i'm for the death penalty, but i'm against it. meaning i'm all for executing our shitbags, i have no moral or ethical issues in regards to that. we have billions of people on this planet, a few less murderers isn't gonna put a dent in the population. my problem is that there are innocent people on death row just like in regular jail. i think thomas jefferson said something like, better to set 100 guilty men free than to imprison 1 innocent. that's pretty much how i feel relating to this so i would be 100 percent for abolishing the death penalty.
Me too. One mistake is all it takes to ruin it.
Today's forensic science makes few mistakes and is continually getting better, but with this said: 'clarity' would be one of the pre-requisites for the death penalty as I envision it.
I believe 33 States have capital punishment and at last estimates over 60% of US citizens support it. This will only grow from what happened in western NY last week. Thank you liberal media for trying to turn this into an anti-gun story. Be careful what you ask for.
I believe 33 States have capital punishment and at last estimates over 60% of US citizens support it. This will only grow from what happened in western NY last week. Thank you liberal media for trying to turn this into an anti-gun story. Be careful what you ask for.
Does the death penalty make you happy and thankful?
Maybe you can make friends with these two and share a fun evening watching video clips of hangings, shootings, and beheadings, whilst praising Jesus and God and Norman Schwarzkopf?
I believe 33 States have capital punishment and at last estimates over 60% of US citizens support it. This will only grow from what happened in western NY last week. Thank you liberal media for trying to turn this into an anti-gun story. Be careful what you ask for.
'Unease about this individual case [Troy Davis] was echoed by a growing mood of distaste towards the death penalty across America. Polls showed that only 61% supported the death sentence, down from 80% in 1994.'
I believe 33 States have capital punishment and at last estimates over 60% of US citizens support it. This will only grow from what happened in western NY last week. Thank you liberal media for trying to turn this into an anti-gun story. Be careful what you ask for.
'Unease about this individual case [Troy Davis] was echoed by a growing mood of distaste towards the death penalty across America. Polls showed that only 61% supported the death sentence, down from 80% in 1994.'
I really suggest you re-read my post. What happened with a convicted murderer getting out of prison for murdering his grandmother and then opening up on firefighters is only strengthening the support for capital punishment. I have zero idea why you would post an article from over a year ago.
I really suggest you re-read my post. What happened with a convicted murderer getting out of prison for murdering his grandmother and then opening up on firefighters is only strengthening the support for capital punishment. I have zero idea why you would post an article from over a year ago.
Yep, one year is such a long time.
Do you really think that one incident will change everyone's minds about the death penalty? The fact is that support for it is on the decline.
You executed at least two innocent people last year.
The death penalty kills innocent people. It doesn't work as a deterrent. It's more expensive to execute prisoners than to keep them in prison. And It's been shown that violent crime is greater in states and in countries that have the death penalty than in those without it.
I really suggest you re-read my post. What happened with a convicted murderer getting out of prison for murdering his grandmother and then opening up on firefighters is only strengthening the support for capital punishment. I have zero idea why you would post an article from over a year ago.
Yep, one year is such a long time.
Do you really think that one incident will change everyone's minds about the death penalty? The fact is that support for it is on the decline.
You executed at least two innocent people last year.
The death penalty kills innocent people. It doesn't work as a deterrent. It's more expensive to execute prisoners than to keep them in prison. And It's been shown that violent crime is greater in states and in countries that have the death penalty than in those without it.
I'm curious to know who these 2 innocent people were?
I agree that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent. More often than not, people who commit crimes don't really think about the consequences. Most wouldn't be commiting them with visions of the electric chair in their mind.
As I expressed before, money really shouldn't be an issue arguing for or against the death penalty, but if we wanted to make it cheaper... we could.
While there is a theme that demonstrates states that have the death penalty also have higher rates of violent crime... this is not absolute- there are exceptions. Further, it is an over-simplification to isolate this statistic while ignoring many other causal factors: it sounds good for strengthening your argument, but the situation is much more complex than to accept the implication that the death penalty is the reason for the higher crime rates.
For me, the death penalty should stand as an option. Although I wouldn't stand in the way, I agree that regular, 'run-of-the-mill' murders (such as drug dealers killing drug dealers) do not warrant death by state. I continue to think that some crimes of the extreme nature (involving kids or multiple victims in 'serial' fashion) warrant death.
The survivors deserve it and are entitled to it. 'Damages' are pursued in courts daily and frequently. While substantial monetary figures are awarded to victims for various other 'events'... why would we draw the line on 'compensating' victims for the loss of their child and the subsequent destruction of their life with what might be needed to begin to place closure on the nightmare they are living?
