Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?
Reggie Clemons has spent 19 years on death row. Next month his case will be reviewed for one last time in a hearing that cuts to heart of the debate about capital punishment in America
Ed Pilkington and Laurence Topham
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 August 2012
Reggie Clemons has one last chance to save his life. After 19 years on death row in Missouri for the murder of two young women, he has been granted a final opportunity to persuade a judge that he should be spared execution by lethal injection.
Next month, Clemons will be brought before a court presided over by a "special master", who will review the case one last time. The hearing will be unprecedented in its remit, but at its core will be a simple issue: should Reggie Clemons live or die?
That question is as deadly serious as it sounds. One of Clemons's three co-defendants has already been executed, and Clemons himself came within 12 days of being put to death in 2009.
The Reggie Clemons case has been a cause of legal dispute for the past two decades. Prosecutors alleged that he and his co-defendants brutally cut short the lives of Julie and Robin Kerry, sisters who had just started college and had their whole adult lives ahead of them.
The Missouri prosecutors' case against Clemons, based partly on incriminating testimony given by his co-defendants, was that Clemons was part of a group of four youths who accosted the sisters on the Chain of Rocks Bridge one dark night in April 1991. The bridge, that connects Missouri and Illinois over the Mississippi river, had fallen into disuse, and teenagers used to gather up there to meet, smoke dope or do graffiti. The sisters, and their cousin Thomas Cummins, had gone onto the bridge that night to see a poem Julie Kerry had painted on it, and as they did so they bumped into Clemons and three other young men who were hanging out there.
The prosecution case was that the men forced the sisters to strip, threw their clothes over the bridge, then raped them and participated in forcing them to jump into the river to their deaths. As he walked off the bridge, Clemons was alleged to have said: "We threw them off. Let's go."
Clemons's supporters have over the years given a different rendition of events. In the racially heated atmosphere of St Louis in the early 1990s, they say, Clemons was made the fall guy. Of the four men who were charged with the murders, the three black men were all put on death row while the one white man is now free on parole.
In this account of events, the cards were stacked against Clemons from the beginning. His appeal lawyers have argued that he was physically beaten into making a confession, the jury was wrongfully selected and misdirected, and his conviction largely achieved on individual testimony with no supporting forensic evidence presented.
Next month's proceedings will bring these two versions of events head to head. The hearing will be unique in US legal history in terms of the open-ended brief that has been assigned to the special master, appointed by the Missouri supreme court after a federal judge granted Clemons a stay of execution three years ago. The position was given the title of special master to denote the unusual legal challenge it involved. The judge would given full powers to call witnesses, look through the evidence and eventually recommend to the supreme court what should happen to Clemons.
The hearings will also be significant in a wider sense: in effect, the death penalty in America will itself be put on trial when the hearing opens on 17 September.
Judge Michael Manners will be confronted by a question that goes to the heart of the debate on capital punishment in America today. Is the legal system so foolproof, so devoid of flaws and inconsistencies, that it can – beyond the shadow of even the slightest doubt – impose the ultimate, irreversible punishment: the taking of a man's life?
...Lawyers on both sides of the legal argument are declining to speak before the hearing. But it is understood that new evidence will be presented to the hearing that supports Clemons's case that his confession was coerced and should not have been allowed to be put before the jury at trial. The Missouri prosecutors are expected in reply to argue that a coerced confession is not proof of Clemons's innocence.
The state's star witness at the trial of Reggie Clemons was Thomas Cummins, the cousin of the Kerry sisters. Cummins told the jury that on the night his cousins were murdered, Cummins and the two sisters had been accosted on the deserted Chain of Rocks bridge by four men they encountered there. The sisters were raped and pushed into the river, Cummins said, then he was forced to jump in after them.
Cummins's account was initially doubted by police, and they suspected him of causing his cousins' death. At Clemons's ensuing trial, an officer of the Missouri state water patrol raised doubts that anyone could survive a 70ft drop from the bridge into the perilously fast-moving waters of the Mississippi without at least suffering some visible injuries.
Cummins told police several different accounts of what happened that night, according to police records. One of the accounts was that Julie Kerry had stumbled into the water by accident after he tried to hug her. But Cummins retracted his statement, saying he had been roughly treated during many hours of interrogation, and later was granted $150,000 by St Louis police to settle a claim for police mistreatment.
A couple of days after the sisters' deaths, police dropped Cummins as a suspect and turned their attentions instead to the other four men who had been on the bridge that night. They were: Clemons; Marlin Gray (executed in 2005); Antonio Richardson (currently serving life imprisonment after his death sentence was commuted); and Daniel Winfrey (the only white man among the four, who turned witness for the prosecution and was given a deal under which he received a lesser sentence; he was released in 2007 on parole).
After several hours of questioning by St Louis police, Clemons confessed to rape but not to murder. But the next day he, too, retracted the confession, saying it had been beaten out of him.
"I remember police mainly beating me in the chest, and that was something that scared me a whole lot. While they were beating me, they were telling me what they wanted me to admit to," Clemons told the Guardian.
As Clemons's lawyers have argued, his description of the violent interrogation he was put through is almost identical to that alleged by Thomas Cummins. It took place, according to the complaints of both men, at the hands of the same detectives, in the same investigation and within 48 hours of each other .
Cummins was given a $150,000 settlement, and was made the star witness at Reggie Clemons's trial. Clemons, by contrast, had his allegedly coerced confession presented to the jury and used as key evidence to put him on death row.
The other area of legal argument that is likely to be central at next month's hearing will focus on a rape kit that was collected after Julie Kerry's body was found 297 miles downstream from the bridge. The rape kit, which is in cold storage with the St Louis police department, appears not to have been disclosed to Clemons's lawyers before his trial.
Jeanene Moenckmeier, one of Clemons's two original trial lawyers, told the Guardian that "we should have seen it as part of the evidence we could have considered at the trial."
DNA tests have recently been carried out on the rape kit, and on a condom found on the bridge that night, to see whether they can illuminate what happened 19 years ago. The results of those tests are being studied by the Missouri attorney general's office and Clemons's current defence lawyers, and are likely to be the subject of testimony in front of the special master.
What, if anything, the tests show, and whether they can cast any light on what happened on the bridge 19 years ago – and indeed Clemons's role in events – will only become clear at next month's proceedings.
There are several other aspects of the case that could hold the special master's attention. The prosecution of Reggie Clemons was so riddled by inconsistencies and irregularities that some observers of the case argue he should never have been put on death row in the first place.
"There are so many contradictions, so many things that don't add up," said Chris King, editorial director of the St Louis American, that has covered the case in depth over several years. "In capital cases the highest standards of jurisprudence should be observed – because the state is taking a life – but that didn't happen in this case."
The selection of the trial jury was conducted by the prosecution in a way that was later ruled unconstitutional. Questions were also raised about the way the prosecution had been conducted. At the time of the Chain of Rocks bridge, Clemons was 19, had just finished high school and was planning to go to college to study engineering. Yet despite the fact that Clemons had no criminal record, the chief prosecutor Nels Moss went in front of the jury and compared him to the serial killer Charles Manson. Moss had been instructed by the trial judge not to refer to Manson - he had played the same trick in the earlier trial of Marlin Gray - and for blatantly disregarding the order was later fined $500 for criminal contempt of court.
Reggie Clemons: 21 discrepancies that cast doubt on his conviction
Was Reggie Clemons' confession beaten out of him? We look at the discrepancies thrown up during the course of the prosecution
Ed Pilkington and Laurence Topham
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 August 2012
• Reggie Clemons was not accused of pushing the Kerry sisters into the Mississippi. The main witness against him, Thomas Cummins, testified that he saw a "black hand" push his cousins into the river but failed to specify whose hand that was. Yet in the separate trial of co-defendant Antonio Richardson, Cummins said that it was Richardson who pushed the women into the river.
• Clemons confessed to raping Robin Kerry, but did not confess to murder. He was found guilty of murder as an accomplice.
• Two days after Clemons made the confession, he retracted it. He told St Louis police internal affairs officers that he had been beaten, punched in the chest and had his head slammed against the wall. He alleged that after hours of being assaulted he agreed to read out a confession that police officers had written in advance, because if he had refused to do so "they would have beat me some more".
• Police photos show that Clemons looked physically fit when he was first picked up by police, but after his was interrogated he was reported by several witnesses to have a swollen right cheek. When he came before a judge for arraignment, the judge sent him to the local hospital ER for examination, where he was diagnosed with muscle inflammation and a swollen face.
• Clemons's claims of police brutality were strikingly similar to independent complaints of police beatings made by his co-defendant Marlin Gray and by Thomas Cummins, the main prosecution witness against him, even though the three men had no contact with each other. All three sets of complaints related to interrogations that occurred within the same police station involving the same alleged techniques of assault, and all within the same 48-hour time span.
• Clemons's complaint of police brutality was dismissed and he was put on death row, as was Gray. But when Cummins sued the St Louis police for misconduct – claiming that detectives had tried to frame him for the murders and had fabricated police records – he won a settlement of $150,000.
• Clemons, a black man, was convicted of murder largely on the basis of eyewitness accounts of two men, both of whom were white and both of whom arguably had a self-interest in implicating him. Thomas Cummins was initially considered the prime suspect , though the investigation against him was later dropped, and Daniel Winfrey achieved a plea bargain in which he would testify against Clemons in exchange for avoiding execution himself. Winfrey was overheard saying before the trial that "he would take any plea bargain offered" and "say anything he had to to obtain a plea bargain".
• There was no physical evidence to support the murder and rape allegations against Clemons. The human rights group the Constitution Project has shown that that three-quarters of all prisoners exonerated in the US in recent years were convicted at least in part on the basis of faulty eyewitness testimony.
