them.
**
Sure! If we want even more dead innocent people…
Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions
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Satan said:
What’s the current cost for a year’s stay in a max security prison? 50K? 60K? Muliply that times 30 - 50 years and throw in inflation as well. Please explain.
I presumed someone with state prominence not national.
Hey they’re my rules 
Frankly, the reasoning is twofold. First, it takes the final decision out of the hands of a possibly emotional jury. I think the chances of the DP being used is actually less in this case. Also with the inclusion of evidence tampering being considered a DP offense will also lessen the likihood of an innocent being convicted. Secondly, the current process of waiting 10 years with multiple appeals at the expense of the state is ludicrous to me if the earlier safeguards are in place.
Sorry, I disagree.
First of all, I agree with you - murderers deserve to die. Any human being who denies another’s right to live forfeits his own.
However…
Someone mentioned the Hippocratic Oath. Do you know what that says? It states that doctors are not, under any circumstances whatsoever, allowed to take a human life. Never. Not even when the patient wants to die, when the patient deserves to die, and not so that another patient (or two, or ten) may live. This is absolute, and fitting.
I beleive that a government must obey a similar oath. The basic, primary purpose of any government is to protect the lives of its citizens - that’s why we need the damned things. If a government breaks that oath, even by killing someone who by all opinion deserves to die, it is betraying that basic trust. I’m not talking about a cop shooting some suspect in self defence. I’m talking about a duly elected official signing an order instructing a state employee to kill an American citizen in cold blood. This is one occasion in which the act itself is wrong, irregardless of the circumstances.
Or so it seems to me.
[list][li]If I remember correctly from my civics classes way back in high school, the purpose of the penal system is rehabilitation - maybe this is why many prisons are called “correctional facilities”.[/li]
The government cannot rehabilitate a dead person.
[li]A 16 year old cannot vote. A 16 year old cannot be drafted. A 16 year old cannot enter into a legal contract. But someone can be put on death row for a crime s/he committed at the age of 16?[/li]
I also don’t believe 16 year olds should be committing murder. But you know what? I’ll bet you a quarter that if the state of Texas spent all that money it’s currently spending on law enforcement on drug treatment centers, social services, mentoring programs, etc., the crime rate would drop dramatically. No, not tomorrow, but with time and effort.
[li]Mentally ill and mentally retarded people are currently sitting on death row; several have been executed. If you do not understand why this is inherently unfair you have to be ignorant.[/li]
[li]According to this report by the DoJ, “80% of the cases submitted by federal prosecutors for death penalty review in the past five years have involved racial minorities as defendants.” Half of that 80% was black. African Americans make up about 12% of the population. You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to see something is wrong here.[/li]
[li]Nightline did a series on the death penalty a week or two ago and stated that about 25% of the defense lawyers in those cases had been “reprimanded, placed on probation, suspended or banned from practicing law by the State Bar of Texas”. See my last sentence in the previous paragraph.[/li]
One more thing. Raping a woman gets the perpetrator about 5 years. First degree murder gets someone about 20 years. Raping and murdering a woman gets him the chair? Even my math is better than that.
**
I don’t remember my civics class telling me that prison was specifically for the purpose of rehabilitation. For the most part I don’t think anyone expects prison to rehabilitate anyone.
Oh, and the murderer cannot make restitutions to his victim, why should the government work on rehabilitation in that case?
**
It is a seperate issue but I agree with you. Minors shouldn’t be treated as adults.
**
Yeah, Texas can just stop enforcing all those laws. Like the feds wouldn’t jump down their throats.
**
I must be ignorant. So far as I know all forms of mental illness do not excuse someones criminal actions.
Marc
Again from dictionary.com:
[ul][li]Rehabilitation: To restore to good health or useful life, as through therapy and education.[/li]
[li]restitution: The act of restoring to the rightful owner something that has been taken away, lost, or surrendered.[/li][/ul]
Two separate issues.
Oops, sorry. Editing error. Law enforcement s/b capital punishment.
**
Must…resist… ::shakes it off::
So you’re saying that a person who is chronologically 30 but has the mental capacity of a 12 year old is fair game just because s/he was born in 1970? Shame on you. Anyone who has spent any amount of time with the mentally handicapped would know better. I guess your last statement there is correct.
Case 1: This young man cold-bloodedly killed a counter girl after she had given him the till money in the store he robbed. There was no logical reason to shoot her – aside from the fact that she was White and he Black.
Sentence: Convicted of murder. Life in prison without possibility of parole.
Case 2: This man, a gang member, tortured over several hours, a young woman who was his current girl. He made her sleep in a basement. He hung her up by her wrists to an overhead pipe and punched her as hard as he could, 50 times in the chest. Apparently she had violated some gang rule and the punishment was 50 to the chest. He also had taken time to smack her around. He cut her fingertips off while she was alive. After she died of injuries, probably not quickly, he dismembered the body and dumped it in trash bins.
Sentence: Guilty of murder, kidnapping, torture. 20 years in prison with the possibility of parole. (Anyone see the discrepancy here in sentences?)