With the survivors never again being able to hold their child and forever living with the imagery of the final horrific moments of their child or loved one:
* The survivors deserve a little more than showing up at parole hearings every 2 years, reliving the experience, and pleading with the courts to keep the monster in prison. As a 'refresher'- because I referred to this particulary disturbing, 'close to home' case, earlier:
* The survivors deserve a little more than hearing how the murderer is requesting 'life-like' sex dolls (the blow up ones were no good) and receiving cancer treatment, while relaxing in his isolated cell- with people cooking him meals and washing his shit-stained underwear. (as detailed previously with the link provided describing Clifford Olson's sentence)
* The survivors deserve justice in a manner befitting of the crime. As fair as it might seem at face value... I'm not suggesting mutilating a body and feeding it pigs as one individual did over 50 times in my province 10 years ago, but I am suggesting clinical execution as a response to the obscenity of the crime's nature. The 'ceiling' is too low for the majority of society and has been for over 20 years now according to the Gallup poll I offered earlier.
Far removed form the intimacy of a horrific crime, it is easy to sit back and eloquently speak for operating at a 'higher level removed from emotion' when dealing with crimes that are just filthy in their nature. We have done much worse to much better. For example, the following is a link that details a homeless man, basically fighting to survive, receiving 15 years for stealing $100:
15 years for stealing a $100, while David Shearing (murdering grandparents and mother and father... raping the two daughters as his captives for six days before killing them too) is eligible for parole after serving 30 years?
My elementary aged daughter does input/output problems as part of her Math curriculum. At face value, I would suggest to you that as enlightened as we might think we are for tendering mercy to scum... things do not add up here. I would suggest to you we are not as much 'enlightened' as we are 'negligent' in our response to crimes of the obscene nature.
I really suggest you re-read my post. What happened with a convicted murderer getting out of prison for murdering his grandmother and then opening up on firefighters is only strengthening the support for capital punishment. I have zero idea why you would post an article from over a year ago.
Yep, one year is such a long time.
Do you really think that one incident will change everyone's minds about the death penalty? The fact is that support for it is on the decline.
You executed at least two innocent people last year.
The death penalty kills innocent people. It doesn't work as a deterrent. It's more expensive to execute prisoners than to keep them in prison. And It's been shown that violent crime is greater in states and in countries that have the death penalty than in those without it.
Can you please tell me who these two innocent people are?
I really suggest you re-read my post. What happened with a convicted murderer getting out of prison for murdering his grandmother and then opening up on firefighters is only strengthening the support for capital punishment. I have zero idea why you would post an article from over a year ago.
Yep, one year is such a long time.
Do you really think that one incident will change everyone's minds about the death penalty? The fact is that support for it is on the decline.
You executed at least two innocent people last year.
The death penalty kills innocent people. It doesn't work as a deterrent. It's more expensive to execute prisoners than to keep them in prison. And It's been shown that violent crime is greater in states and in countries that have the death penalty than in those without it.
Can you please tell me who these two innocent people are?
Troy Davis was one. And possibly, Larry Matthew Puckett was another.
05/21/2012
'...Charlie Baird, a Texas judge, was prepared to issue an order posthumously exonerating Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the 1991 arson-related deaths of his three young daughters. Based upon "overwhelming, credible and reliable evidence", Baird concluded Willingham had been wrongfully convicted; this in addition to a jailhouse witness who recanted his testimony, and scientists who challenged the evidence at trial that the fire that destroyed the Willingham home was caused by arson.'
The evidence is in: the US criminal justice system produces wrongful convictions on an industrial scale – with fatal results
David A Love
guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 May 2012
The US criminal justice system is a broken machine that wrongfully convicts innocent people, sentencing thousands of people to prison or to death for the crimes of others, as a new study reveals. The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University have compiled a new National Registry of Exonerations - http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoner ... about.aspx – a database of over 2,000 prisoners exonerated between 1989 and the present day, when DNA evidence has been widely used to clear the names of innocent people convicted of rape and murder. Of these, 885 have profiles developed for the registry's website, exonerationregistry.org.
The details are shocking. Death row inmates were exonerated nine times more frequently than others convicted of murder. One-fourth of those exonerated of murder had received a death sentence, while half of those who had been wrongfully convicted of rape or murder faced death or a life behind bars. Ten of the inmates went to their grave before their names were cleared.
The leading causes of wrongful convictions include perjury, flawed eyewitness identification and prosecutorial misconduct. For those who have placed unequivocal faith in the US criminal justice system and believe that all condemned prisoners are guilty of the crime of which they were convicted, the data must make for a rude awakening.
"The most important thing we know about false convictions is that they happen and on a regular basis … Most false convictions never see the light of the day," said University of Michigan law professors Samuel Gross and Michael Shaffer, who wrote the study.
"Nobody had an inkling of the serious problem of false confessions until we had this data," said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University.
The unveiling of the exoneration registry comes days after a groundbreaking study from Columbia law school Professor James Liebman and 12 students. Published in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, the study describes how Texas executed an innocent man named Carlos DeLuna in 1989. DeLuna was put to death for the 1983 murder of Wanda Lopez, a young woman, at a gas station. Carlos Hernandez, who bragged about committing the murder and bore a striking resemblance to DeLuna, was named at trial by DeLuna's defence team as the actual perpetrator of the crime. But DeLuna's false conviction is merely the tip of the iceberg, as the database suggests.
