Repeal the death penalty?

K

kjm

New member
There is a discussion topic about repealing the death penalty on another forum. I find myself ambiguous about it though. One one hand, most folks who get it, truly deserve it. I am not morally opposed to the death penalty. What gives me pause is the system in which the death penalty is given out.
As a matter of routine, evidence on both sides is suppressed for different reasons. Juries can be dismissed for a finding the Judge disagrees with, and so if I were sitting in judgement of an accused person, I would have to take into account that the evidence I've heard only represents about 10% of the whole truth. Could I give out the penalty knowing that I have been given only a small portion of the whole story? I doubt it. I'd like to hear what you folks think. Remember I am not morally opposed, but hesitant to convict anyone on a small portion of the evidence. Did the person killed really deserve it? You just never know what kind of person you are killing. Remember the British farmer who was given life for protecting himself against thugs? The thug part was probably supressed to the jury.
 
Anytime the state is given power to confer death for "crime" it is scary. I look at it this way. No system is perfect. Individuals sentenced to death in this country get the best of treatment in the system. The appeals process is redundant to the nth degree compared to other crimes where individuals are not afforded the same checks and balances even on life sentences.
Regardless of your race, what are your odds actually of being wrongfully convicted and then actually getting a death sentence that is carried out? Compare those odds with being murdered. Of those wrongfully convicted, how many are guilty of equally heinous crimes that went unpunished?
My point is under the current system, flawed as it is, we all have a better chance of being killed by a criminal than being falsely branded one by the state and murdered. Well, that could also change too...if we continue to allow criminals to rule our lives.
 
One thing in that article is misleading. In Texas, the governor does not have the legal authority to grant clemancy without that recommendation by the Pardon and Parole Board. As President, it will be a different story though.

I too am not interested in seeing innocent people executed. Who knows? Someday it could be me. However, it is ironic that, as technology makes the execution of the innnocent less of a possibility, Capital Punishment is opposed more strongly than ever.
 
"Science" only helps when DNA material is involved. Believe it or not, many if not most people on death row were convicted by circumstantial evidence-motive and opportunity. A few years ago, a man in Georgia was convicted and spent over three years awaiting execution and appealing right and left. Finally he was able to prove that the alibi he had given consistenly since his arrest was true. He was released-no legal technicalities involved except one-he was innocent.

And that is where the death penalty and I part company. Not from compassion for murderers but from horror at becoming one. The state is acting in my behalf and your behalf. If the state executes an innocent person-what are we? Mistakes do happen. HBO
did a special on people convicted of rape who were later found to be innocent. One man in Tennessee, I believe, was convicted of raping two different women who did not know him or each other. They each picked him out of a line up. Pretty good evidence, huh? After five years imprisonment, the guilty man confessed. A man who resembled the convicted man very much. The women were sincere in their testimony.

We can let an innocent man out of prison. We can make some futile attempt at amends. What do we say to the family of an executed man later found to be innocent? We're sorry? No one better say it to me. If that happened to a friend or relative, the state does not have the financial resources to buy me off.

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Byron Quick
 
I am not too thrilled with the death penalty.
I cannot say exactly why. I hate the fact that the State has power over life and death in this manner. Yet I would like to be the guy pulling the switch when the victim is an innocent. I feel it the most when the victim is a child.
These days, lack of personal responsibility and laying the blame on someone else or a situation seems to be the norm.

Sometimes the condemned deserve it.

The problem is, you can't take it back once it is done, and if a mistake can be proven, why not open the case up again.

Tough call for me

I do wonder why the death penalty is such a sticking point with the Democrats, while abortion is a cause they support.
Kinda hypocritical.

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"Any world that I'm welcome to.....Is better than the one I come from"
 
I was just surfing the web to read up on the different political party's platforms and ran across this little jewel at the Constitutionalist Party website. It is their stand on Capital Punishment.

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While the Death Penalty would appear to accomplish certain goals, in practice it does not. The usefulness of Capital Punishment is generally outlined by three goals that it supposedly achieves:

I.It is cheaper to execute a heinous felon than it is to imprison them for life.

II.Killing heinous felons discourages criminals from committing similar crimes in the future.

III.Capital Punishment allows a sense of justice for the relatives of the victim(s).

Surprisingly, studies have shown that not only can it be more expensive (look under the "Financial Costs" section) to the taxpayers to execute a felon rather than imprison them for life, but that the presence of Capital Punishment laws do not result in a lower crime rate for those crimes that can incur the penalty. Also in many cases, the sense of justice felt by the relatives of the victim(s) is compromised by feelings of guilt or discontent, since no matter what happens to the criminal, the crime and its effects are never erased.

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Now my humble opinion is that this is so much hogwash and misses the primary purpose of capital punishment, and, BTW, the primary argument against it, which is convincingly stated here in this thread.

For myself, the primary purpose of exercising the death penalty is to insure that the animal won't offend again. Period. Any "messages" that may be sent to other potential offenders are incidental. Who cares if it is cheaper? You do what you have to do. As for a "sense of justice", that sounds a little too much like the "closure" pap we hear on the evening news, but it's never happened to me, so I don't know.

Now having vented in true radical fashion, I will probably surprise most of you and say that I am adrift on this issue. I have always been a strong advocate of capital punishment, but my opinion is changing. And for one very simple reason. If it was I who was wrongly convicted, I would want the legal system to avail me all opportunities to right the wrong, however long it took. For some reason, the older I get, the easier it is for me to imagine being wrongly accused and imprisoned. After all, we have seen how one can be "wrongly executed" by the "system" (see Waco and Ruby Ridge). We have also seen how convicted murderers can walk (see Menendez Brothers and the L.A. Hacker)

Secondly, life in prison, (real "life in prison", as in your entire life) should be a fate worse than death. The Chinese have an old proverb that goes like this, "Better to be a live dog than a dead lion." I think I disagree with that. Think about it. Life in prison SHOULD be repayment over and over and over ... Anyone who would deserve the death penalty should be made to wish for it, but not receive it. Now, that's punishment.

A loss of freedom may not be punishment enough for some crimes, but my original premise was that the animal not offend again. A life of solitary confinement would satisfy that end. He/she won't do it again and he/she will wish they were dead, eventually, if they are human (hmmm). Cruel and unusual? Boo hoo.



[This message has been edited by sensop (edited September 10, 2000).]
 
Statistics have also said that most americans
support stiffer gunlaws.
If you do you can move to NYC and enjoy their safe environment.
Or england and enjoy their higher homebreakin rates and their rising murder rate.
Heck yeah the death penalty is more exspensive when you schedule 50 trials over it to rehear the same evidence every time.
But hey we can get rid of the death penalty no problem but first you just have to get rid of a little thing called the
jury system.
As many times as evidence of innocene may have been surpressed I beleive mainly because of money many more times evidence of guilt has been surpressed.
I rape your daughter and your neighbors and you give me life in prison,
Ill be laughing about it every night as I play poker.
This is not China folks but if you like it better their.....
If the state with putting citizens in the box
cant decide when a man is guilty of murder or rape and deserve an equal punishment whos to say you should be allowed to own a gun in your home that could just as well end the life of a poor innocent fellow stepping in during the middle of the night simply looking for a jar of pickles with revolver in hand.
Ever buy a box of bullets.Anyone ever tell you how many it takes to end a rapists life
even before he gets ahold of my wife.
www.ccops.org www.gunowners.org


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"those who sacrifice
liberty for security deserve neither"
 
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