• Cummins changed the story he gave police several times, police records suggest. His highly inconsistent account given in the records either strengthens his claim that he was beaten up by police – which in turn supports Clemons's allegation that his confession was beaten out of him, too – or implies that Cummins was an unreliable source upon whom the prosecution should not have depended as star witness.
• One of the stories told by Cummins, as related by police notes, was that Julie Kerry had stumbled into the Mississippi after he startled her by trying to hug her. "He just wanted to hug her but she became startled, lost her balance and fell into the river," the police incident report records. Her sister Robin then jumped into the river to try and save her. Cummins later sued the police for alleged brutality and falsification of their notes.
• As the judicial process got under way, Clemons was denied a state-funded defence lawyer because he was told that all the registered state lawyers were busy at the time.
• Two private lawyers, Robert Constantinou and Jeanene Moenckmeier, were employed by Clemons's family to represent him. Moenckmeier has told the Guardian that she was given insufficient time to review boxes of evidence provided by the prosecutors under discovery. She has also complained that crucial evidence may have been withheld from her by the prosecution.
• The two lawyers were going through a divorce at the time of Clemons's trial. Moenckmeier was in the process of moving to California to take a job as a tax lawyer. A separate team of defence lawyers, who processed Clemons's later clemency appeal, alleged in court documents that the original trial lawyers "failed him at every stage of his representation", including failure to review the police reports up to a month before the trial. Moenckmeier denied to the Guardian that either the divorce or the move to California had adversely affected her representation of Clemons.
• A "rape kit" recording the results of tests on Julie Kerry's body after it was retrieved from the Mississippi was not presented to the jury in Clemons's trial, despite the fact that the allegation Clemons raped one of the Kerry sisters was an important part of the prosecution case against him. Nor was the rape kit disclosed to his defence lawyers before trial, even though they had specifically requested in writing to see "all evidence from the sheriff's department, police department and medical examiner's office who investigated and examined the recovery of the body of Julie Kerry".
• When the trial started in January 1993, seven prospective jurors – all of them black – were improperly excluded from the jury. A federal judge later found that this was unconstitutional, and ruled that Clemons's death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment as a result. The state of Missouri managed to overturn that ruling on a legal technicality, allowing the death penalty to stand.
• The final composition of the jury was two black jurors and 10 white, in a city where 49% of the population is African American.
• The prosecutor in the case, Nels Moss, was heavily criticised after the event for his conduct during the trial. As court documents show, the district court that reviewed the case called his behaviour during trial "abusive and boorish" and "calculated to intimidate the defence at every turn".
• Before the trial began, Moss was specifically ordered by the trial judge, Edward Peek, to refrain from highly contentious tactics he had deployed at the previous trial of co-defendant Marlin Gray. But as documents lodged with the Missouri supreme court show, Moss blatantly ignored the order. He did precisely what he had been told not to do: to compare in front of the jury Clemons – a 19-year-old with no previous criminal record – to the notorious serial killers Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy. A week after Clemons was sentenced to death, Peek found that Moss's conduct had been "willfully and intentionally committed in disobedience of the court" and fined him $500 for criminal contempt. But, still, the death sentence was allowed to stand.
• According to papers filed by Clemons' appeal lawyers to the Missouri supreme court, Moss addressed the jury in impassioned terms that the lawyers argued amounted to inflaming the jury. He asked the jury to imagine a hypothetical crime in which the Kerry sisters were raped, put into a "dark room" and repeatedly stabbed. "This hypothetical had nothing to do with the trial, but everything to do with Moss's goal to have an inflamed and upset jury". Moss has declined to talk to the Guardian ahead of the special hearing into the Clemons case in September.
• A member of the jury at Clemons's trial submitted an affidavit stating that if she had known of the discrepancies in the way the trial was conducted, she would not have voted for the death penalty.
• The state boundary between Missouri and Illinois falls down the middle of the Chain of Rocks bridge, which became a matter of great legal contention at trial. Lawyers argued over the precise location of an uncovered manhole on the bridge through which the Kerry sisters and Cummins were alleged to have been forced before being pushed into the river.
The prosecution said that the manhole lay on the Missouri side of the state line, which they used to claim jurisdiction over the case. But the defense argued the manhole had been located a few feet to the east on the Illinois side of the bridge, and that therefore the trial should have been in the Illinois courts. In the early 1990s Illinois was much less inclined to hand out death sentences than Missouri, so just a few feet could have been crucial. In fact, had the trial taken place today it would undoubtedly had been a matter of life or death: Illinois abolished the death penalty in March 2011 while Missouri
still has 47 death row inmates awaiting execution.
Americans convicted of murder.
By Region of Country they are from in alphabetical order
Alaska / Hawaii
Martha Ann Johnson
Sarah Marie Johnson
Genene Jones
Winnie Ruth Judd
Lois Jurgens
Sante Kimes
Lizzie Lloyd King
Tillie Klimek
Theresa Knorr
Patricia Krenwinkel
Stacey Lannert
Deanna Laney
Midwest
Rosie Alfaro
Wanda Jean Allen
Amy Archer-Gilligan
Marie Dean Arrington
Susan Atkins
Lena Baker
Gertrude Baniszewski
Jeffrey Dahmer
Mountainwest
Celeste Beard
Betty Lou Beets
Ann Bilansky
Bloody Benders
Cordelia Botkin
Kathy Boudin
Northeast
Rosie Alfaro
Wanda Jean Allen
Amy Archer-Gilligan
Marie Dean Arrington
Susan Atkins
Lena Baker
Gertrude Baniszewski
Robert John Bardo
Velma Barfield
Celeste Beard
Betty Lou Beets
Ann Bilansky
Bloody Benders
Cordelia Botkin
Kathy Boudin
Betty Broderick
Judy Buenoano
Carol M. Bundy
Lavinia Burnett
Mark David Chapman
Cynthia Coffman
Tiffany Cole
Eva Coo
Paula Cooper
Faye Copeland
Nicole Diar
Nannie Doss
Diane Downs
Roxana Flowers
Antoinette Frank
Caril Ann Fugate
Oreste Fulminante
Margaret Garner
Janie Lou Gibbs
Kristen Gilbert
Helen Golay
Barbara Graham
Debora Green
Amy Grossberg
Anna Marie Hahn
Jean Harris
Penelope Henry
Toni Jo Henry
Richard Herrin
Audrey Marie Hilley
Brittany Holberg
Waneta Hoyt
Eleanor Jarman
Angela Johnson
Martha Ann Johnson
Sarah Marie Johnson
Genene Jones
Winnie Ruth Judd
Lois Jurgens
Sante Kimes
Lizzie Lloyd King
Tillie Klimek
Theresa Knorr
Patricia Krenwinkel
Stacey Lannert
Deanna Laney
Mechele Linehan
Awilda Lopez
Lynda Lyon Block
Karen McCarron
Ruby McCollum
Rhonda Belle Martin
Florence Maybrick
Lyle and Erik Menendez
Lisa M. Montgomery
Blanche Taylor Moore
Frances Newton
Stella Nickell
Marie Noe
Hannah Ocuish
Louise Peete
Christa Pike
Martha M. Place
Susan Polk
Dorothea Puente
Christina Marie Riggs
Donna Roberts
Kristin Rossum
Darlie Routier
Olga Rutterschmidt
Jennifer San Marco
Dorothy Sherwood
Sarah Simpson
Pamela Smart
Susan Smith
Ruth Snyder
Lyda Southard
Bathsheba Spooner
Barbara Stager
Joel Steinberg
Charles Stuart
Mary Surratt
Marybeth Tinning
Jane Toppan
Karla Faye Tucker
Leslie Van Houten
Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh
Reetika Vazirani
Carolyn Warmus
Aileen Wuornos
Mechele Linehan
Awilda Lopez
Lynda Lyon Block
Karen McCarron
Ruby McCollum
Rhonda Belle Martin
Florence Maybrick
Lyle and Erik Menendez
Lisa M. Montgomery
Blanche Taylor Moore
Frances Newton
Stella Nickell
Marie Noe
Hannah Ocuish
Louise Peete
Christa Pike
Martha M. Place
Susan Polk
Dorothea Puente
Christina Marie Riggs
Donna Roberts
Kristin Rossum
Darlie Routier
Olga Rutterschmidt
Yolanda Saldívar
Jennifer San Marco
Dorothy Sherwood
Sarah Simpson
Pamela Smart
Susan Smith
Ruth Snyder
Lyda Southard
Bathsheba Spooner
Barbara Stager
Joel Steinberg
Charles Stuart
Mary Surratt
Marybeth Tinning
Jane Toppan
Karla Faye Tucker
Leslie Van Houten
Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh
Reetika Vazirani
Carolyn Warmus
Aileen Wuornos
Diane Zamora
Northwest
Nannie Doss
Diane Downs
Roxana Flowers
Antoinette Frank
Caril Ann Fugate
Oreste Fulminante
Margaret Garner
Janie Lou Gibbs
Kristen Gilbert
South
Helen Golay
Barbara Graham
Debora Green
Amy Grossberg
Anna Marie Hahn
Southeast
Jean Harris
Penelope Henry
Toni Jo Henry
Richard Herrin
Audrey Marie Hilley
Brittany Holberg
Waneta Hoyt
Eleanor Jarman
Angela Johnson
Southwest
James Lee Clark
Yolanda Saldívar
Diane Zamora
and here's a few more
Serial killers
Main article: List of serial killers in the United States of America
Gerald Stano – convicted murderer of 41 women; executed in 1998.
Randall Woodfield – aka "The I-5 Killer" and "The I-5 Bandit"; convicted of four murders; believed responsible for 14 others.
Robert Shulman – convicted of murdering five prostitutes between 1991 and 1996.
Tommy Lynn Sells – convicted of only one murder; admitted to murdering dozens of people across the United States, possibly in excess of 70 although only six are confirmed.
Efren Saldivar – respiratory therapist who killed six patients, possibly as many as 120.