Recently also, Charlie Baird, a Texas judge, was prepared to issue an order posthumously exonerating Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the 1991 arson-related deaths of his three young daughters. Based upon "overwhelming, credible and reliable evidence", Baird concluded Willingham had been wrongfully convicted; this in addition to a jailhouse witness who recanted his testimony, and scientists who challenged the evidence at trial that the fire that destroyed the Willingham home was caused by arson. Baird was blocked by a state appeals court from issuing the order before he left the bench to pursue private practice.
And again in Texas, lawyers for Kerry Max Cook, a former death row prisoner who was wrongfully convicted of a 1977 murder in East Texas, claim that the district attorney in the case withheld in his possession the murder weapon and biological evidence in the case.
In 2012, the American death penalty has reached a crossroads. Public support for executions has decreased over the years, with capital punishment critics citing its high cost, failure to deter crime, and the fact that the practice places the nation out of step with international human rights norms. Last year, the US ranked fifth in the world in executions, a member of a select club of nations that includes China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. Further, in the US states that have repealed the death penalty in recent years – including New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois and, most recently, Connecticut – the killing of the innocent has been cited as a pivotal factor in favor of abolition.
Meanwhile, thanks to an EU embargo on lethal injection drugs to the US, states that practice capital punishment are faced with a shortage of poison to execute prisoners. Some have resorted to purchasing unapproved drug supplies on the black market, or using different chemicals altogether. For example, Ohio has abandoned its three-drug protocol for executions in favor of a single drug called pentobarbital, a barbiturate used to euthanize animals. And Missouri has decided to execute prisoners using propofol, a surgical anesthetic implicated in Michael Jackson's death.
Apparently desperate and lacking in options to kill, these states would be better-served by joining the civilized world and devoting their efforts to end the death penalty, rather than find new methods to satisfy their bloodlust – which, as the new evidence makes abundantly clear, cannot but cause them to execute innocent citizens. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 140 men and women have been released from death row since 1973 due to innocence. That death row inmates are exonerated much more often than other categories of prisoner – even when a person's life is at stake – should shatter anyone's faith in the presumed infallibility of the court system.
It is now transparent to the public that, at best, the application of the death penalty is rife with human error and incompetence. At worst, we know there is prosecutorial misconduct: that the courts shelter and nurture officials who are rewarded for gaming the system by career advancement, rather than determining true guilt or innocence and ensuring that justice is done.
It is now transparent to the public that, at best, the application of the death penalty is rife with human error and incompetence. At worst, we know there is prosecutorial misconduct: that the courts shelter and nurture officials who are rewarded for gaming the system by career advancement, rather than determining true guilt or innocence and ensuring that justice is done.
It is now transparent to the public that, at best, the application of the death penalty is rife with human error and incompetence. At worst, we know there is prosecutorial misconduct: that the courts shelter and nurture officials who are rewarded for gaming the system by career advancement, rather than determining true guilt or innocence and ensuring that justice is done.
Well Byrnzie...
Admittedly, the material and point you illustrate regarding 'mistakes' does take a bit of wind from my sails. It is the strongest argument against capital punishment.
I would agree that sentencing and executing an innocent man would be an act of the most grievous nature.
Again though, I feel the death penalty has its place as an 'option' for- as I said before- crimes of the extreme nature. With criteria established through the trial process, I'm convinced we could meet conditions that might make someone eligible for the DP if warranted. Such conditions might include things like: conclusive DNA evidence, conclusive physical evidence, multiple witness testimony, a confession and other items such as video footage (such as the Bernardo case).
We wouldn't have been wrong with Olson and Shearing: the two I have used extensively as reference points and two who deserve death for what they have done in my opinion.
On a side note... did you know someone married Shearing while he was in prison? Go figure. In prison for stalking and murdering a family. Keeping the two young girls as captives and repeatedly raping them (before finally killing them 6 days later). Some woman decides this guy is the man of her dreams. Together, they are trying to convince parole boards that he is a changed man and that he needs the opportunity to prove this in the community. Every two years they get to put on their smiley faces, best clothes and make the effort to become united in public. Many fear that our pathetic system might just comply- we have all sorts of idiots rubber stamping parole applications while sipping on their coffees.
On a side note... did you know someone married Shearing while he was in prison? Go figure. In prison for stalking and murdering a family. Keeping the two young girls as captives and repeatedly raping them (before finally killing them 6 days later). Some woman decides this guy is the man of her dreams. Together, they are trying to convince parole boards that he is a changed man and that he needs the opportunity to prove this in the community. Every two years they get to put on their smiley faces, best clothes and make the effort to become united in public. Many fear that our pathetic system might just comply- we have all sorts of idiots rubber stamping parole applications while sipping on their coffees.
women who seek out convicted murderers/rapists/etc romantically have something seriously wrong in their brain.
