Capital Punishment for the Innocent

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gvf

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I just saw a documentary style play: all factual, focusing on 10 people formerly on Death Row, all innocent as proved later by DNA and some confessions, (later substantiated), by the real killers. Even so, one woman - even after knowledge of exculpatory evidence- waited 10 years until a DA was ready to re-investiagte her case because of a confession from the real killer - one of three people involved in a cop-killing. Before that the DAs didn't care to do anything about it, including even investigating it. The man confessing had taken a husband and wife he hadn't ever met before home from a party as he was going in the direction of their home, and on the way was stopped by a cop; he killed him, afterwhich he took the husband and wife hostage. However, when the car was stopped and all were arrested, he turned State's Evidence and said he had been taken hostage by THEM and they had done the killing. I guess he had wiped the gun free of prints. The husband and wife were both convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. The killer later recanted his testimony and confessed. The 10 years went by and the woman was freed. Her husband had already been executed. The execution was botched. It took repeated electric jolts over much time to finish the job and for him to finally die.

The trials some of the others had were travesties.

Capital punishment is not a philosophic issue. It is a practical one that involves a not insignificant number of innocents who have been killed - and, by statistical extrapolation - currently are being killed. There is not any acceptable number of these killings to justify the practice. If people think otherwise, imagine thinking that while watching your son having the execution needle inserted, knowing full well he's innocent, or you yourself being strapped onto the gurney, knowing you never did it. Tell the guards you're innocent but understand mistakes will be made. Nobody's perfect.
 
Collateral damage for the general good. I'm o.k. with it. Lots more innocents murdered by scumbags who SHOULD have been executed than innocents wrongly convicted.

I'm for adding crimes to the list for capital punishment.
 
Capital punishment is needed in some cases. It should not be used in any case where there is doubt or questions but if the evidence is complete and positive (video, multiple eye witnesses, etc) I find it an acceptable way to protect society from repeat offenders.
 
Multiple Eye Witnesses

Here's a case of multiple eye witnesses:

"The Cop and The Innocent Man He Freed" a few threads from here.

Sorry, all these people were surely guilty - except for the fact they were innocent.

As to the "acceptable collateral damage" : acceptable to who? Tell it the families of the innocent dead. Killing a certain percentage of innocents, while knowing this will be a regularly recurring event, ............ not an acceptable legal remedy for victims of crime that the innocent had nothing to do with - and ethically it makes the devil blush.
 
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Capital punishment is not a philosophic issue. It is a practical one that involves a not insignificant number of innocents who have been killed - and, by statistical extrapolation - currently are being killed. There is not any acceptable number of these killings to justify the practice. If people think otherwise, imagine thinking that while watching your son having the execution needle inserted, knowing full well he's innocent, or you yourself being strapped onto the gurney, knowing you never did it. Tell the guards you're innocent but understand mistakes will be made. Nobody's perfect.
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Yeah, I'm against the death penalty for practical and not moral reasons.* Our justice system is not infallible, and innocent people will be put to death. Period. It's final, you can't pardon them afterwards. Just seems like a really bad idea.

Also, there will always be doubt. And even if you could come up with some hypothetical scenario where there is theoretically no doubt, practically not all death-penalty scenarios will meet that criteria.

Just think, which member of your family would you be willing to risk losing in the name of keeping the death penalty? It's a small risk, to be sure. But still, just for fun...choose.

* - Or, put another way, I approve of capital punishment in the abstract but disapprove of it in practice.
 
Yes

Good way to put it. The added problem is the horriblly unjust trials some have - representation by public defenders who often haven't the faintest idea how to conduct a capital trial or don't care, rushed trials of 3 or 4 days duration, biggoted judges, DAs who want a conviction no matter who, the condemned usually poor and unable to do better than the Public D. OJ Simpson-type trials are for the rich, the usual type for the poor - the regular population of death row - are far different and from a different planet many times.
 
Just to help everybody out, a couple points from both sides, which seems to be what the debate always boils down to (provided you don't end up with bleeding hearts just crying about how killing child-rapists is wrong):

Anti - Innocent people will be executed by the state (true). This one is simple. Our justice system is fallible, innocent people have and will get convicted and executed. Not many, but a nonzero number to be sure.