Arthur Shawcross – aka "The Genesee River Killer"; convicted of 12 murders; confessed to one more.
Lemuel Smith – confessed to the murders of five people, including an on-duty female prison guard.
Wayne Williams – convicted of two murders; police claim his arrest solved 23 others in a string of 29.
Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood
Donald Harvey – aka "Angel of Death"; hospital orderly; confessed to more than 80 "mercy killings" with 37 confirmed killings.
William Heirens – aka "The Lipstick Killer"; confessed to three murders spanning from June 1945 to January 1946.
Michael Swango – physician and surgeon who poisoned over 30 of his patients and colleagues.
Henry Lee Lucas – convicted of 11 murders and confessed to approximately 3000 others, although most of his confessions are considered outlandish; a task force set up to investigate his claims suggested that the true number of his murders may be as high as 213.
Leonard Lake and Charles Ng – ex-Marines and survivalists; killed at least 11 people and suspected of 25; collected and murdered female sex slaves.
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo – aka "Beltway Snipers"; Muhammad is convicted of seven murders so far and awaiting prosecution for nine others; Malvo was convicted of, plead guilty to, or confessed to at least nine murders.
Donald Henry Gaskins – aka "Meanest Man in America"; convicted of nine murders; confessed to more than 200; executed on September 6, 1991.
Ed Gein – two known victims, one suspected victim, four missing persons; elements of Gein's life and crimes have inspired, at least in part, the films Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the novel/movie The Silence of the Lambs.
Kristen Gilbert – aka the "Angel of Death"; nurse convicted of killing four by epinephrine injection.
Earle Nelson – aka "Gorilla Man"; necrophiliac convicted and hanged for one murder; implicated in about 20 others.
Marie Noe – murdered eight of her children between 1949 and 1968.
Carl Panzram – murderer, rapist and arsonist; convicted of two murders; confessed to 19 others; executed in 1930.
Keith Hunter Jesperson – Canadian serial killer convicted in the United States.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian - Dr. Kevorkian became famous in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a supporter of assisted suicide, and was lucky enough to have three acquittals and a mistrial before being convicted of the second-degree murder of Thomas Youk in 1999.
Dennis Rader – aka the "BTK Killer"; killed ten people between 1974 and 1991.
Carroll Cole – killed 16 people between 1948 and 1980; executed in 1985.
Alton Coleman – multi-state killer whose killings took place during two months in 1984 aided by Debra Denise Brown; was convicted of murder in three states.
Andrew Cunanan – murdered five people, including fashion designer Gianni Versace, in a cross-country journey during a three-month period in 1997, ending with Cunanan's suicide, at the age of 27.
Nannie Doss – aka "The Giggling Granny" and "The Jolly Black Widow"; serial poisoner who killed 11 family members.
Albert Fish – aka the "Werewolf of Wisteria"; sadist and pedophile who cannibalized several children; convicted of one murder, confessed to two others
Wayne Adam Ford – aka "Wayward Wayne"; confessed to murdering four women; believed to have killed others.
Joseph Paul Franklin – racist serial killer who targeted interracial couples and attempted to assassinate Larry Flynt and Vernon Jordan; convicted of 11 murders and confessed to nine others.
Paul Dennis Reid – killed seven people during armed robberies between February and April 1997.
Gerald Gallego Jr. and Charlene Williams – aka the "Gallego Sex Slaves Killers"; kidnapped, raped and killed victims in the late 1970s; most of them were teenagers.
Julio González - convicted of arson and murder of 87 people in the Happy Land Fire.
list from just 2000–2010
Jill-Lyn Euto, an 18 year old student, was found stabbed to death in her sixth-floor apartment at 600 James St, Syracuse, NY on 28 January 2001. No arrests have been made.[45]
Evelyn Hernandez, and her 5-year-old son Alex, last heard from on 1 May 2002 at her residence in San Francisco, California. Her wallet was found several days later, in South San Francisco. Hernandez was nine months pregnant at the time and on 24 July 2002 her torso was found floating in San Francisco Bay. Her unborn child and her son Alex have not been found. The case was profiled twice on America's Most Wanted during the summer of 2003.[46]
Rashawn Brazell, disappeared after leaving his home in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York, United States, on the morning of 14 February 2005. His dismembered body parts were later found in garbage bags. America's Most Wanted profiled the case three times, on 29 September 2005; 1 April 2006; and 9 December 2006.[47][48]
Robert Wone, age 32, was murdered on August 2, 2006, in his friend's Washington, D.C., apartment. He was "restrained, incapacitated, and sexually assaulted" prior to his death. The only individuals present in the apartment at the time were its three residents, all friends of Wone. They have denied involvement and insisted that an intruder committed the crime. Authorities claim that there was no evidence of a break-in, the apartment appeared to be washed cleaned, the three residents appeared freshly showered, and the evidence was not consistent with the residents' accounts. In addition, the residents tampered with the crime scene, waited an inordinate amount of time to call 911, and exhibited strange behavior when paramedics and police arrived. Authorities believe that either some or all of the three house-mates murdered Wone and engaged in a cover-up.[49][50]
Lane Bryant shooting – on February 2, 2008, a gunman trying to rob a Lane Bryant store killed five women (a manager and four customers). The shooter has not been apprehended, although police do not consider it a "cold case" yet.
Mallory Manning, a formerly drug addicted prostitute was picked up by a supposed client on her usual corner in an inner city street in Christchurch, New Zealand on 18 December 2008. She was taken to a property and brutally murdered before being dumped in a nearby river where she was discovered the next day.
Thomas C. Wales (b:1952) was an American federal prosecutor and gun control advocate. On October 11, 2001, he was killed by a bullet fired through the window of his basement home-office in Seattle, Washington. No suspects have been charged, and the investigation continues.
this death penalty argument is open ended ...what would you suggest we do for the victims and their families and what should be done with the people that kill and just keep killing after they are released on a technocality ? or in prison for multi murders ?
?
I fail to see how that is in any way relevant or makes even the slightest difference to gimme's point.
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
this death penalty argument is open ended ...what would you suggest we do for the victims and their families and what should be done with the people that kill and just keep killing after they are released on a technocality ? or in prison for multi murders ?
Godfather.
I would suggest not jumping blindly at the most irrational, bloodyminded, irreversible, hypocritical and utterly ineffective solution of just getting rid of them.
Why not take a look at how the rest of the world manages to do it? Especially considering you and Japan remain the only "developed" nations on the planet that have not yet matured beyond killing their own citizens as a penal recourse.
Post edited by wolfamongwolves on
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
what do we do with all these wacked out killers ? they number in the thousands and many of them go on killing if they are not caught, this is a tough call for me "a life for a life" but when one person takes multipul lives and takes more how do we fix that ? how do we tell the victims families that we are sorry this person killed your child ,family member or friend but by law we can only put them in prison for 25 years to life and sometime the killer is out in 5 to 10 years, where is the justice in that ?
there is no doubt that sometimes people are wrongly convicted but does that mean we should lessen the punishment for those that do kill ? really think about it, as I said this argument is open ended.
this death penalty argument is open ended ...what would you suggest we do for the victims and their families and what should be done with the people that kill and just keep killing after they are released on a technocality ? or in prison for multi murders ?
Godfather.
I would suggest not jumping blindly at the most irrational, bloodyminded, irreversible, hypocritical and utterly ineffective solution of just getting rid of them.
Why not take a look at how the rest of the world manages to do it? Especially considering you and Japan remain the only "developed" nations on the planet that have not yet matured beyond killing their own citizens as a penal recourse.
quote from wolfamongwolves; Especially considering you and Japan remain the only "developed" nations on the planet that have not yet matured beyond killing its own citizens as a penal recourse.
I don't know how true that is, don't these countries still use it ?
Belarus
China (PRC)
Cuba
Egypt
India
Iran
Iraq
Japan
Malaysia
Mongolia
North Korea
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
South Korea
Taiwan (ROC)
Tonga
United States
Vietnam
what do we do with all these wacked out killers ? they number in the thousands and many of them go on killing if they are not caught, this is a tough call for me "a life for a life" but when one person takes multipul lives and takes more how do we fix that ? how do we tell the victims families that we are sorry this person killed your child ,family member or friend but by law we can only put them in prison for 25 years to life and sometime the killer is out in 5 to 10 years, where is the justice in that ?
there is no doubt that sometimes people are wrongly convicted but does that mean we should lessen the punishment for those that do kill ?
Short answer - yes. Because where is the justice in killing an innocent person wrongly convicted?
Where is the justice in telling the family of someone who was innocent that "we are sorry the state killed your child, but we're sure you'll agree it was worth the risk?"
Where is the justice in killing someone like Reggie Clemons, or Troy Davis, when it has been unequivocably shown that there are serious doubts about their guilt? Where is the justice in ignoring those doubts, inconsistencies, evidence for political or ideological reasons?
And where is the justice in killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
Where's the justice when a white man gets life while a black man gets death for the same crime?
Where's the justice that the poor killed because they can't afford a competent defence, not because of what they did or didn't do, where the rich can afford to not be killed regardless of what they did?
If you are truly interested in justice, Godfather, you would oppose the death penalty, because when you look at the facts, with an open and rational mind, there is no more unjust, and unnecessary, punishment imaginable.
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
this death penalty argument is open ended ...what would you suggest we do for the victims and their families and what should be done with the people that kill and just keep killing after they are released on a technocality ? or in prison for multi murders ?
Godfather.
I would suggest not jumping blindly at the most irrational, bloodyminded, irreversible, hypocritical and utterly ineffective solution of just getting rid of them.
Why not take a look at how the rest of the world manages to do it? Especially considering you and Japan remain the only "developed" nations on the planet that have not yet matured beyond killing their own citizens as a penal recourse.