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
On a side note... did you know someone married Shearing while he was in prison? Go figure. In prison for stalking and murdering a family. Keeping the two young girls as captives and repeatedly raping them (before finally killing them 6 days later). Some woman decides this guy is the man of her dreams. Together, they are trying to convince parole boards that he is a changed man and that he needs the opportunity to prove this in the community. Every two years they get to put on their smiley faces, best clothes and make the effort to become united in public. Many fear that our pathetic system might just comply- we have all sorts of idiots rubber stamping parole applications while sipping on their coffees.
women who seek out convicted murderers/rapists/etc romantically have something seriously wrong in their brain.
No matter how good forensic evidence becomes, there will be innocent humans put to death. So if you support the death penalty you are okay with a few innocents dying so that we get that sweet taste of revenge.
As to countering that costs of putting humans to death can be reduced, hence negating the fact that it costs more to kill than house, are you implying that someone on death row should be limited on legal representation? They should be limited on appeals? Of their life?
This will just increase the number of innocents put to death.
Also why would anyone want to give the government a tool to silence permanently? Just this one item should make the one cringe….it does me.
There are thousands of crooked cops.....you can't give them or the government the power to eliminate you.
The evidence is in: the US criminal justice system produces wrongful convictions on an industrial scale – with fatal results
David A Love
guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 May 2012
The US criminal justice system is a broken machine that wrongfully convicts innocent people, sentencing thousands of people to prison or to death for the crimes of others, as a new study reveals. The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University have compiled a new National Registry of Exonerations - http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoner ... about.aspx – a database of over 2,000 prisoners exonerated between 1989 and the present day, when DNA evidence has been widely used to clear the names of innocent people convicted of rape and murder. Of these, 885 have profiles developed for the registry's website, exonerationregistry.org.
The details are shocking. Death row inmates were exonerated nine times more frequently than others convicted of murder. One-fourth of those exonerated of murder had received a death sentence, while half of those who had been wrongfully convicted of rape or murder faced death or a life behind bars. Ten of the inmates went to their grave before their names were cleared.
The leading causes of wrongful convictions include perjury, flawed eyewitness identification and prosecutorial misconduct. For those who have placed unequivocal faith in the US criminal justice system and believe that all condemned prisoners are guilty of the crime of which they were convicted, the data must make for a rude awakening.
"The most important thing we know about false convictions is that they happen and on a regular basis … Most false convictions never see the light of the day," said University of Michigan law professors Samuel Gross and Michael Shaffer, who wrote the study.
"Nobody had an inkling of the serious problem of false confessions until we had this data," said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University.
The unveiling of the exoneration registry comes days after a groundbreaking study from Columbia law school Professor James Liebman and 12 students. Published in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, the study describes how Texas executed an innocent man named Carlos DeLuna in 1989. DeLuna was put to death for the 1983 murder of Wanda Lopez, a young woman, at a gas station. Carlos Hernandez, who bragged about committing the murder and bore a striking resemblance to DeLuna, was named at trial by DeLuna's defence team as the actual perpetrator of the crime. But DeLuna's false conviction is merely the tip of the iceberg, as the database suggests.
Recently also, Charlie Baird, a Texas judge, was prepared to issue an order posthumously exonerating Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the 1991 arson-related deaths of his three young daughters. Based upon "overwhelming, credible and reliable evidence", Baird concluded Willingham had been wrongfully convicted; this in addition to a jailhouse witness who recanted his testimony, and scientists who challenged the evidence at trial that the fire that destroyed the Willingham home was caused by arson. Baird was blocked by a state appeals court from issuing the order before he left the bench to pursue private practice.
And again in Texas, lawyers for Kerry Max Cook, a former death row prisoner who was wrongfully convicted of a 1977 murder in East Texas, claim that the district attorney in the case withheld in his possession the murder weapon and biological evidence in the case.
In 2012, the American death penalty has reached a crossroads. Public support for executions has decreased over the years, with capital punishment critics citing its high cost, failure to deter crime, and the fact that the practice places the nation out of step with international human rights norms. Last year, the US ranked fifth in the world in executions, a member of a select club of nations that includes China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. Further, in the US states that have repealed the death penalty in recent years – including New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois and, most recently, Connecticut – the killing of the innocent has been cited as a pivotal factor in favor of abolition.
Meanwhile, thanks to an EU embargo on lethal injection drugs to the US, states that practice capital punishment are faced with a shortage of poison to execute prisoners. Some have resorted to purchasing unapproved drug supplies on the black market, or using different chemicals altogether. For example, Ohio has abandoned its three-drug protocol for executions in favor of a single drug called pentobarbital, a barbiturate used to euthanize animals. And Missouri has decided to execute prisoners using propofol, a surgical anesthetic implicated in Michael Jackson's death.