Pro - Innocent people will be killed by prisoners who end up getting released (also generally true). No, "life without parole" is not a remedy to this...you've still got bodies from the Governor to the Supreme Court to the President who could directly or indirectly let them out. And, theoretically, escape. The risk is low, but then again statistically so is the number of innocents executed.

From a strictly practical point of view, I'd say the two balance each other out. Assuming you institute LWP in place of death, I'd say the innocents killed due to release vs. innocents executed is nearly a wash, especially considering the small numbers there are to begin with.


The way I make my decision in that case is by looking at how I am implicated. If a prisoner gets released and hurts somebody else, that's his action. His choice.

If an innocent person gets executed, that's my action. The state, as an extension of my will, is killing an innocent person. If I support that action, it's little different from me killing that innocent person myself.

Given that, I have to side with LWP in place of death every time.
 
People are going to start thinking we're in cahoots but I agree with JC. :p I have no moral issue with the death penalty for someone that's actually committed a crime worthy of it but pragmatically it can never jive. Eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable and while Gil Grissom has taught us that evidence never lies he's also taught us that people are fallible and interpretations of evidence can put innocent people behind bars or in a coffin.

It's just not worth it and it never will be. Life without parole is the better solution. Of course there's the issue of prison overcrowding but if nearly half our prisons weren't stocked with people convicted of nothing more than being potheads we wouldn't have to worry about overcrowding.

I don't think there's a single individual on this forum that could say the risks are worth it after watching their sibling/parent/child/significant other go through an execution and later be pardoned when new evidence comes to light.
 
Every time a person of authority sends innocents out to do their official duties, innocents risk death. BTW, that should be, "to whom."

Ever sat through a murder trial and actually listened to what one so-called "human being" can do to another?
 
I have no problem with getting rid of some piece of trash that couldn't care less about making a victim out some innocent person. I like another poster stated would add to the list of crimes such as: Rape,Child molesters and Drug dealers. :eek: And that " Well your Honer, My client was mentally challenged at the time of the alleged crime and therefore couldn't possibly understand what he was doing " crap would end altogether. Yeah I do realize that there are innocent people in jail as having been in law enforcement for the last 25 years I have seen it first hand. Prosecutors have to get it right and so do the agencies investigating the crime. Do innocent people get wrongly executed and put in jail? Yup it happens. Despite that I still stand by what I say about capitol punishment. And this injection crap would go to. Public hanging or firing squad. Your choice.
 
I would rather ten quilt go free than execute one innocent. That being said if and I do mean if there is absolutely no doubt I am in favor of the death penalty and the process sped up dramatical.
In many cases public hanging would suit me just fine. You rape and kill children there is no such thing as cruel and unusually punishment, and the whole world should see the consequences of such action.
 
Response to above

Good reaction on prior posting about those "who claim their client was mentally challenged", quite astute to point out what "a piece of crap it is".

and on a secondary note: might want to read the thread a few down from here
"The Cop and The Innocent Man He Freed", the shizophrenic who was mentally challenged and likely was full of crap when he told everyone he was innocent, including the same crap he stated to the judge. The officer who discovered he was innocent after 23 years and had him freed? Now, THERE'S a bad cop!
 
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I would rather ten quilty go free than execute one innocent. That being said if and I do mean if there is absolutely no doubt I am in favor of the death penalty and the process sped up dramatical.
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Except that there is no such thing as absolutely no doubt. Confessions, video evidence, forensic evidence, etc...these can all be wrong. Ten eye witnesses can be wrong. It's unlikely, but possible. There's one one person who can have "no doubt," and some people don't even believe in him.

Human justice will always be fallible. If you execute anybody, you will eventually execute the innocent. You can reduce the risk, but you can't get rid of it.


And on a tangent, I don't think mental defect should be a defense...at least not one that puts people back on the street any more quickly. It should possibly mean a sentence in a mental health facility rather than a real "prison," but that sentence should be no shorter. It doesn't matter if somebody kills another human being out of malice, or simply because they don't know any better...the other person is still dead, and the person who still did the killing is just as much a threat to society.