I've read your post a few times and this part is a/ my concern,"hypocritical and utterly ineffective solution of just getting rid of them."
first I don't think a solution will ever be found..never. and I don't think it's about solutions as much as it is punishment for a crime commited and murder is the biggie, is right that a man take another mans life with no recorse ? is living in a prison being taken care of(mdeical,meals,living quators) for even the rest of their lives
a fair exchange for a life ? don't get me wrong I don't have a blood thirsty need to exacute killers I just don't see the fairness in a life for a life in prison.
Especially considering you and Japan remain the only "developed" nations on the planet that have not yet matured beyond killing its own citizens as a penal recourse.
I don't know how true that is, don't these countries still use it ?
Belarus
China (PRC)
Cuba
Egypt
India
Iran
Iraq
Japan
Malaysia
Mongolia
North Korea
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
South Korea
Taiwan (ROC)
Tonga
United States
Vietnam
Godfather.
My apologies. I mistyped one word. For "nations" read "democracies".
Also, I specified "developed" which discounts all but 6 of your list, according to the Human Development Index - Belarus (essentially a dictatorship); Cuba; Iran; Malaysia; Saudi Arabia; and Tonga.
Not exactly auspicious company for the supposed greatest nation on earth...
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
what do we do with all these wacked out killers ? they number in the thousands and many of them go on killing if they are not caught, this is a tough call for me "a life for a life" but when one person takes multipul lives and takes more how do we fix that ? how do we tell the victims families that we are sorry this person killed your child ,family member or friend but by law we can only put them in prison for 25 years to life and sometime the killer is out in 5 to 10 years, where is the justice in that ?
there is no doubt that sometimes people are wrongly convicted but does that mean we should lessen the punishment for those that do kill ?
Short answer - yes. Because where is the justice in killing an innocent person wrongly convicted?
Where is the justice in telling the family of someone who was innocent that "we are sorry the state killed your child, but we're sure you'll agree it was worth the risk?"
Where is the justice in killing someone like Reggie Clemons, or Troy Davis, when it has been unequivocably shown that there are serious doubts about their guilt? Where is the justice in ignoring those doubts, inconsistencies, evidence for political or ideological reasons?
And where is the justice in killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
Where's the justice when a white man gets life while a black man gets death for the same crime?
Where's the justice that the poor killed because they can't afford a competent defence, not because of what they did or didn't do, where the rich can afford to not be killed regardless of what they did?
If you are truly interested in justice, Godfather, you would oppose the death penalty, because when you look at the facts, with an open and rational mind, there is no more unjust, and unnecessary, punishment imaginable.
I see your point but what of the guilty ones Iam sure they out number the innocent in prison, maybe a better system in the courts is needed....for sure it is and that would be the solution..fix the laws and court system,
a person should not be exacuted without 100% proof of the crime....crap this is very disturbing to me I don't belivev in needlessly taking a life but I also don't believe that a person should not pay up for their crimes...I just figured out that I have no place in this debate...
Especially considering you and Japan remain the only "developed" nations on the planet that have not yet matured beyond killing its own citizens as a penal recourse.
I don't know how true that is, don't these countries still use it ?
Belarus
China (PRC)
Cuba
Egypt
India
Iran
Iraq
Japan
Malaysia
Mongolia
North Korea
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
South Korea
Taiwan (ROC)
Tonga
United States
Vietnam
Godfather.
My apologies. I mistyped one word. For "nations" read "democracies".
Also, I specified "developed" which discounts all but 6 of your list, according to the Human Development Index - Belarus (essentially a dictatorship); Cuba; Iran; Malaysia; Saudi Arabia; and Tonga.
Not exactly auspicious company for the supposed greatest nation on earth...
well man dead is dead if it's in an undeveloped nation or a developed nation, being the greatest nation on earth means little to victims and and just as little to the person sentanced to death...I'm so confussed, like I said I have no place in this topic.
this death penalty argument is open ended ...what would you suggest we do for the victims and their families and what should be done with the people that kill and just keep killing after they are released on a technocality ? or in prison for multi murders ?
Godfather.
I would suggest not jumping blindly at the most irrational, bloodyminded, irreversible, hypocritical and utterly ineffective solution of just getting rid of them.
Why not take a look at how the rest of the world manages to do it? Especially considering you and Japan remain the only "developed" nations on the planet that have not yet matured beyond killing their own citizens as a penal recourse.
I've read your post a few times and this part is a/ my concern,"hypocritical and utterly ineffective solution of just getting rid of them."
first I don't think a solution will ever be found..never. and I don't think it's about solutions as much as it is punishment for a crime commited and murder is the biggie, is right that a man take another mans life with no recorse ? is living in a prison being taken care of(mdeical,meals,living quators) for even the rest of their lives
a fair exchange for a life ? don't get me wrong I don't have a blood thirsty need to exacute killers I just don't see the fairness in a life for a life in prison.
Godfather.
I'm pretty sure this is all covered in my last post. But I'll say this much - if you're talking about "fair exchange", you're not talking about justice, you're talking about retribution. That should never be the business of a rational just state. Difficult as it may be not to stoop to vengeance when someone murders your loved one, it is not justifiable to do so. And less justifiable for a state. The state exists exactly to hold that irrational response in check and administer legitimate justice. If it is unjust for someone to murder someone else, why is it not unjust for the state to do the same - and with even more premeditation than the murderer? I have asked this question more times than I can count on this boards, and not a single pro-death penalty person has ever answered it.
Another point. You say "no recourse"? I would have thought that in America, where what you loudly shout about more than anything is freedom, that denying someone that freedom for the rest of their life would be considered a pretty severe punishment, while also serving the purpose of keeping that person away from society. If you had to spend 23 hours a day in a 10x6 cell, I can tell you, you would consider it punishment. "Being taken care of"? You just listed the bare minimum of allowances for a human being, and tried to make it sound like they're being rewarded with a resort holiday. Don't talk nonsense.
Post edited by wolfamongwolves on
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Short answer - yes. Because where is the justice in killing an innocent person wrongly convicted?
Where is the justice in telling the family of someone who was innocent that "we are sorry the state killed your child, but we're sure you'll agree it was worth the risk?"
Where is the justice in killing someone like Reggie Clemons, or Troy Davis, when it has been unequivocably shown that there are serious doubts about their guilt? Where is the justice in ignoring those doubts, inconsistencies, evidence for political or ideological reasons?
And where is the justice in killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
Where's the justice when a white man gets life while a black man gets death for the same crime?
Where's the justice that the poor killed because they can't afford a competent defence, not because of what they did or didn't do, where the rich can afford to not be killed regardless of what they did?
If you are truly interested in justice, Godfather, you would oppose the death penalty, because when you look at the facts, with an open and rational mind, there is no more unjust, and unnecessary, punishment imaginable.
I see your point but what of the guilty ones Iam sure they out number the innocent in prison,
I already covered that: where is the justice in killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
maybe a better system in the courts is needed....for sure it is and that would be the solution..fix the laws and court system
Yes. There is no legitimacy in killing people, innocent or guilty of their crimes, particularly if you admit the system is flawed, and there is no justification in killing them as an alternative to fixing the system. Yet this is what the US does every year.
I don't belivev in needlessly taking a life but I also don't believe that a person should not pay up for their crimes.
When the state takes a life in capital punishment, it is always just as needless as when a murderer takes a life. This is proven by the fact that the majority of countries in the world have chosen not to, have realised it is unnecessary and that there are more civilised ways of dealing with criminals.
And that is the key point: just because they are not executed does not mean they do not "pay up for their crimes". The death penalty is not the only way, it has been proven to be a wholly ineffective way, and it is never a justifiable way in a nation that actually cares about true justice.
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
shot answer; walk a mile in another mans shoes, I totaly see where you are coming from and I respect it but I also understand that your way of thinking is not the same as somebody who may have been a victim or just believe in a life for a life, I understand both arguments.
And where is the justice in killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
I don;t think that is it's only purpose. I think it is to protect every other human being from this person. Including other inmates and guards that would have to be around those people the rest of their lives.
shot answer; walk a mile in another mans shoes, I totaly see where you are coming from and I respect it but I also understand that your way of thinking is not the same as somebody who may have been a victim or just believe in a life for a life, I understand both arguments.
Godfather.
Thank you for that. I appreciate that. And I agree with you that we are only talking hypothetically until we are in that position, which hopefully we'll never be. But that just illustrates my point - that the state's job is to ensure that rationality and justice prevails, even when we as emotional individuals, might want vengeance. It is not its job to administer vengeance, which at its core is all that capital punishment really is.
But thanks for your understanding.
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
And where is the justice in killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
I don;t think that is it's only purpose. I think it is to protect every other human being from this person. Including other inmates and guards that would have to be around those people the rest of their lives.
Which is what an efficient and effective penal detention system should be able to provide.
And if the argument for the death penalty is that the system is not as efficient and effective as it should be to achieve its purpose, then aren't we just killing people because it's more convenient than providing proper protections, rather than for their crimes?
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
And where is the justice in killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
I don;t think that is it's only purpose. I think it is to protect every other human being from this person. Including other inmates and guards that would have to be around those people the rest of their lives.
Which is what an efficient and effective penal detention system should be able to provide. And if the argument for the death penalty is that the system is not as efficient and effective as it should be to achieve its purpose, then aren't we just killing people because it's more convenient than reform, rather than for their crimes?
No we are killing them because they cannot be "reformed" and there is no reason to subject others to their danger for even 1 more second. And I'm talking about a more limited use of the dealth penalty here as well. Burden of proof would have to be significant.
Which is what an efficient and effective penal detention system should be able to provide. And if the argument for the death penalty is that the system is not as efficient and effective as it should be to achieve its purpose, then aren't we just killing people because it's more convenient than reform, rather than for their crimes?
No we are killing them because they cannot be "reformed"
that's a hell of an assumption. Do you have anything to back that up?
there is no reason to subject others to their danger for even 1 more second.