Apparently desperate and lacking in options to kill, these states would be better-served by joining the civilized world and devoting their efforts to end the death penalty, rather than find new methods to satisfy their bloodlust – which, as the new evidence makes abundantly clear, cannot but cause them to execute innocent citizens. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 140 men and women have been released from death row since 1973 due to innocence. That death row inmates are exonerated much more often than other categories of prisoner – even when a person's life is at stake – should shatter anyone's faith in the presumed infallibility of the court system.
It is now transparent to the public that, at best, the application of the death penalty is rife with human error and incompetence. At worst, we know there is prosecutorial misconduct: that the courts shelter and nurture officials who are rewarded for gaming the system by career advancement, rather than determining true guilt or innocence and ensuring that justice is done.
All speculation and mumbo jumbo. One person's opinions skirted around sketchy facts at best.
All speculation and mumbo jumbo. One person's opinions skirted around sketchy facts at best.
You really need to quit trolling. It's not funny, and it's not clever.
Maybe your shit would be better appreciated over on the Youtube comments section?
It is speculation. Its not fact. It's an essay written by someone sprinkled in with speculative facts. And I love how when you are actually confronted you bring up the term "trolling" like what you say is the god's written truth or something.
All speculation and mumbo jumbo. One person's opinions skirted around sketchy facts at best.
You really need to quit trolling. It's not funny, and it's not clever.
Maybe your shit would be better appreciated over on the Youtube comments section?
It is speculation. Its not fact. It's an essay written by someone sprinkled in with speculative facts. And I love how when you are actually confronted you bring up the term "trolling" like what you say is the god's written truth or something.
So is the The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University study just speculation? Was the Columbia law school study just speculation? Is the Death Penalty Information Center study just speculation?
If they're just speculation, then go ahead and provide evidence to the contrary.
If it's speculation, then go ahead and provide evidence to the contrary.
Quit your fucking trolling.
I don't need to provide evidence for someone's speculative essay. It's like me putting up an article on the web and saying I saw JFK and MArilyn Monroe on a space ship last night and then telling you to prove me wrong. Simply ridiculous.
If it's speculation, then go ahead and provide evidence to the contrary.
Quit your fucking trolling.
I don't need to provide evidence for someone's speculative essay. It's like me putting up an article on the web and saying I saw JFK and MArilyn Monroe on a space ship last night and then telling you to prove me wrong. Simply ridiculous.
So is the The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University study just speculation?
Was the Columbia law school study just speculation?
Is the Death Penalty Information Center study just speculation?
Stop your fucking trolling. And stop trying to derail this thread.
If it's speculation, then go ahead and provide evidence to the contrary.
Quit your fucking trolling.
I don't need to provide evidence for someone's speculative essay. It's like me putting up an article on the web and saying I saw JFK and MArilyn Monroe on a space ship last night and then telling you to prove me wrong. Simply ridiculous.
So is the The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University study just speculation?
Was the Columbia law school study just speculation?
Is the Death Penalty Information Center study just speculation?
Stop your fucking trolling. And stop trying to derail this thread.
Yes they are speculation. Just because it's a "study" doesn't make it fact.
Yes they are speculation. Just because it's a "study" doesn't make it fact.
They are studies based on the recorded numbers. They are based on the facts.
If you have evidence to the contrary then go ahead and provide it. And if not, then quit trolling.
Like I said...I don't have to provide facts against speculation of someone's translations of numbers. That's lunacy. I could sit here and compare the numbers of caning which isn't legal in the US to other parts of the world where it is and make it case that it works...and also make a case it doesn't work.
Like I said...I don't have to provide facts against speculation of someone's translations of numbers. That's lunacy. I could sit here and compare the numbers of caning which isn't legal in the US to other parts of the world where it is and make it case that it works...and also make a case it doesn't work.
It has nothing to do with 'someone's translations of numbers'
According to the The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University stufy, 'Death row inmates were exonerated nine times more frequently than others convicted of murder. One-fourth of those exonerated of murder had received a death sentence, while half of those who had been wrongfully convicted of rape or murder faced death or a life behind bars. Ten of the inmates went to their grave before their names were cleared.'
Like I said...I don't have to provide facts against speculation of someone's translations of numbers. That's lunacy. I could sit here and compare the numbers of caning which isn't legal in the US to other parts of the world where it is and make it case that it works...and also make a case it doesn't work.
Anyway, I'm not gonna risk a ban by responding to any more of your childish bullshit.
Like I said...I don't have to provide facts against speculation of someone's translations of numbers. That's lunacy. I could sit here and compare the numbers of caning which isn't legal in the US to other parts of the world where it is and make it case that it works...and also make a case it doesn't work.
You're a troll.
And I'm not gonna risk a ban by responding to anymore of your childish bullshit.
You're the one calling me names. I don't insult people. It's your right to not respond to anything I post and I respect that.