In fact, it's possible to argue that the mentally defective are more of a threat to society, since supposedly they don't even know what they did was wrong.
 
Mentally Ill

It may seem that the mentally ill would engage in more violent crime but the stats put them in the same range as the normal population for violent and/or fatal crimes.
 
In regards to the mentally ill, I can't fathom why some people believe it's an excuse to let someone out on the street earlier but it makes perfect sense to recognize a mental illness as the reason for a crime being committed. It's not a justification but if a child molester has a severe chemical imbalance it puts a different light on the crime. That's not to say the punishment should be different but the best way to prevent crime is to figure out the chain of events that lead up to the crime and try to break that chain.
 
Some people here are amazingly stu...diluted.

Collateral damage for the general good. I'm o.k. with it. Lots more innocents murdered by scumbags who SHOULD have been executed than innocents wrongly convicted.

I'm for adding crimes to the list for capital punishment.
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You say this until you're the one getting fried for something you didn't do.

I thought we were filtering out this type of crap?
 
DNA is a powerful tool, but i have a hard time believing all those released because DNA didn't match are Innocent. Just look at the OJ mess, DNA was tainted and thrown out -vs- a garment in an evidence envelope for 10 years being conclusive. something is missing here.

I will support the death penalty.
1. Sex offenders (ends fantasizing about the act and planning the next)
2. Murder
3. Treason

I cannot prove this and never what to, If i were wrongfully convicted of a heinous crime being put to death would be desirable to sitting in prison for something i didn't do, again that is my feeling from this side of the fence.
Even some that deserve to be dead and serving LWP would rather be dead.

Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, Leslie van Houten,
are serving LWP (I don't remember which one said) they would prefer to be put to death if their is no chance of ever getting out.


The part that blows me away is how family members fight the death sentence of their own. Maybe we just see the ones who cry out loud, and not the ones that distance themselves from their doomed relative.
Its like "I am for the death penalty as long as none of my family are involved"
 
We had one in Ct a couple or three years ago. His Father and alot of others tried to get it stopped but failed. And this guy killed like 6 or 7 young girls after raping them and I think one in NY as well. It took over 20 years to get it done and the only reason it was finally done was because he didn't want to pursue anymore appeals.And the he could have stopped it at anytime if he just said I change my mind I want my appeal.So in a way we had his permission. That was good of him. I think that there are 7 more waiting that were all convicted and without any doubt killed their intended victims and according to the courts. I feel pretty comfortable with taking the lives of these guys because in CT we have Dr Henry Lee. This the wrong state to commit murder with that guy around. :D
 
There is not any acceptable number of these killings to justify the practice.
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I'm not going to give you my opinion of the death penalty. At least not yet. But this argument fails.

It fails because it's not really what you're against. You're actually having problems with the justice system itself. The justice system isn't perfect. Tough luck.

What do you say to the guy who got life imprisonment, spent 50 years in jail, and was exonerated while on his deathbed?

That's the extreme logical end. But it doesn't matter how harsh or light a sentence is; a wrong conviction still sucks for the innocent party.

"but with the death penalty, there's no turning back."

Wrong again. Whether it's getting the needle, spending your lifetime in jail, or a weekend in a holding cell, there's never ever any turning back for the time you lost, while having to face the fact that out of all the people in the world, the justice system chose to fail you.

The death penalty is so very much a philosophic issue. This weak argument is merely a diversion.

At another extreme logical end, judges should stop handing out sentences all together, to prevent any and all wrong convictions.
 
As a young person I was adamantly in favor of capital punishment.

Over the years, I have done a complete 180, and I do not believe that our justice system has the right to take a human life. Often I see criminals convicted of horrendous crimes where my knee-jerk reaction is that the dirt-bag deserves to die. However, upon reflection I always decide that exacting revenge by taking the life of another human is wrong. Justice does not have to include revenge, no matter how heinous the crime may have been. Punishment......yes. Revenge......no.

I do wish that life without parole was a reality. I also wish that convicted murderers would spend the rest of their days being punished, really punished, in prison. Unfortunately, neither of those are part of our system of justice. However, I do not believe that capital punishment should be, either.
 
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