Crimes against humanity

S

SamHouston

New member
In the early 90's a very close friends 9 year old daughter and 7 yo playmate were brutally murdered by a man who came into their home. Eventually the bad guy was caught and after about 10 years was executed here in Texas. Needless to say I do believe there are crimes that call for a person to be executed.

Reading the current issues about eliminating the death penalty it appears the same states that restrict handguns are leading the fight to eliminate executions. The Supreme Court is also reviewing the lethal injection issues.

You continue to hear juries in states (California i.e.) send criminals to Death Row, yet how long has it been since the state has followed through with its responsibilities and its peoples wishes? Do you believe there are crimes that warrant death?

I realize these are loaded questions for the good folks on this board but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
 
I like the texas "express line" approach! If a witness seen you do it you get ONE appeal! I also feel if DNA evidence is irrefutable than the same should apply! POOF done dead SMOKED! Clean the gene pool and hurry up! Quit wasting taxpayer dollars already!
Brent
 
Given the number of wrongfully convicted men who've been freed from death row. Life without parole seems to be the better idea.
The odds are that we have executed many innocent men. I'd just as soon we not execute any more.
 
When there is irrefutable proof and a confession some guy’s murdered 2 innocent children, there should be only 1 outcome -IMO

Hotdogs - those aren't protesters at Huntsville, they're tailgaters.
 
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When there is irrefutable proof and a confession some guy’s murdered 2 innocent children...
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What's your definition of "irrefutable proof?" Also, you realize that false confessions have been coerced out of people before, right?

Assuming he's guilty (and likely he is) I really have little problem with seeing him put to death. I'll not mourn his loss. I'm just not convinced that any human courtroom can maintain a high enough standard of justice and evidence across the board for my tastes.
 
Regarding all the supposedly "innocent" men on Death Row, I like to quote the Great Uncle for whom I was named. He served on a parole board in New York State, my quotes him as saying:
"There are no guilty men in Sing Sing."
Also as a New Jersey resident I think loud opposition to capital punishment is
used as a smokescreen to divert attention from other issues. New Jersey is
a corrupt state and now a lot of people are asking why is the Feds are the
only ones investigating and pursuing corrupt State officials, how come the State never does anything. And Illinois former Governor-and convicted felon-Ryan cleaned out that state's Death Row in an effort to divert attention from
his administration's corruption and perhaps curry favor with potential jurors when he and his pals came to trial-in his case, it didn't work.
New Jersey used to administer capital punishment properly. In January 1904
two individuals robbed and murdered a governess to a wealthy family in Burlington County. They were tracked down, tried, and hanged-in March 1904. On December 28, 1928 NJ State Trooper Peter Gloadys was murdered by one David Ware. On May 6, 1929 David Ware "rode the lightning."
Nowadays we have the disgraceful spectacle of convicted cop killer Mumia
Al-Jamal being hailed as a darling of the left, invited as a commencement speaker, hailed as a "poor innocent", a "victim of racist persecution". One of those spared here in NJ was Jesse Timmendaquas, killer of 7 year old Megan
Kanka.
Uncharitable stink that I am, I would like to see the death penalty even more widely applied-corrupt public officials and white collar criminals, e.g.
And an end put to the abuse of the appellate process. That is what has
rendered capital punishment ineffective.
 
I’m with JC on this one. I have no moral problems with the death penalty. It’s the system that I don’t trust. Prosecutors looking to ‘improve’ their records, cops trying to get out from under political and media pressure, juries with the “somebody needs to pay for this” mindset.

As far as eyewitness testimony is concerned I consider that to be the least reliable of all.
 
I approve on making the bad man history. We just have to be damn sure you have the right person. There has been to many incidence of people that have spent years in the gray bar hotel just to find they was a victim of some overzellus prosecutor that suppress some evidence some place. I'm sorry but I have lost faith in our Justus system.

I was put through the winger on a child abuse charge one time and it just didn't happen. By the time they got me to court , I was screwed, blued and tattooed. Contrived story's Coheirs from my 5 year old son into saying things that did not happen.

I was denied access to question the only real witness, my own son. The supposed victim! All other witness was the school principle and a teacher.

I was playing with him and dropped him on his head! Not Good. Big bruise on the for head! Some how that got translated into I through him at a wall! My son being taught to respect authority did what he was told and said what they wanted to here!

If that wasn't insult to injury, they tried to get my wife to go after me for abuse! It took her three months before they figured out she was not going there!

No I no Longer trust the system!

Morrell of the story? If the D.A. want you, they will find a way to have you. They can out time you. Out spend you! and have a army of solders to take you down. I escaped with a misdemeanor child neglect charge verses a Felon child abuse!


I'm shure this is just one story told. Many others out there that need to be heard!

There is only one life that I know of! You Can't take someones if there is one .00000000000000001 % of a dought!
 
Take the 12 yo Polly Klass case in California. I believe there was plenty of evidence & he took them to the body. He sits on death row today. Should he be executed as the juty has decided?
 
