As long as we’re just supposing, can we just suppose that the two innocents convicted and executed are your wife and your brother? Now how do you feel about it?
Did you know that all evidence indicates that the death penalty doesn’t prevent the murder of anyone, let alone 20 people per year, and that in fact states with the death penalty tend to have higher murder rates? Can we just suppose that?
And yes, to answer your question, I do simply focus on the two innocents executed. You want your government wielding that power? Count me out. We don’t toss virgins into volcanos anymore, and we don’t execute innocent people, not if we want to claim even the most tenuous moral position. Superdude:
Yeah, Iraq and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia are sure oases of safety and comfort Boy, would I like to live there.
Unrealistic argument. There’s no way to make such a decision in the real world, since the number of people who may or may not die is impossible to know in advance. And would you be happy to go to your death as an innocent knowing that, hey, at least some genuine criminals will die too? I sure as hell wouldn’t (so my lack of support is partly motivated by self-interest!).
Utilitarian arguments, if this was your drift, are equally questionable at a simplistic level. Can you honestly put a price on a human life and compare it to others?
I’ve had misgivings about the execution of McVeigh over the martyr angle. However he will not have an opportunity to write masterworks about civil disobedience (a McVeigh version of “Letter From Birmingham Jail”?) and future extremists will not be able to use him in their demands (“Free Tim or we’ll kill our hostages”).
On the subject of capital punishment, I have no such misgivings.
It amazes me that opponents of executions have such little regard for prison inmates and guards. Without capital punishment, your imprisoned-for-life killers can murder behind bars with total impunity. And you can’t shove them in solitary for life. It’s inhumane.
And while death penalty opponents struggle to name any U.S. cases where people were wrongly executed, the other side has little trouble citing case after case where killers were freed and killed again.
Here’s a truly glaring instance in which proper death penalty application would have saved 6 innocent lives from the rampage of a serial murderer and cop-killer. I find that kind of margin of error wholly unacceptable.
The Mumia Abu-Jamal case is an example of how someone can be a “martyr” even while life-imprisoned. Most Mumia protesters I’ve heard are calling for his release, not just staving off his execution (now indefinitely postponed). There are many other intricacies in the case (Cecil offers his take), but Mumia is guilty and rightfully (I agree with Cecil) imprisoned for life. This didn’t stop a group of students asking Mumia to video a graduation speech for them, etc. So I don’t feel your “avoid creating martyrs” argument can support prohibiting the death penalty.
McVeigh was a mass murderer. He killed many, many people in a very brief time and in (more or less) one act. Imagine if he were instead a serial killer, and he methodically premeditated murdering 168 individuals, one each night. He’d kill again if given the chance.
Just how many (more) people would he have to murder before deserving capital punishment?
The Mumia Abu-Jamal case is an example of how someone can be a “martyr” even while life-imprisoned. Most Mumia protesters I’ve heard are calling for his release, not just staving off his execution (now indefinitely postponed). There are many other intricacies in the case (Cecil offers his take), but Mumia is guilty and rightfully (I agree with Cecil) imprisoned for life. This didn’t stop a group of students asking Mumia to video a graduation speech for them, etc. So I don’t feel your “avoid creating martyrs” argument can support prohibiting the death penalty.
McVeigh was a mass murderer. He killed many, many people in a very brief time and in (more or less) one act. Imagine if he were instead a serial killer, and he methodically premeditated murdering 168 individuals, one each night. He’d kill again if given the chance.
Just how many (more) people would he have to murder before deserving capital punishment?
Actually, gigi, they DO count. But when he decided, on his own free will, that he was justified in killing 168 people, and to later refer to them as “collateral damage,” then all of his rights to life went right out the window.
I quote Dennis Miller:
{Quote edited for copyright infringement. Link or short excerpts, please. --Gaudere}
I understand what you mean. I personally wouldn’t like to live there, either. But you have to admit that having a hand cut off for stealing is a hell of a crime deterrant.
[Edited by Gaudere on 06-12-2001 at 11:46 AM]
**
If Sister Prejean had shut up there, I would be in full concurrance.
We are too moral and civilized society to kill Tim McVeigh? I’d submit we are too just a society to let him live. You kill 168 innocent people in one arrogant act, you turn in your membership card.
I took not one iota of joy from his death Monday. But I thought maybe it will bring some comfort to a family member of one of his victims, to not have to hear him spout off as some reasoned, dispassionate intellectual about one of the worst atrocities ever perpetrated on U.S. soil.
I disagree with the good Sister. I don’t believe that Christianity teaches that man and government should not conduct man’s justice on earth. Only that there is an ultimately higher judge.
“By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth.” - Proverbs 8:15-16
My problem with the death penalty is and had always been the lack of uniformity in its application. Guy A kills a store clerk here, and gets death. Guy B kills a store clerk there, and goes to prison. Even has a chance at eventual parole.
Just a couple of thoughts re the lack of any proof of an innocent person ever being executed:
Availability of acceptably-accurate DNA testing that would establish guilt or innocence in many cases is an extremely recent phenomenon. Courts have also shown reluctance to allow it in cases where it would be academic.
The groups who look into these things are generally volunteers, often inexperienced and under-resourced (I’m thinking of the Northwestern law students, for example), and may think they can best serve society by looking into the cases of convicts who are still alive to have their cases reviewed. Finding more facts about someone who is already dead won’t save him, and the lack of attention to the case of a living convict may condemn him.
Based on the sheer numbers of convicts involved, and the demonstrated frequent sloppiness of the process, it’s statistically improbable that there have never been any such cases.