"The death penalty is a warning, just like a lighthouse throwing its beams out to sea. We hear about shipwrecks, but we do not hear about the ships the lighthouse guides safely on their way. We do not have proof of the number of ships it saves, but we do not tear the lighthouse down". - poet Hyman Barshay
"If we design a legal system that will be so generous to the suspect that there is absolutely no possibility of unjustly convicting that one out of ten thousand defendants who, in spite of overwhelming evidence, is really innocent, then we have also designed a legal system that is utterly incapable of convicting the other 9999 about whose guilt there is no mistake."
-- G. Edward Griffin in The Great Prison Break
Very interesting website with a lot of useful information.
"The death penalty is a warning, just like a lighthouse throwing its beams out to sea. We hear about shipwrecks, but we do not hear about the ships the lighthouse guides safely on their way. We do not have proof of the number of ships it saves, but we do not tear the lighthouse down". - poet Hyman Barshay
The death penalty doesn't work as a deterrent. This has been proven. And some shit poet claiming otherwise doesn't change this fact.
"The death penalty is a warning, just like a lighthouse throwing its beams out to sea. We hear about shipwrecks, but we do not hear about the ships the lighthouse guides safely on their way. We do not have proof of the number of ships it saves, but we do not tear the lighthouse down". - poet Hyman Barshay
The death penalty doesn't work as a deterrent. This has been proven. And some shit poet claiming otherwise doesn't change this fact.
Comments
Today's forensic science makes few mistakes and is continually getting better, but with this said: 'clarity' would be one of the pre-requisites for the death penalty as I envision it.
Does the death penalty make you happy and thankful?
Maybe you can make friends with these two and share a fun evening watching video clips of hangings, shootings, and beheadings, whilst praising Jesus and God and Norman Schwarzkopf?
Oh, and by the way, you're wrong, again.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/de ... isapproval
'Unease about this individual case [Troy Davis] was echoed by a growing mood of distaste towards the death penalty across America. Polls showed that only 61% supported the death sentence, down from 80% in 1994.'
I really suggest you re-read my post. What happened with a convicted murderer getting out of prison for murdering his grandmother and then opening up on firefighters is only strengthening the support for capital punishment. I have zero idea why you would post an article from over a year ago.
Yep, one year is such a long time.
Do you really think that one incident will change everyone's minds about the death penalty? The fact is that support for it is on the decline.
You executed at least two innocent people last year.
The death penalty kills innocent people. It doesn't work as a deterrent. It's more expensive to execute prisoners than to keep them in prison. And It's been shown that violent crime is greater in states and in countries that have the death penalty than in those without it.
I'm curious to know who these 2 innocent people were?
I agree that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent. More often than not, people who commit crimes don't really think about the consequences. Most wouldn't be commiting them with visions of the electric chair in their mind.
As I expressed before, money really shouldn't be an issue arguing for or against the death penalty, but if we wanted to make it cheaper... we could.
While there is a theme that demonstrates states that have the death penalty also have higher rates of violent crime... this is not absolute- there are exceptions. Further, it is an over-simplification to isolate this statistic while ignoring many other causal factors: it sounds good for strengthening your argument, but the situation is much more complex than to accept the implication that the death penalty is the reason for the higher crime rates.
For me, the death penalty should stand as an option. Although I wouldn't stand in the way, I agree that regular, 'run-of-the-mill' murders (such as drug dealers killing drug dealers) do not warrant death by state. I continue to think that some crimes of the extreme nature (involving kids or multiple victims in 'serial' fashion) warrant death.
The survivors deserve it and are entitled to it. 'Damages' are pursued in courts daily and frequently. While substantial monetary figures are awarded to victims for various other 'events'... why would we draw the line on 'compensating' victims for the loss of their child and the subsequent destruction of their life with what might be needed to begin to place closure on the nightmare they are living?
With the survivors never again being able to hold their child and forever living with the imagery of the final horrific moments of their child or loved one:
* The survivors deserve a little more than showing up at parole hearings every 2 years, reliving the experience, and pleading with the courts to keep the monster in prison. As a 'refresher'- because I referred to this particulary disturbing, 'close to home' case, earlier:
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Parol ... story.html
* The survivors deserve a little more than hearing how the murderer is requesting 'life-like' sex dolls (the blow up ones were no good) and receiving cancer treatment, while relaxing in his isolated cell- with people cooking him meals and washing his shit-stained underwear. (as detailed previously with the link provided describing Clifford Olson's sentence)
* The survivors deserve justice in a manner befitting of the crime. As fair as it might seem at face value... I'm not suggesting mutilating a body and feeding it pigs as one individual did over 50 times in my province 10 years ago, but I am suggesting clinical execution as a response to the obscenity of the crime's nature. The 'ceiling' is too low for the majority of society and has been for over 20 years now according to the Gallup poll I offered earlier.
Far removed form the intimacy of a horrific crime, it is easy to sit back and eloquently speak for operating at a 'higher level removed from emotion' when dealing with crimes that are just filthy in their nature. We have done much worse to much better. For example, the following is a link that details a homeless man, basically fighting to survive, receiving 15 years for stealing $100:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/265402
15 years for stealing a $100, while David Shearing (murdering grandparents and mother and father... raping the two daughters as his captives for six days before killing them too) is eligible for parole after serving 30 years?