It sounds like you're suggesting we should kill people on the off-chance of what they might do in the future if there is a lapse in prison security. You talk about the burden of proof being significant, but yet you're suggesting the reason we should kill prisoners because of your assumption of a potential future danger for which you can have no proof.
And who's to say that a prison guard isn't in danger of being killed by a prisoner convicted of something other than murder? Should we execute them on the off-chance too?
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
here is one of thing's that bother me..this guy planned and killed a man..waited for him to come home and then killed him and he has the opertunity for parol ? you guys are right..the system needs to be fixed !
Godfather.
New York (CNN) -- Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's convicted killer, was making his seventh try at parole Wednesday.
Chapman's latest quest for freedom comes ahead of the 32nd anniversary of the death of the former Beatle, a British singer-songwriter who was gunned down outside his Manhattan apartment on December 8, 1980.
Chapman was scheduled to be interviewed by two or three members of the parole board, according to Carole Claren-Weaver, a spokeswoman for the New York Department of Corrections. It was not known when the board will hand down its decision.
Chapman's words on the slaying
He was last up for parole in 2010 but was denied because his "discretionary release remains inappropriate at this time and incompatible with the welfare of the community," according to the New York State Division of Parole.
He was also denied parole in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008.
Chapman, 57, is serving a sentence of 20 years to life in prison and is being held at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden.
He is in protective custody in a single-person cell, Claren-Weaver said, and is allowed out three hours per day.
Since his transfer from Attica this year, Chapman has reapplied to participate in a state program called "family reunion," which allows inmates to spend more time with family members.
Chapman has not had an infraction since 1994. It is not clear whether he currently has legal representation.
Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, in previous years has submitted a letter requesting that parole be denied. Her attorney reiterated her position in an e-mail to CNN over the weekend.
Which is what an efficient and effective penal detention system should be able to provide. And if the argument for the death penalty is that the system is not as efficient and effective as it should be to achieve its purpose, then aren't we just killing people because it's more convenient than reform, rather than for their crimes?
No we are killing them because they cannot be "reformed"
that's a hell of an assumption. Do you have anything to back that up?
there is no reason to subject others to their danger for even 1 more second.
It sounds like you're suggesting we should kill people on the off-chance of what they might do in the future if there is a lapse in prison security. You talk about the burden of proof being significant, but yet you're suggesting the reason we should kill prisoners because of your assumption of a potential future danger for which you can have no proof.
And who's to say that a prison guard isn't in danger of being killed by a prisoner convicted of something other than murder? Should we execute them on the off-chance too?
Are you forgetting that they have already killed? That is the crime, that is what they are being held accountable for.
Hell, by your logic, we shouldn't put anyone in jail because the only reason we are doing that is so that they won;t commit more crimes, no? That is not very sound logic and I think if you re-read it you will see it that way as well.
As for your first question, it's all going to depend on the specific situation. The reality is that once someone commits a violent crime, they are very likely to do it again. I can;t find it now, but one article I read put it at 90% (again, another violent crime, not just murder). But, like I said, individual cases. Depends on the crime, the motive, the outcome (how many victims, etc) and medical opinion as to whether the individual displays any real remorse, etc.
there is no reason to subject others to their danger for even 1 more second.
It sounds like you're suggesting we should kill people on the off-chance of what they might do in the future if there is a lapse in prison security. You talk about the burden of proof being significant, but yet you're suggesting the reason we should kill prisoners because of your assumption of a potential future danger for which you can have no proof.
And who's to say that a prison guard isn't in danger of being killed by a prisoner convicted of something other than murder? Should we execute them on the off-chance too?
Are you forgetting that they have already killed? That is the crime, that is what they are being held accountable for.
Hell, by your logic, we shouldn't put anyone in jail because the only reason we are doing that is so that they won;t commit more crimes, no? That is not very sound logic and I think if you re-read it you will see it that way as well.
No, that is not the point I was making. My point it that the fact that they have killed is no guarantee that they will kill again, and if they are given life without parole and a properly operational penal detention system that should be the case, without resorting to killing them. Of course it is the murder they have committed that they are being held accountable for, which is why it is invalid to give as a reason for the death penalty that they might do it again. It is you who is basing your justification for the death penalty on the anticipation of future danger.
So no, that doesn't follow from my logic, because I am not saying that it is not the only reason we put people in prison - it is by definition punitive. I put it in these terms, in this case, simply because that is the specific reason you were giving in your post for execution - to remove the danger to others. The point I am making is that that argument doesn't logically stand up.
As for your first question, it's all going to depend on the specific situation. The reality is that once someone commits a violent crime, they are very likely to do it again. I can't find it now, but one article I read put it at 90% (again, another violent crime, not just murder). But, like I said, individual cases. Depends on the crime, the motive, the outcome (how many victims, etc) and medical opinion as to whether the individual displays any real remorse, etc .
That's exactly my point - you can't just make a sweeping statement and say "they" can't be reformed. Also, and to bring it back to the other point, since we're talking about convicted murderers here - they are not very likely to do it again if they are in max security prison, with no opportunity for parole. That will obviously reduce the chances of them doing it again to as good as zero. I'm not saying that it hasn't happened in rare circumstances where the system has failed, but it certainly doesn't happen enough to warrant killing them to make sure.
I would like to see that article, if you can find it. I can't remember where, but I'm sure I've read that murder has a much lower recidivism rate than many other violent crimes, as it is very often (obviously not by any means always) a crime of passion. There are a lot more career robbers than career murderers, you can be sure of that.
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
I would like to see that article, if you can find it. I can't remember where, but I'm sure I've read that murder has a much lower recidivism rate than many other violent crimes, as it is very often (obviously not by any means always) a crime of passion. There are a lot more career robbers than career murderers, you can be sure of that.
Yeah, I'm looking for it, found some others but not sure how there are for sources...might be biased, etc.
And when I said "they" can;t be rehabilitation, I was referring to the ones that I feel should get the death penalty, which would meet the criteria I laid out n the next post.
The Davis County prosecutor, Troy Rawlings, a proponent of the death penalty, nevertheless agreed that replacing the death penalty with life without parole "would remove some of the significant complications of cases and expedite them, as well as save money."
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
The Davis County prosecutor, Troy Rawlings, a proponent of the death penalty, nevertheless agreed that replacing the death penalty with life without parole "would remove some of the significant complications of cases and expedite them, as well as save money."
That's because of the ineffectiveness of the process. It doesn't have to be that way.
And if you put some quick qualifiers in you could move many death penalty cases to life in prison cases, and then deal with the death penalty cases in a much quicker, efficient, yet still complaint fashion. If that makes any sense.
I think it is to protect every other human being from this person. Including other inmates and guards that would have to be around those people the rest of their lives.
Comments
now nobody can ever say this again....
"americans do not execute innocent people."
:twisted: :twisted:
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?
Reggie Clemons has spent 19 years on death row. Next month his case will be reviewed for one last time in a hearing that cuts to heart of the debate about capital punishment in America
Ed Pilkington and Laurence Topham
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 August 2012
Reggie Clemons has one last chance to save his life. After 19 years on death row in Missouri for the murder of two young women, he has been granted a final opportunity to persuade a judge that he should be spared execution by lethal injection.
Next month, Clemons will be brought before a court presided over by a "special master", who will review the case one last time. The hearing will be unprecedented in its remit, but at its core will be a simple issue: should Reggie Clemons live or die?
That question is as deadly serious as it sounds. One of Clemons's three co-defendants has already been executed, and Clemons himself came within 12 days of being put to death in 2009.
The Reggie Clemons case has been a cause of legal dispute for the past two decades. Prosecutors alleged that he and his co-defendants brutally cut short the lives of Julie and Robin Kerry, sisters who had just started college and had their whole adult lives ahead of them.
The Missouri prosecutors' case against Clemons, based partly on incriminating testimony given by his co-defendants, was that Clemons was part of a group of four youths who accosted the sisters on the Chain of Rocks Bridge one dark night in April 1991. The bridge, that connects Missouri and Illinois over the Mississippi river, had fallen into disuse, and teenagers used to gather up there to meet, smoke dope or do graffiti. The sisters, and their cousin Thomas Cummins, had gone onto the bridge that night to see a poem Julie Kerry had painted on it, and as they did so they bumped into Clemons and three other young men who were hanging out there.
The prosecution case was that the men forced the sisters to strip, threw their clothes over the bridge, then raped them and participated in forcing them to jump into the river to their deaths. As he walked off the bridge, Clemons was alleged to have said: "We threw them off. Let's go."
Clemons's supporters have over the years given a different rendition of events. In the racially heated atmosphere of St Louis in the early 1990s, they say, Clemons was made the fall guy. Of the four men who were charged with the murders, the three black men were all put on death row while the one white man is now free on parole.
In this account of events, the cards were stacked against Clemons from the beginning. His appeal lawyers have argued that he was physically beaten into making a confession, the jury was wrongfully selected and misdirected, and his conviction largely achieved on individual testimony with no supporting forensic evidence presented.
Next month's proceedings will bring these two versions of events head to head. The hearing will be unique in US legal history in terms of the open-ended brief that has been assigned to the special master, appointed by the Missouri supreme court after a federal judge granted Clemons a stay of execution three years ago. The position was given the title of special master to denote the unusual legal challenge it involved. The judge would given full powers to call witnesses, look through the evidence and eventually recommend to the supreme court what should happen to Clemons.
The hearings will also be significant in a wider sense: in effect, the death penalty in America will itself be put on trial when the hearing opens on 17 September.
Judge Michael Manners will be confronted by a question that goes to the heart of the debate on capital punishment in America today. Is the legal system so foolproof, so devoid of flaws and inconsistencies, that it can – beyond the shadow of even the slightest doubt – impose the ultimate, irreversible punishment: the taking of a man's life?
