# Will Clayton Locketts Torture be the Rosa Parks moment of the Campaign against judicial killing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 30, 2014, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339 "2014-04-30T05:47:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/161 "2014-04-30T14:17:27Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > What do we do in the meantime? We could stay all executions where there is a question about their guilt. Might drop executions by 90%, would you be OK with that? I would deem that acceptable. > [@](#): > > I’ll also point out that “no question” is a very high hurdle, an expensive hurdle, and you could probably lock these guys away for life in SuperMax for a lower cost, and reduce your collateral damage to 0, while maintaining the concept of preventing any further loss of life from these monsters. The cost of justice should not be a deciding factor in whether or not it should be pursued. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/162 "2014-04-30T14:17:33Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > It is an injustice when a man who has committed murder is allowed to continue to live. Every breath he is allowed to take is an injustice against his victim, to the victim’s family, and to the entire society that he has attacked. But few murderers are killed, most are given life sentences. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/163 "2014-04-30T14:18:36Z")
> [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](#): > > I find you stance arrogant in the extreme even though I am pro-choice and anti-death penalty like you though maybe not for the same reasons. I find nothing uncivilized or barbaric about killing a man who raped, shot and tortured a teenage girl and then buried her alive as she begged for life. The guy is a monster in my book and the world is better off without him. That said, the death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent, too often is used on innocent men due to the imperfections in our justice system, and is more expensive than life imprisonment to boot; it should be eliminated. But you and Pjen stand on your high horse and condemn as lacking morality a practice that is accepted by the majority of humanity and as been used for our entire history. How arrogant, how fundamentalist, how judgmental! Who the hell are you and what makes you so special that you get to judge the world majority in their desire to execute men guilty of horrific crimes while at the same time have such callous disregard for the unborn millions that are killed every year? Your arguments have not convinced me of anything and I am on your side! If the family of the murder victim happened to kill the murderer, I wouldn’t be crying for him, to put it mildly, and were I on a relevant jury I’d nullify. The point is not that he deserves to live. The point is that the state should not have the authority to kill him. I’m certainly quite comfortable with him being dead, and have no real issue with the fact that he died in agony, as you say he deserved that. It’s the fact that the state was involved that makes it a problem. And yes, I’ll quite happily condemn as immoral the majority of humanity through the majority of history, at least by today’s standards. Racist, homophobic, misogynistic dicks, the lot of them. I have no real problem adding execution to that list. Because we _are_ better than that, and getting better all the time. I have no doubt in 100 years people will look back on today in horrified judgement, and that some things that I happily do they will judge poorly. That’s good, that means humanity is improving. I’m not going to respond to the abortion issue simply as that would be too much of a hijack, and knowing this board it could take over the thread - but I’ll discuss your point in another thread if you like. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/164 "2014-04-30T14:18:50Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > 1/ I get to choose who to ally myself with personally. I do not ally myself with death-making states. > > 2/ who mentioned ‘unborn millions’? 1. But what gives your the right to judge the majority of the world and call them barbaric? 2. Steophan is pro-choice, so he did. What is your stance on abortion? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/165 "2014-04-30T14:19:06Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Much the same way that the Taliban did not murder Daniel Pearl. Well, the Taliban definitely didn’t murder Daniel Pearl, [seeing as it was actually Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and all.](http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/15/guantanamo.mohammed/index.html) Remind me what country al-Qaeda was ever the legitimate government of? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/166 "2014-04-30T14:20:07Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > But few murderers are killed, most are given life sentences. Not every murder rises to the level of being a capital offense. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/167 "2014-04-30T14:21:12Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > It is an injustice when a man who has committed murder is allowed to continue to live. Every breath he is allowed to take is an injustice against his victim, to the victim’s family, and to the entire society that he has attacked. > [@Smapti](#): > > Not every murder rises to the level of being a capital offense. Make your mind up. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/168 "2014-04-30T14:21:33Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Not every murder rises to the level of being a capital offense. So some murderers should go free? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/169 "2014-04-30T14:24:05Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > So some murderers should go free? No. Some murderers should be imprisoned for life. Some other murderers, who have committed particularly heinous deeds and for whom there is an airtight case for their guilt, should be executed. ---