My elementary aged daughter does input/output problems as part of her Math curriculum. At face value, I would suggest to you that as enlightened as we might think we are for tendering mercy to scum... things do not add up here. I would suggest to you we are not as much 'enlightened' as we are 'negligent' in our response to crimes of the obscene nature.
Can you please tell me who these two innocent people are?
Troy Davis was one. And possibly, Larry Matthew Puckett was another.
Also:
Jeffrey Havard
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politi ... nocent-man
Is Mississippi About to Execute an Innocent Man?
And also, two cases of wrongful execution were uncovered last year:
Carlos De Luna http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/ma ... -man-death and...
05/21/2012
'...Charlie Baird, a Texas judge, was prepared to issue an order posthumously exonerating Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the 1991 arson-related deaths of his three young daughters. Based upon "overwhelming, credible and reliable evidence", Baird concluded Willingham had been wrongfully convicted; this in addition to a jailhouse witness who recanted his testimony, and scientists who challenged the evidence at trial that the fire that destroyed the Willingham home was caused by arson.'
How America's death penalty murders innocents
The evidence is in: the US criminal justice system produces wrongful convictions on an industrial scale – with fatal results
David A Love
guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 May 2012
The US criminal justice system is a broken machine that wrongfully convicts innocent people, sentencing thousands of people to prison or to death for the crimes of others, as a new study reveals. The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University have compiled a new National Registry of Exonerations - http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoner ... about.aspx – a database of over 2,000 prisoners exonerated between 1989 and the present day, when DNA evidence has been widely used to clear the names of innocent people convicted of rape and murder. Of these, 885 have profiles developed for the registry's website, exonerationregistry.org.
The details are shocking. Death row inmates were exonerated nine times more frequently than others convicted of murder. One-fourth of those exonerated of murder had received a death sentence, while half of those who had been wrongfully convicted of rape or murder faced death or a life behind bars. Ten of the inmates went to their grave before their names were cleared.
The leading causes of wrongful convictions include perjury, flawed eyewitness identification and prosecutorial misconduct. For those who have placed unequivocal faith in the US criminal justice system and believe that all condemned prisoners are guilty of the crime of which they were convicted, the data must make for a rude awakening.
"The most important thing we know about false convictions is that they happen and on a regular basis … Most false convictions never see the light of the day," said University of Michigan law professors Samuel Gross and Michael Shaffer, who wrote the study.
"Nobody had an inkling of the serious problem of false confessions until we had this data," said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University.
The unveiling of the exoneration registry comes days after a groundbreaking study from Columbia law school Professor James Liebman and 12 students. Published in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, the study describes how Texas executed an innocent man named Carlos DeLuna in 1989. DeLuna was put to death for the 1983 murder of Wanda Lopez, a young woman, at a gas station. Carlos Hernandez, who bragged about committing the murder and bore a striking resemblance to DeLuna, was named at trial by DeLuna's defence team as the actual perpetrator of the crime. But DeLuna's false conviction is merely the tip of the iceberg, as the database suggests.
Recently also, Charlie Baird, a Texas judge, was prepared to issue an order posthumously exonerating Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the 1991 arson-related deaths of his three young daughters. Based upon "overwhelming, credible and reliable evidence", Baird concluded Willingham had been wrongfully convicted; this in addition to a jailhouse witness who recanted his testimony, and scientists who challenged the evidence at trial that the fire that destroyed the Willingham home was caused by arson. Baird was blocked by a state appeals court from issuing the order before he left the bench to pursue private practice.
And again in Texas, lawyers for Kerry Max Cook, a former death row prisoner who was wrongfully convicted of a 1977 murder in East Texas, claim that the district attorney in the case withheld in his possession the murder weapon and biological evidence in the case.
In 2012, the American death penalty has reached a crossroads. Public support for executions has decreased over the years, with capital punishment critics citing its high cost, failure to deter crime, and the fact that the practice places the nation out of step with international human rights norms. Last year, the US ranked fifth in the world in executions, a member of a select club of nations that includes China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. Further, in the US states that have repealed the death penalty in recent years – including New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois and, most recently, Connecticut – the killing of the innocent has been cited as a pivotal factor in favor of abolition.
Meanwhile, thanks to an EU embargo on lethal injection drugs to the US, states that practice capital punishment are faced with a shortage of poison to execute prisoners. Some have resorted to purchasing unapproved drug supplies on the black market, or using different chemicals altogether. For example, Ohio has abandoned its three-drug protocol for executions in favor of a single drug called pentobarbital, a barbiturate used to euthanize animals. And Missouri has decided to execute prisoners using propofol, a surgical anesthetic implicated in Michael Jackson's death.