If he new where the bodie was and confessed, Yes! He has done there job for them. Some confissions are not good. This one could be.
 
i feel most of the lifers getting set free were incarcerated previous to DNA capacity or at least in the 80's/90's when we seemed to have a big push for "put anyone away for this murder". There will always be innocent folks serving time for someone else's wrongdoing. I say don't cop to it if'n you didn't do it! if your dna if smeared all over a murder scene and you are arrested with wounds than chances are you are guilty and I say if you are convicted... lets go ahead and get you off the taxpayer burden asap.
Brent
 
About the innocent men sitting on death row that have been released I have read about many of these cases and don't have the links or facts in front of me but in very few were thet actually found innocent. In just about every case there was a question of whether or not in the original trial all the facts possible were explored. In most cases involving DNA the person released was not cleared but it was ruled that it was possible that there could have been someone else involved. In one case involving rape and murder the convicted man was set free because later DNA tests showed she could have been raped by two different men and one was the convicted man and the other was unknown.

The ones I like are the ones that seem to change thier story several years later and claim they were lying originally. Maybe if they would make them just trade places it would help their memory to start with.
 
I don't have any problem with the perp ending up dead at the scene, but...
Once someone is sitting in a cage, it's really hard for me to justify killing them.

How is this supposed to prove killing is wrong? Or is it just about vengeance?

Ultimately, were asking some gov't employees to kill a person who is already caged up; even if were sure it's the right person, I'm not sure I want the gov't doing stuff like that.

If I was personally involved, my rule is different: said person is only alive 'cause they're in prison; if they get out, I'll be waiting.

My ancestors burned witches, and they were sure this was how civilized people behave; I have serious doubts about the morality of the death penalty; besides, in the here and now, life in prison is cheaper, and mistakes aren't quite as permanent. This isn't to say other peoples ideas are wrong; once a heinous crime has been committed, all the choices are bad 'cause none of them do what we really want: for the victims not have been victimized in the first place.
 
There again, take Timothy McVee and the OK city bombings. How big or bad does it have to be before New Jersey says this guys needs to be executed? Would New York give only a life sentance to one of the 9/11 bombers if he had survived the plane crash?
 
I don't think I could ever convict someone on DNA evidence alone nor would I exonorate them but rather as the instructions of the judge says, the plurality of evidence. As most in the legal field will tell you the eyewitness is the most unreliable of all evidence but you must take all the evidence into account. Guilt is beyond a reasonable doubt but too often innocence is an unreasonable doubt.
 
Over 100 men have been released from death row

http://www.prisons.net/onehundredinnocentmen.htm
A closer look at a few of the 100 innocent people who have been released from death row gives sobering weight to Annan's statement:

- Charles Ray Giddens, an 18-year-old black man in Oklahoma, was sentenced to death for the murder of a grocery store cashier after an all white jury deliberated for only 15 minutes. Three years later, the state dropped all the charges against Giddens.

- Anthony Porter of Illinois was one of the lucky death row defendants taken on by Professor David Protess and a handful of journalism students from Northwestern University. Porter came within two days of execution in 1998 and was only granted a stay because the court wanted to examine his mental competency. Porter had an IQ of 51. One year later, his conviction was overturned.

- Timothy Hennis spent three years incarcerated in North Carolina because he resembled the actual murderer.

- Joseph Green Brown of Florida waited 13 years to be exonerated and came within 13 hours of execution before a new trial was ordered. Brown walked out -- a free man -- a year later when the state decided not to retry the case.

- The former prosecutor for Delbert Tibbs, whose conviction was overturned in Florida, said that the original investigation was tainted from the beginning. If there were ever a retrial, the prosecutor said, he would gladly appear as a witness for Tibbs.

- Peter Limone of Massachusetts was sentenced to the electric chair in 1968. Although Massachusetts abolished the death penalty in 1974, Limone spent an unimaginable 33 years behind bars before he was proven innocent of the charges against him.

These, of course, are the stories of the fortunate ones, saved by tireless efforts of pro-bono lawyers, new evidence or the built-in checks and balances of the justice system. Untold numbers of innocent inmates don't get those breaks.

Upon Ray Krone's release last week, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) reflected on the unavoidable margin of error in capital cases. "There should be no shame in errors made by well-meaning jurors, because human error is inevitable. But what is deeply shameful is a political and legal establishment that lives in denial. What shocks me most about this case is not that yet another innocent man's life was ruined; it is that the prosecutor then called the system that did this 'the best in the world.'"
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Of the things which bugs me about supporters of the death penalty one is that these are frequently the same people that say we shouldn't trust the government to blow its own nose. But when it comes to executions government can do no wrong.
Another is the repeated appeals to some "deal" bad guy caught red handed. Every man freed from death row was also found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by twelve men and women. The ideal case is just that an ideal not a reality.
 
Buzzcook
One of the things which bugs me about supporters of the death penalty one that these are frequently the same people that say we shouldn't trust the government to blow its own nose. But when it comes to executions the government can do no wrong.
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You seem to forget that it is a grand jury of 18 (in my state) ordinary citizens that decide to try or not to try the alleged criminal, and a trial jury of 12 ordinary citizens that decide the guilt or innocence of the person being tried. There are numerous constraints placed upon these juries to make sure the laws of the affected juristiction are understood and followed. Jurors are not questoned as to their feelings on capitol punishment, as this is to be unbiased before the trial. I have sat on the jury in a capitol murder trial. I know what goes on in a deliberation room. I am comfortable with our system.
 
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