**Author:** ![Batistuta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Batistuta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batistuta)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/170 "2014-04-30T14:28:05Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > No. Some murderers should be imprisoned for life. Some other murderers, who have committed particularly heinous deeds and for whom there is an airtight case for their guilt, should be executed. How heinous does a crime have to be for someone to lose his/her right to live? More or less heinous than having the victim sit in agony for over half an hour? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/171 "2014-04-30T14:30:42Z")
> [@Batistuta](#): > > How heinous does a crime have to be for someone to lose his/her right to live? > > More or less heinous than having the victim sit in agony for over half an hour? Every state that currently has capital punishment defines what extenuating circumstances can merit capital punishment for murder. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/172 "2014-04-30T14:35:53Z")
I am convinced that within a few decades we shall look at judicial killing the same way we now look at slavery. The same arguments- supposed necessity- were advanced to maintain slavery for many decades more in the USA than in other liberal countries. And nearly a century after the civil war before allowing African Americans full citizenship. Maybe American exceptionalism just takes a few more years to wind the moral compass round compass round. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/173 "2014-04-30T14:38:45Z")
The idea that this guy will be a poster child for stopping the death penalty is ridiculous. If anyone it would likely be someone saved by say [The Innocence Project](http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/The_Innocent_and_the_Death_Penalty.php). When you use DNA, rather than some legal “technicality”, to prove innocence of some death row inmates it would carry better weight. > [@](#): > > The Innocence Project was founded at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in 1992, and became an independent nonprofit organization (still closely affiliated with Cardozo) in 2004. Since the organization’s founding, 312 people have been exonerated through DNA testing in the United States, including 18 who were at one time sentenced to death. The Innocence Project was involved in 172 of the 312 DNA exonerations. If none of those guys were the “Rosa Park” of the death penalty, this guy sure isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/174 "2014-04-30T14:39:24Z")
> [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](#): > > What is your stance on abortion? Totally irrelevant to the current discussion. No hijacks, please. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/175 "2014-04-30T14:41:00Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Every state that currently has capital punishment defines what extenuating circumstances can merit capital punishment for murder. But you were asked for _your_ opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Batistuta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Batistuta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batistuta)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/176 "2014-04-30T14:47:25Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > The idea that this guy will be a poster child for stopping the death penalty is ridiculous. If anyone it would likely be someone saved by say (The Innocence Project) Yes, but someone saved by the Innocence Project is not as good a poster child as one who has **actually** been executed. Proponents of capital punishment can always say “see, this guy was eventually saved, so that shows that the system works”. There was an interesting - but not great - film about this called “The Life of David Gale”. It’s about a group of anti-capital punishment campaigners who struggle to find the perfect poster child. In the end one of the campaigners gets himself sentenced to death, and executed for a crime that is later uncovered as a fake ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/177 "2014-04-30T14:50:56Z")
I actually rather pity death penalty advocates the desire for revenge is a basic undesirable urge. We have worked hard to stop other basic undesirable urges like the desire to rape, bully, steal or otherwise harm. We xpect civilised people to control their base instincts. But it seems that with certain groups- criminals, people we find ourselves at war with, social groups we despise and so on, even apparently modern societies remain stuck in an atavistic and infantile response mode- thirsting after revenge rather than justice. I tend to find those people able to consider carefully their control of base instincts to be somewhat better human beings than those that revel in surrendering to their base desires. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/178 "2014-04-30T14:51:39Z")
I see this thread has already devolved into people calling each other barbarians and mollycoddlers, so I’ll just say this: the Rosa Parks of capital punishment won’t be a convict. It will be an executive branch official who refuses to carry out a sentence. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/179 "2014-04-30T14:51:53Z")
I don’t get the revenge idea about death. You could choose to punish the guy for a long time, but you choose to end his punishment early. I guess if you believe in hell it makes sense, but if you believe in that, then you are probably a Christian, and thus would have to deal with the fact that the Bible says that taking revenge is a sin. You couldn’t do it because you’d wind up in hell. I’m not saying there can’t be other motivations. But revenge seems like the absolute worst. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339/180 "2014-04-30T15:02:35Z")
There are certain people who, by their horrific actions, deserve to die. Those examples are not many, but you know them when you see them. The fact that other nations don’t do this is odd to me. We kill bears that eat people and mad dogs-some people are no different. It’s not revenge-it’s safety. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-clayton-locketts-torture-be-the-rosa-parks-moment-of-the-campaign-against-judicial-killing/687339.md?page=10)