...Lawyers on both sides of the legal argument are declining to speak before the hearing. But it is understood that new evidence will be presented to the hearing that supports Clemons's case that his confession was coerced and should not have been allowed to be put before the jury at trial. The Missouri prosecutors are expected in reply to argue that a coerced confession is not proof of Clemons's innocence.
The state's star witness at the trial of Reggie Clemons was Thomas Cummins, the cousin of the Kerry sisters. Cummins told the jury that on the night his cousins were murdered, Cummins and the two sisters had been accosted on the deserted Chain of Rocks bridge by four men they encountered there. The sisters were raped and pushed into the river, Cummins said, then he was forced to jump in after them.
Cummins's account was initially doubted by police, and they suspected him of causing his cousins' death. At Clemons's ensuing trial, an officer of the Missouri state water patrol raised doubts that anyone could survive a 70ft drop from the bridge into the perilously fast-moving waters of the Mississippi without at least suffering some visible injuries.
Cummins told police several different accounts of what happened that night, according to police records. One of the accounts was that Julie Kerry had stumbled into the water by accident after he tried to hug her. But Cummins retracted his statement, saying he had been roughly treated during many hours of interrogation, and later was granted $150,000 by St Louis police to settle a claim for police mistreatment.
A couple of days after the sisters' deaths, police dropped Cummins as a suspect and turned their attentions instead to the other four men who had been on the bridge that night. They were: Clemons; Marlin Gray (executed in 2005); Antonio Richardson (currently serving life imprisonment after his death sentence was commuted); and Daniel Winfrey (the only white man among the four, who turned witness for the prosecution and was given a deal under which he received a lesser sentence; he was released in 2007 on parole).
After several hours of questioning by St Louis police, Clemons confessed to rape but not to murder. But the next day he, too, retracted the confession, saying it had been beaten out of him.
"I remember police mainly beating me in the chest, and that was something that scared me a whole lot. While they were beating me, they were telling me what they wanted me to admit to," Clemons told the Guardian.
As Clemons's lawyers have argued, his description of the violent interrogation he was put through is almost identical to that alleged by Thomas Cummins. It took place, according to the complaints of both men, at the hands of the same detectives, in the same investigation and within 48 hours of each other .
Cummins was given a $150,000 settlement, and was made the star witness at Reggie Clemons's trial. Clemons, by contrast, had his allegedly coerced confession presented to the jury and used as key evidence to put him on death row.
The other area of legal argument that is likely to be central at next month's hearing will focus on a rape kit that was collected after Julie Kerry's body was found 297 miles downstream from the bridge. The rape kit, which is in cold storage with the St Louis police department, appears not to have been disclosed to Clemons's lawyers before his trial.
Jeanene Moenckmeier, one of Clemons's two original trial lawyers, told the Guardian that "we should have seen it as part of the evidence we could have considered at the trial."
DNA tests have recently been carried out on the rape kit, and on a condom found on the bridge that night, to see whether they can illuminate what happened 19 years ago. The results of those tests are being studied by the Missouri attorney general's office and Clemons's current defence lawyers, and are likely to be the subject of testimony in front of the special master.
What, if anything, the tests show, and whether they can cast any light on what happened on the bridge 19 years ago – and indeed Clemons's role in events – will only become clear at next month's proceedings.
There are several other aspects of the case that could hold the special master's attention. The prosecution of Reggie Clemons was so riddled by inconsistencies and irregularities that some observers of the case argue he should never have been put on death row in the first place.
"There are so many contradictions, so many things that don't add up," said Chris King, editorial director of the St Louis American, that has covered the case in depth over several years. "In capital cases the highest standards of jurisprudence should be observed – because the state is taking a life – but that didn't happen in this case."
The selection of the trial jury was conducted by the prosecution in a way that was later ruled unconstitutional. Questions were also raised about the way the prosecution had been conducted. At the time of the Chain of Rocks bridge, Clemons was 19, had just finished high school and was planning to go to college to study engineering. Yet despite the fact that Clemons had no criminal record, the chief prosecutor Nels Moss went in front of the jury and compared him to the serial killer Charles Manson. Moss had been instructed by the trial judge not to refer to Manson - he had played the same trick in the earlier trial of Marlin Gray - and for blatantly disregarding the order was later fined $500 for criminal contempt of court.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/au ... e-evidence
Reggie Clemons: 21 discrepancies that cast doubt on his conviction
Was Reggie Clemons' confession beaten out of him? We look at the discrepancies thrown up during the course of the prosecution
Ed Pilkington and Laurence Topham
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 August 2012
• Reggie Clemons was not accused of pushing the Kerry sisters into the Mississippi. The main witness against him, Thomas Cummins, testified that he saw a "black hand" push his cousins into the river but failed to specify whose hand that was. Yet in the separate trial of co-defendant Antonio Richardson, Cummins said that it was Richardson who pushed the women into the river.
• Clemons confessed to raping Robin Kerry, but did not confess to murder. He was found guilty of murder as an accomplice.
• Two days after Clemons made the confession, he retracted it. He told St Louis police internal affairs officers that he had been beaten, punched in the chest and had his head slammed against the wall. He alleged that after hours of being assaulted he agreed to read out a confession that police officers had written in advance, because if he had refused to do so "they would have beat me some more".
• Police photos show that Clemons looked physically fit when he was first picked up by police, but after his was interrogated he was reported by several witnesses to have a swollen right cheek. When he came before a judge for arraignment, the judge sent him to the local hospital ER for examination, where he was diagnosed with muscle inflammation and a swollen face.
• Clemons's claims of police brutality were strikingly similar to independent complaints of police beatings made by his co-defendant Marlin Gray and by Thomas Cummins, the main prosecution witness against him, even though the three men had no contact with each other. All three sets of complaints related to interrogations that occurred within the same police station involving the same alleged techniques of assault, and all within the same 48-hour time span.
• Clemons's complaint of police brutality was dismissed and he was put on death row, as was Gray. But when Cummins sued the St Louis police for misconduct – claiming that detectives had tried to frame him for the murders and had fabricated police records – he won a settlement of $150,000.
• Clemons, a black man, was convicted of murder largely on the basis of eyewitness accounts of two men, both of whom were white and both of whom arguably had a self-interest in implicating him. Thomas Cummins was initially considered the prime suspect , though the investigation against him was later dropped, and Daniel Winfrey achieved a plea bargain in which he would testify against Clemons in exchange for avoiding execution himself. Winfrey was overheard saying before the trial that "he would take any plea bargain offered" and "say anything he had to to obtain a plea bargain".
• There was no physical evidence to support the murder and rape allegations against Clemons. The human rights group the Constitution Project has shown that that three-quarters of all prisoners exonerated in the US in recent years were convicted at least in part on the basis of faulty eyewitness testimony.
• Cummins changed the story he gave police several times, police records suggest. His highly inconsistent account given in the records either strengthens his claim that he was beaten up by police – which in turn supports Clemons's allegation that his confession was beaten out of him, too – or implies that Cummins was an unreliable source upon whom the prosecution should not have depended as star witness.
• One of the stories told by Cummins, as related by police notes, was that Julie Kerry had stumbled into the Mississippi after he startled her by trying to hug her. "He just wanted to hug her but she became startled, lost her balance and fell into the river," the police incident report records. Her sister Robin then jumped into the river to try and save her. Cummins later sued the police for alleged brutality and falsification of their notes.
• As the judicial process got under way, Clemons was denied a state-funded defence lawyer because he was told that all the registered state lawyers were busy at the time.
• Two private lawyers, Robert Constantinou and Jeanene Moenckmeier, were employed by Clemons's family to represent him. Moenckmeier has told the Guardian that she was given insufficient time to review boxes of evidence provided by the prosecutors under discovery. She has also complained that crucial evidence may have been withheld from her by the prosecution.
• The two lawyers were going through a divorce at the time of Clemons's trial. Moenckmeier was in the process of moving to California to take a job as a tax lawyer. A separate team of defence lawyers, who processed Clemons's later clemency appeal, alleged in court documents that the original trial lawyers "failed him at every stage of his representation", including failure to review the police reports up to a month before the trial. Moenckmeier denied to the Guardian that either the divorce or the move to California had adversely affected her representation of Clemons.
• A "rape kit" recording the results of tests on Julie Kerry's body after it was retrieved from the Mississippi was not presented to the jury in Clemons's trial, despite the fact that the allegation Clemons raped one of the Kerry sisters was an important part of the prosecution case against him. Nor was the rape kit disclosed to his defence lawyers before trial, even though they had specifically requested in writing to see "all evidence from the sheriff's department, police department and medical examiner's office who investigated and examined the recovery of the body of Julie Kerry".
• When the trial started in January 1993, seven prospective jurors – all of them black – were improperly excluded from the jury. A federal judge later found that this was unconstitutional, and ruled that Clemons's death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment as a result. The state of Missouri managed to overturn that ruling on a legal technicality, allowing the death penalty to stand.
• The final composition of the jury was two black jurors and 10 white, in a city where 49% of the population is African American.
• The prosecutor in the case, Nels Moss, was heavily criticised after the event for his conduct during the trial. As court documents show, the district court that reviewed the case called his behaviour during trial "abusive and boorish" and "calculated to intimidate the defence at every turn".
• Before the trial began, Moss was specifically ordered by the trial judge, Edward Peek, to refrain from highly contentious tactics he had deployed at the previous trial of co-defendant Marlin Gray. But as documents lodged with the Missouri supreme court show, Moss blatantly ignored the order. He did precisely what he had been told not to do: to compare in front of the jury Clemons – a 19-year-old with no previous criminal record – to the notorious serial killers Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy. A week after Clemons was sentenced to death, Peek found that Moss's conduct had been "willfully and intentionally committed in disobedience of the court" and fined him $500 for criminal contempt. But, still, the death sentence was allowed to stand.