Apparently desperate and lacking in options to kill, these states would be better-served by joining the civilized world and devoting their efforts to end the death penalty, rather than find new methods to satisfy their bloodlust – which, as the new evidence makes abundantly clear, cannot but cause them to execute innocent citizens. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 140 men and women have been released from death row since 1973 due to innocence. That death row inmates are exonerated much more often than other categories of prisoner – even when a person's life is at stake – should shatter anyone's faith in the presumed infallibility of the court system.
It is now transparent to the public that, at best, the application of the death penalty is rife with human error and incompetence. At worst, we know there is prosecutorial misconduct: that the courts shelter and nurture officials who are rewarded for gaming the system by career advancement, rather than determining true guilt or innocence and ensuring that justice is done.
This part of the article sums it up nicely.
Well Byrnzie...
Admittedly, the material and point you illustrate regarding 'mistakes' does take a bit of wind from my sails. It is the strongest argument against capital punishment.
I would agree that sentencing and executing an innocent man would be an act of the most grievous nature.
Again though, I feel the death penalty has its place as an 'option' for- as I said before- crimes of the extreme nature. With criteria established through the trial process, I'm convinced we could meet conditions that might make someone eligible for the DP if warranted. Such conditions might include things like: conclusive DNA evidence, conclusive physical evidence, multiple witness testimony, a confession and other items such as video footage (such as the Bernardo case).
We wouldn't have been wrong with Olson and Shearing: the two I have used extensively as reference points and two who deserve death for what they have done in my opinion.
On a side note... did you know someone married Shearing while he was in prison? Go figure. In prison for stalking and murdering a family. Keeping the two young girls as captives and repeatedly raping them (before finally killing them 6 days later). Some woman decides this guy is the man of her dreams. Together, they are trying to convince parole boards that he is a changed man and that he needs the opportunity to prove this in the community. Every two years they get to put on their smiley faces, best clothes and make the effort to become united in public. Many fear that our pathetic system might just comply- we have all sorts of idiots rubber stamping parole applications while sipping on their coffees.
women who seek out convicted murderers/rapists/etc romantically have something seriously wrong in their brain.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
I'm with you on this.
As to countering that costs of putting humans to death can be reduced, hence negating the fact that it costs more to kill than house, are you implying that someone on death row should be limited on legal representation? They should be limited on appeals? Of their life?
This will just increase the number of innocents put to death.
Also why would anyone want to give the government a tool to silence permanently? Just this one item should make the one cringe….it does me.
There are thousands of crooked cops.....you can't give them or the government the power to eliminate you.
All speculation and mumbo jumbo. One person's opinions skirted around sketchy facts at best.
You really need to quit trolling. It's not funny, and it's not clever.
Maybe your shit would be better appreciated over on the Youtube comments section?
It is speculation. Its not fact. It's an essay written by someone sprinkled in with speculative facts. And I love how when you are actually confronted you bring up the term "trolling" like what you say is the god's written truth or something.
So is the The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University study just speculation? Was the Columbia law school study just speculation? Is the Death Penalty Information Center study just speculation?
If they're just speculation, then go ahead and provide evidence to the contrary.
Quit your fucking trolling.
I don't need to provide evidence for someone's speculative essay. It's like me putting up an article on the web and saying I saw JFK and MArilyn Monroe on a space ship last night and then telling you to prove me wrong. Simply ridiculous.
So is the The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University study just speculation?
Was the Columbia law school study just speculation?
Is the Death Penalty Information Center study just speculation?
Stop your fucking trolling. And stop trying to derail this thread.
Yes they are speculation. Just because it's a "study" doesn't make it fact.
They are studies based on the recorded numbers. They are based on the facts.
If you have evidence to the contrary then go ahead and provide it. And if not, then quit trolling.
Like I said...I don't have to provide facts against speculation of someone's translations of numbers. That's lunacy. I could sit here and compare the numbers of caning which isn't legal in the US to other parts of the world where it is and make it case that it works...and also make a case it doesn't work.
It has nothing to do with 'someone's translations of numbers'
According to the The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University stufy, 'Death row inmates were exonerated nine times more frequently than others convicted of murder. One-fourth of those exonerated of murder had received a death sentence, while half of those who had been wrongfully convicted of rape or murder faced death or a life behind bars. Ten of the inmates went to their grave before their names were cleared.'
Is that true, or is it false?
Anyway, I'm not gonna risk a ban by responding to any more of your childish bullshit.
You're the one calling me names. I don't insult people. It's your right to not respond to anything I post and I respect that.
"If we design a legal system that will be so generous to the suspect that there is absolutely no possibility of unjustly convicting that one out of ten thousand defendants who, in spite of overwhelming evidence, is really innocent, then we have also designed a legal system that is utterly incapable of convicting the other 9999 about whose guilt there is no mistake."
-- G. Edward Griffin in The Great Prison Break
Very interesting website with a lot of useful information.
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
The death penalty doesn't work as a deterrent. This has been proven. And some shit poet claiming otherwise doesn't change this fact.
Proven?