December, your moral calculus is appalling. One innocent man executed in error is one too many.
Have you forgotten about Sacco and Vanzetti, executed in 1928 for a crime they didn’t commit?
Did you not know that not every person convicted of a capital crime has access to competent counsel?
Did you not know that several men have been sentenced to death and been exonerated through evidence produced or reexamined through outside intervention?
None of this applies to McVeigh, of course, but the death penalty in this country is applied unjustly.
Uh oh … does that mean the next time I get all snotty with a telemarketer, he’s gonna take down my phone number and hunt me down and kill me when he gets out of prison?! :eek:
There is too little uniformity in the use of the death penalty. I believe the death penalty is a good idea, but let the punishment fit the crime, eye for an eye, etc. every time.
Tim McVeigh didn’t suffer yesterday when they put him to sleep like a sick pet. In my opinion they should have strung him up in the town square.
Some might say that public execution would do nothing more than make for a more brute civilization, but seeing someone put to death in a punishing manner before your very eyes is one hell of a deterent.
I was also surprised to find yesterday that many (all?) european nations are strongly against the death penalty.
What it boils down to is this: I try to live my life well; 99% of my fellow Americans live their lives well. We want to be safe from the maniacal 1%… put them to death because they DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE.
This much is true: the world is unfair; those people in that building didn’t deserve their fate.
McVeigh blew them up ON PURPOSE —> In the name of justice (which I believe is a noble human pursuit) we need to show that such behavior is intolerable. To not kill him would be a continual kick in the balls to the survivors.
That’s because, thank heavens, we’ve been letting them out before they could be killed. We’ve let 92 of them off of death row since 1973. 92 people scheduled to be executed for crimes they did not commit! There are probably many more on death row right now. While the real perpetrators of these crimes go free, these innocent people are separated from their families for 10,20,30 years, and suffer every indiginity implicit in prison life – beatings, stabbings, rapes, etc. But I guess you’re cool with that kind of “collateral damage,” huh?
Elvis1Lives neatly summarized some of the reasons why it’s been a difficult proposition to establish innocence after the fact. Ask yourself why the State of Virginia is so reluctant to allow tests to be performed on evidence relating to Roger Keith Coleman, executed in 1992.
If you’d like, I can give you cases where the UK definitely executed innocent people. You know what they did as a result? They eliminated the death penalty.
But I guess you and december and anyone else who doesn’t appear concerned about executing innocent people are willing to accept that kind of “collateral damage,” huh?
Brief GQ aside: Actually, most guards do not carry firearms when they are in areas where prisoners live, shower, recreate, etc., for fear that the bad guys might get a hold of them. In those areas, they carry clubs, etc. The firearms are for perimeter guards, tower guards, etc.
This, of course, has no bearing on the overall argument, in which pldennison is correct and all you other guys are wrong.
This GQ moment has been brought to you by the Louisville Slugger Company, providing unofficial weaponry to prison guards since 1884.
Here you go, Jack–AFAIC this is close enough. This man spent 14 years on death row for the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl. He died in prison of cancer. 11 months later, he was exonerated of the crime by DNA evidence. Gee, too bad for him, huh? Collateral damage, I guess.
This one is pure class: Keith Longtin was imprisoned for 8 months without bond under suspicion in the murder of his own wife. Trouble is, he apparently didn’t do it. Of course, during those 8 months, the guy who probably did do it sexually assaulted 6 other women. Whoops–collateral damage!
Anthony Porter spent 17 years on death row for a double murder he did not commit. He was nearly executed in September 1998, saved only by a stay issued in anticipation of a competency hearing. He was freed in February, 1999.
How about Gary Graham. There’s a good chance he was not guilty of the murder for which he was executed last fall. Too bad he’s dead and the real killer is probably free to kill again.
says that the prison psychologist analyzed him as “a decent person who had allowed rage to build up inside him to the point that he had lashed out in one terrible, violent act.”
You would also do well to read A Broken System:Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995, by James S. Liebman,
Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law Columbia University School
of Law. In the summary at the beginning, he states:
He further states that the two most common serious errors that cause reversal of capital sentences are incompetent defense and prosecutorial suppression of evidence of innocence.
You would also do well to read A Broken System:Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995, by James S. Liebman,
Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law Columbia University School
of Law,here. In the summary at the beginning, he states:
He further states that the two most common serious errors that cause reversal of capital sentences are incompetent defense and prosecutorial suppression of evidence of innocence.
See the tactics that are used? I mention all the evidence against McVeigh. gEEk chooses to ignore the specific instance of McVeigh, because what can he say? McVeigh is one of the worst things to happen for the anti-DP movement. He was not crazy. He proudly admitted to everything he did. He showed no regret. With McVeigh, the anti-DP people have to sidestep the issue, or somehow still claim that he might be innocent.
Cumber, that is exacty what they are implying. “I’m against the death penalty, because an innocent person might be executed.” “Okay, then you have no problem killing a guy like McVeigh right?” “Uhm, no. I think all killing is wrong” So then the killing aspect is more important than the guilty aspect. So then why the smokescreen?
Reprise: It doesn’t surprise me that you live in a country without capital punishment. I have never heard a DP proponent use an argument like that. It is a loaded question. I would like a zero margin of error in capital cases. Considering all the automatic appeals, the burden of proof is higher in capital cases, and should be even higher. The usual followup to a loaded question like this is, “Since no system is perfect, how can you be for the death penalty?” This is what frustrate me about this issue. The anti-DP people seem to live in a vacuum where everything is in terms of absolutes. Listen to some of the arguments. “All killing is wrong.” “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”