• According to papers filed by Clemons' appeal lawyers to the Missouri supreme court, Moss addressed the jury in impassioned terms that the lawyers argued amounted to inflaming the jury. He asked the jury to imagine a hypothetical crime in which the Kerry sisters were raped, put into a "dark room" and repeatedly stabbed. "This hypothetical had nothing to do with the trial, but everything to do with Moss's goal to have an inflamed and upset jury". Moss has declined to talk to the Guardian ahead of the special hearing into the Clemons case in September.
• A member of the jury at Clemons's trial submitted an affidavit stating that if she had known of the discrepancies in the way the trial was conducted, she would not have voted for the death penalty.
• The state boundary between Missouri and Illinois falls down the middle of the Chain of Rocks bridge, which became a matter of great legal contention at trial. Lawyers argued over the precise location of an uncovered manhole on the bridge through which the Kerry sisters and Cummins were alleged to have been forced before being pushed into the river.
The prosecution said that the manhole lay on the Missouri side of the state line, which they used to claim jurisdiction over the case. But the defense argued the manhole had been located a few feet to the east on the Illinois side of the bridge, and that therefore the trial should have been in the Illinois courts. In the early 1990s Illinois was much less inclined to hand out death sentences than Missouri, so just a few feet could have been crucial. In fact, had the trial taken place today it would undoubtedly had been a matter of life or death: Illinois abolished the death penalty in March 2011 while Missouri
still has 47 death row inmates awaiting execution.
ummmmm innocent victims...killed by people like Jeffery Dahmer,......or this..
http://abcnews.go.com/US/convicted-kill ... d=16426138
Americans convicted of murder.
By Region of Country they are from in alphabetical order
Alaska / Hawaii
Martha Ann Johnson
Sarah Marie Johnson
Genene Jones
Winnie Ruth Judd
Lois Jurgens
Sante Kimes
Lizzie Lloyd King
Tillie Klimek
Theresa Knorr
Patricia Krenwinkel
Stacey Lannert
Deanna Laney
Midwest
Rosie Alfaro
Wanda Jean Allen
Amy Archer-Gilligan
Marie Dean Arrington
Susan Atkins
Lena Baker
Gertrude Baniszewski
Jeffrey Dahmer
Mountainwest
Celeste Beard
Betty Lou Beets
Ann Bilansky
Bloody Benders
Cordelia Botkin
Kathy Boudin
Northeast
Rosie Alfaro
Wanda Jean Allen
Amy Archer-Gilligan
Marie Dean Arrington
Susan Atkins
Lena Baker
Gertrude Baniszewski
Robert John Bardo
Velma Barfield
Celeste Beard
Betty Lou Beets
Ann Bilansky
Bloody Benders
Cordelia Botkin
Kathy Boudin
Betty Broderick
Judy Buenoano
Carol M. Bundy
Lavinia Burnett
Mark David Chapman
Cynthia Coffman
Tiffany Cole
Eva Coo
Paula Cooper
Faye Copeland
Nicole Diar
Nannie Doss
Diane Downs
Roxana Flowers
Antoinette Frank
Caril Ann Fugate
Oreste Fulminante
Margaret Garner
Janie Lou Gibbs
Kristen Gilbert
Helen Golay
Barbara Graham
Debora Green
Amy Grossberg
Anna Marie Hahn
Jean Harris
Penelope Henry
Toni Jo Henry
Richard Herrin
Audrey Marie Hilley
Brittany Holberg
Waneta Hoyt
Eleanor Jarman
Angela Johnson
Martha Ann Johnson
Sarah Marie Johnson
Genene Jones
Winnie Ruth Judd
Lois Jurgens
Sante Kimes
Lizzie Lloyd King
Tillie Klimek
Theresa Knorr
Patricia Krenwinkel
Stacey Lannert
Deanna Laney
Mechele Linehan
Awilda Lopez
Lynda Lyon Block
Karen McCarron
Ruby McCollum
Rhonda Belle Martin
Florence Maybrick
Lyle and Erik Menendez
Lisa M. Montgomery
Blanche Taylor Moore
Frances Newton
Stella Nickell
Marie Noe
Hannah Ocuish
Louise Peete
Christa Pike
Martha M. Place
Susan Polk
Dorothea Puente
Christina Marie Riggs
Donna Roberts
Kristin Rossum
Darlie Routier
Olga Rutterschmidt
Jennifer San Marco
Dorothy Sherwood
Sarah Simpson
Pamela Smart
Susan Smith
Ruth Snyder
Lyda Southard
Bathsheba Spooner
Barbara Stager
Joel Steinberg
Charles Stuart
Mary Surratt
Marybeth Tinning
Jane Toppan
Karla Faye Tucker
Leslie Van Houten
Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh
Reetika Vazirani
Carolyn Warmus
Aileen Wuornos
Mechele Linehan
Awilda Lopez
Lynda Lyon Block
Karen McCarron
Ruby McCollum
Rhonda Belle Martin
Florence Maybrick
Lyle and Erik Menendez
Lisa M. Montgomery
Blanche Taylor Moore
Frances Newton
Stella Nickell
Marie Noe
Hannah Ocuish
Louise Peete
Christa Pike
Martha M. Place
Susan Polk
Dorothea Puente
Christina Marie Riggs
Donna Roberts
Kristin Rossum
Darlie Routier
Olga Rutterschmidt
Yolanda Saldívar
Jennifer San Marco
Dorothy Sherwood
Sarah Simpson
Pamela Smart
Susan Smith
Ruth Snyder
Lyda Southard
Bathsheba Spooner
Barbara Stager
Joel Steinberg
Charles Stuart
Mary Surratt
Marybeth Tinning
Jane Toppan
Karla Faye Tucker
Leslie Van Houten
Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh
Reetika Vazirani
Carolyn Warmus
Aileen Wuornos
Diane Zamora
Northwest
Nannie Doss
Diane Downs
Roxana Flowers
Antoinette Frank
Caril Ann Fugate
Oreste Fulminante
Margaret Garner
Janie Lou Gibbs
Kristen Gilbert
South
Helen Golay
Barbara Graham
Debora Green
Amy Grossberg
Anna Marie Hahn
Southeast
Jean Harris
Penelope Henry
Toni Jo Henry
Richard Herrin
Audrey Marie Hilley
Brittany Holberg
Waneta Hoyt
Eleanor Jarman
Angela Johnson
Southwest
James Lee Clark
Yolanda Saldívar
Diane Zamora
and here's a few more
Serial killers
Main article: List of serial killers in the United States of America
Gerald Stano – convicted murderer of 41 women; executed in 1998.
Randall Woodfield – aka "The I-5 Killer" and "The I-5 Bandit"; convicted of four murders; believed responsible for 14 others.
Robert Shulman – convicted of murdering five prostitutes between 1991 and 1996.
Tommy Lynn Sells – convicted of only one murder; admitted to murdering dozens of people across the United States, possibly in excess of 70 although only six are confirmed.
Efren Saldivar – respiratory therapist who killed six patients, possibly as many as 120.
Arthur Shawcross – aka "The Genesee River Killer"; convicted of 12 murders; confessed to one more.
Lemuel Smith – confessed to the murders of five people, including an on-duty female prison guard.
Wayne Williams – convicted of two murders; police claim his arrest solved 23 others in a string of 29.
Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood
Donald Harvey – aka "Angel of Death"; hospital orderly; confessed to more than 80 "mercy killings" with 37 confirmed killings.
William Heirens – aka "The Lipstick Killer"; confessed to three murders spanning from June 1945 to January 1946.
Michael Swango – physician and surgeon who poisoned over 30 of his patients and colleagues.
Henry Lee Lucas – convicted of 11 murders and confessed to approximately 3000 others, although most of his confessions are considered outlandish; a task force set up to investigate his claims suggested that the true number of his murders may be as high as 213.
Leonard Lake and Charles Ng – ex-Marines and survivalists; killed at least 11 people and suspected of 25; collected and murdered female sex slaves.
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo – aka "Beltway Snipers"; Muhammad is convicted of seven murders so far and awaiting prosecution for nine others; Malvo was convicted of, plead guilty to, or confessed to at least nine murders.
Donald Henry Gaskins – aka "Meanest Man in America"; convicted of nine murders; confessed to more than 200; executed on September 6, 1991.
Ed Gein – two known victims, one suspected victim, four missing persons; elements of Gein's life and crimes have inspired, at least in part, the films Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the novel/movie The Silence of the Lambs.
Kristen Gilbert – aka the "Angel of Death"; nurse convicted of killing four by epinephrine injection.
Earle Nelson – aka "Gorilla Man"; necrophiliac convicted and hanged for one murder; implicated in about 20 others.
Marie Noe – murdered eight of her children between 1949 and 1968.
Carl Panzram – murderer, rapist and arsonist; convicted of two murders; confessed to 19 others; executed in 1930.
Keith Hunter Jesperson – Canadian serial killer convicted in the United States.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian - Dr. Kevorkian became famous in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a supporter of assisted suicide, and was lucky enough to have three acquittals and a mistrial before being convicted of the second-degree murder of Thomas Youk in 1999.
Dennis Rader – aka the "BTK Killer"; killed ten people between 1974 and 1991.
Carroll Cole – killed 16 people between 1948 and 1980; executed in 1985.
Alton Coleman – multi-state killer whose killings took place during two months in 1984 aided by Debra Denise Brown; was convicted of murder in three states.
Andrew Cunanan – murdered five people, including fashion designer Gianni Versace, in a cross-country journey during a three-month period in 1997, ending with Cunanan's suicide, at the age of 27.
Nannie Doss – aka "The Giggling Granny" and "The Jolly Black Widow"; serial poisoner who killed 11 family members.