Case 3: A Hispanic Gang member robbed a young man on a street, then after getting his money, deliberately beat him to death with a steel rod. The beating, it was determined, lasted over 20 minutes. It was also determined that the victim had been alive at least 10. Injuries suffered: Crushed skull, crushed left eye orbit, crushed left eye, jaw broken in 18 places, 11 teeth knocked out, cervical spine crushed, 22 rib fractures, lungs punctured in 4 places by ribs being caved in, ruptured spleen, ruptured kidneys, internal bleeding, fractured lower spine, broken pelvis, both legs broken, many impact ruptures of the skin, both arms broken.
Reason given by the accused: He pissed ‘me’ off.
Sentence: Found guilty of aggravated assault resulting in death. 25 years with possibility of parole.
Case 4: A man high jacked a car from a young woman in traffic and when she was slow in getting out, shot her in the face with a 45 magnum. It blew the back of her head out.
Sentence: Aggravated assault, robbery with a fire arm. 30 years without parole.
Now, in my opinion, I don’t want any of these people back on the street. I don’t want them to make a home for themselves in prison. I don’t want them to adapt to prison life. I don’t want to pay for their up keep. I don’t want them enjoying dope, sex, TV, books, food, hooch, friendship, or snacks.
We have a law which says the punishment may not be cruel and inhuman, but we give little consideration to how cruel and inhuman the prisoners were to their victims. Cases 2 and 3 should have gotten life with no parole. They have something to look forward to, however, their victims no longer do.
The French probably had the right idea with Devils Island and such would be an excellent punishment today with today’s legal regulations. Work the murderous SOBs to death. Instead of building a road to nowhere, let then reconstruct the island, and years later when it is done, build a new colony on another nasty place, and sell the fist to some tourist trap.
We execute prisoners gently, which is something most of their victims did not get. Most of their prey died in horror, pain, ignominy, and despair.
We feed and cloth killers, take care of their health, let them mingle, have visits, write and read books, have visits and earn money. We enclose them in an air conditioned environment, give them clean cells, provide them with TV, and protect them. Some of them become famous and show up on documentaries, sell their stories, their art, have websites and women or men wanting to marry them.
No. They no longer deserve to live after what they did. Let them appeal, use what is necessary to prove the courts wrong, but if there is no doubt about their guilt, then kill the scum.
I’ve heard it said that we have more prisoners in jail here in the US than in many European countries, which is true, because most European countries are about the size of one state! However, for non-lethal crimes, I do agree that we tend to throw people in jail for often too long of a period.
for info about the increased cost of the death penalty over life imprisonment…check out
http://www.cybervillage.com/ocs/penalty.htm
typically…the capital crime case costs $2.3 million in the trial
"The death penalty is not cost-effective. Several Studies, including “The Cost of Processing Murder Cases in North Carolina”, instituted by the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts in May 1993, confirm that the death penalty is more expensive than a life without parole alternative. (Death Penalty) “This fact is a natural and unavoidable consequence of the special care required to ensure that the death penalty is applied fairly, as called for by the Constitution.” (Death Penalty)
In a Duke University study (May 1993), they show that the nation has spent over $700 million dollars extra since 1976 on the death penalty. (Death Penalty Information Center) The exorbitant cost of capital punishment is making America less safe; badly needed financial and legal resources are being diverted from effective crime fighting strategies"
The typical argument against this is to suggest an elimination or fast track of the appeals process. As has been pointed out…in Illinois, with a “normal track”, the number of innocent people on death row facing imminent execution was so high that the republican governor has called for a temporary moratorium on ALL executions in the state.
see http://chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/ws/0,,37842,00.html
The above link was extremely informative as I was totally uninformed regarding the true economics of the DP.
Congrats!!! You gained a convert
Phil_15:
You can disagree all you want. This does not change the facts.
The fact is that innocent people are convicted and sentenced to die as it is. The appeals process - which is what makes the death penalty cost more than a life sentence in terms of our tax dollars at work - allows for some of these cases to be weeded out (and still not all of them).
How do you profess to be able to take a system where innocent people are convicted to die, making it even more expedient by doing away with due process, and have more innocent people NOT die?
Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions
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Oh fine. Convert in a simulpost… 
Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions
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Lots of thought-provoking posts.
OK, my soft-hearted take: I’m against DP, not because murderers didn’t have it coming - if a meteorite wiped out their prison wing, I’d be happy to piss in the ashes while whistling cartoon theme music - but because it’s demeaning to society itself to start killing people.
We’re better people than these assholes. We’ll judge them - coolly, rationally - according to laws that are supposed to embody our morals. We have them in our power, yet we let them live - even though they probably don’t deserve it. We demonstrate with our actions that life is precious. I can’t argue this on any other grounds that I happen to believe that human life is valuable and shouldn’t be pissed away needlessly.
If DP was a truly effecctive deterrent, one might make a “greatest advantage for the greatest number” type of argument, but apparently, it’s not. And as has been pointed out several times, not executing anyone at all means not executing innocent people.
Lock’m up. Let them work for room & board. Don’t let them out again. Why am I not in politics ?
S. Norman