Albert Fish – aka the "Werewolf of Wisteria"; sadist and pedophile who cannibalized several children; convicted of one murder, confessed to two others
Wayne Adam Ford – aka "Wayward Wayne"; confessed to murdering four women; believed to have killed others.
Joseph Paul Franklin – racist serial killer who targeted interracial couples and attempted to assassinate Larry Flynt and Vernon Jordan; convicted of 11 murders and confessed to nine others.
Paul Dennis Reid – killed seven people during armed robberies between February and April 1997.
Gerald Gallego Jr. and Charlene Williams – aka the "Gallego Sex Slaves Killers"; kidnapped, raped and killed victims in the late 1970s; most of them were teenagers.
Julio González - convicted of arson and murder of 87 people in the Happy Land Fire.
pick out the innocent killlers...
Godfather.
Jill-Lyn Euto, an 18 year old student, was found stabbed to death in her sixth-floor apartment at 600 James St, Syracuse, NY on 28 January 2001. No arrests have been made.[45]
Evelyn Hernandez, and her 5-year-old son Alex, last heard from on 1 May 2002 at her residence in San Francisco, California. Her wallet was found several days later, in South San Francisco. Hernandez was nine months pregnant at the time and on 24 July 2002 her torso was found floating in San Francisco Bay. Her unborn child and her son Alex have not been found. The case was profiled twice on America's Most Wanted during the summer of 2003.[46]
Rashawn Brazell, disappeared after leaving his home in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York, United States, on the morning of 14 February 2005. His dismembered body parts were later found in garbage bags. America's Most Wanted profiled the case three times, on 29 September 2005; 1 April 2006; and 9 December 2006.[47][48]
Robert Wone, age 32, was murdered on August 2, 2006, in his friend's Washington, D.C., apartment. He was "restrained, incapacitated, and sexually assaulted" prior to his death. The only individuals present in the apartment at the time were its three residents, all friends of Wone. They have denied involvement and insisted that an intruder committed the crime. Authorities claim that there was no evidence of a break-in, the apartment appeared to be washed cleaned, the three residents appeared freshly showered, and the evidence was not consistent with the residents' accounts. In addition, the residents tampered with the crime scene, waited an inordinate amount of time to call 911, and exhibited strange behavior when paramedics and police arrived. Authorities believe that either some or all of the three house-mates murdered Wone and engaged in a cover-up.[49][50]
Lane Bryant shooting – on February 2, 2008, a gunman trying to rob a Lane Bryant store killed five women (a manager and four customers). The shooter has not been apprehended, although police do not consider it a "cold case" yet.
Mallory Manning, a formerly drug addicted prostitute was picked up by a supposed client on her usual corner in an inner city street in Christchurch, New Zealand on 18 December 2008. She was taken to a property and brutally murdered before being dumped in a nearby river where she was discovered the next day.
Thomas C. Wales (b:1952) was an American federal prosecutor and gun control advocate. On October 11, 2001, he was killed by a bullet fired through the window of his basement home-office in Seattle, Washington. No suspects have been charged, and the investigation continues.
this death penalty argument is open ended ...what would you suggest we do for the victims and their families and what should be done with the people that kill and just keep killing after they are released on a technocality ? or in prison for multi murders ?
Godfather.
?
I fail to see how that is in any way relevant or makes even the slightest difference to gimme's point.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
I would suggest not jumping blindly at the most irrational, bloodyminded, irreversible, hypocritical and utterly ineffective solution of just getting rid of them.
Why not take a look at how the rest of the world manages to do it? Especially considering you and Japan remain the only "developed" nations on the planet that have not yet matured beyond killing their own citizens as a penal recourse.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
there is no doubt that sometimes people are wrongly convicted but does that mean we should lessen the punishment for those that do kill ? really think about it, as I said this argument is open ended.
Godfather.
quote from wolfamongwolves; Especially considering you and Japan remain the only "developed" nations on the planet that have not yet matured beyond killing its own citizens as a penal recourse.
I don't know how true that is, don't these countries still use it ?
Belarus
China (PRC)
Cuba
Egypt
India
Iran
Iraq
Japan
Malaysia
Mongolia
North Korea
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
South Korea
Taiwan (ROC)
Tonga
United States
Vietnam
Godfather.
Short answer - yes. Because where is the justice in killing an innocent person wrongly convicted?
Where is the justice in telling the family of someone who was innocent that "we are sorry the state killed your child, but we're sure you'll agree it was worth the risk?"
Where is the justice in killing someone like Reggie Clemons, or Troy Davis, when it has been unequivocably shown that there are serious doubts about their guilt? Where is the justice in ignoring those doubts, inconsistencies, evidence for political or ideological reasons?
And where is the justice in killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
Where's the justice when a white man gets life while a black man gets death for the same crime?
Where's the justice that the poor killed because they can't afford a competent defence, not because of what they did or didn't do, where the rich can afford to not be killed regardless of what they did?
If you are truly interested in justice, Godfather, you would oppose the death penalty, because when you look at the facts, with an open and rational mind, there is no more unjust, and unnecessary, punishment imaginable.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
first I don't think a solution will ever be found..never. and I don't think it's about solutions as much as it is punishment for a crime commited and murder is the biggie, is right that a man take another mans life with no recorse ? is living in a prison being taken care of(mdeical,meals,living quators) for even the rest of their lives
a fair exchange for a life ? don't get me wrong I don't have a blood thirsty need to exacute killers I just don't see the fairness in a life for a life in prison.
Godfather.
My apologies. I mistyped one word. For "nations" read "democracies".
Also, I specified "developed" which discounts all but 6 of your list, according to the Human Development Index - Belarus (essentially a dictatorship); Cuba; Iran; Malaysia; Saudi Arabia; and Tonga.
Not exactly auspicious company for the supposed greatest nation on earth...
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
I see your point but what of the guilty ones Iam sure they out number the innocent in prison, maybe a better system in the courts is needed....for sure it is and that would be the solution..fix the laws and court system,
a person should not be exacuted without 100% proof of the crime....crap this is very disturbing to me I don't belivev in needlessly taking a life but I also don't believe that a person should not pay up for their crimes...I just figured out that I have no place in this debate...
Godfather.
well man dead is dead if it's in an undeveloped nation or a developed nation, being the greatest nation on earth means little to victims and and just as little to the person sentanced to death...I'm so confussed, like I said I have no place in this topic.
Godfather.
I'm pretty sure this is all covered in my last post. But I'll say this much - if you're talking about "fair exchange", you're not talking about justice, you're talking about retribution. That should never be the business of a rational just state. Difficult as it may be not to stoop to vengeance when someone murders your loved one, it is not justifiable to do so. And less justifiable for a state. The state exists exactly to hold that irrational response in check and administer legitimate justice. If it is unjust for someone to murder someone else, why is it not unjust for the state to do the same - and with even more premeditation than the murderer? I have asked this question more times than I can count on this boards, and not a single pro-death penalty person has ever answered it.
Another point. You say "no recourse"? I would have thought that in America, where what you loudly shout about more than anything is freedom, that denying someone that freedom for the rest of their life would be considered a pretty severe punishment, while also serving the purpose of keeping that person away from society. If you had to spend 23 hours a day in a 10x6 cell, I can tell you, you would consider it punishment. "Being taken care of"? You just listed the bare minimum of allowances for a human being, and tried to make it sound like they're being rewarded with a resort holiday. Don't talk nonsense.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
I already covered that: where is the justice in killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
Yes. There is no legitimacy in killing people, innocent or guilty of their crimes, particularly if you admit the system is flawed, and there is no justification in killing them as an alternative to fixing the system. Yet this is what the US does every year.
In which case you should be opposing at least the majority of executions
When the state takes a life in capital punishment, it is always just as needless as when a murderer takes a life. This is proven by the fact that the majority of countries in the world have chosen not to, have realised it is unnecessary and that there are more civilised ways of dealing with criminals.
And that is the key point: just because they are not executed does not mean they do not "pay up for their crimes". The death penalty is not the only way, it has been proven to be a wholly ineffective way, and it is never a justifiable way in a nation that actually cares about true justice.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Godfather.
I don;t think that is it's only purpose. I think it is to protect every other human being from this person. Including other inmates and guards that would have to be around those people the rest of their lives.
Thank you for that. I appreciate that. And I agree with you that we are only talking hypothetically until we are in that position, which hopefully we'll never be. But that just illustrates my point - that the state's job is to ensure that rationality and justice prevails, even when we as emotional individuals, might want vengeance. It is not its job to administer vengeance, which at its core is all that capital punishment really is.
But thanks for your understanding.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Which is what an efficient and effective penal detention system should be able to provide.
And if the argument for the death penalty is that the system is not as efficient and effective as it should be to achieve its purpose, then aren't we just killing people because it's more convenient than providing proper protections, rather than for their crimes?
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
No we are killing them because they cannot be "reformed" and there is no reason to subject others to their danger for even 1 more second. And I'm talking about a more limited use of the dealth penalty here as well. Burden of proof would have to be significant.
that's a hell of an assumption. Do you have anything to back that up?
It sounds like you're suggesting we should kill people on the off-chance of what they might do in the future if there is a lapse in prison security. You talk about the burden of proof being significant, but yet you're suggesting the reason we should kill prisoners because of your assumption of a potential future danger for which you can have no proof.
And who's to say that a prison guard isn't in danger of being killed by a prisoner convicted of something other than murder? Should we execute them on the off-chance too?
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Godfather.
New York (CNN) -- Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's convicted killer, was making his seventh try at parole Wednesday.
Chapman's latest quest for freedom comes ahead of the 32nd anniversary of the death of the former Beatle, a British singer-songwriter who was gunned down outside his Manhattan apartment on December 8, 1980.
Chapman was scheduled to be interviewed by two or three members of the parole board, according to Carole Claren-Weaver, a spokeswoman for the New York Department of Corrections. It was not known when the board will hand down its decision.
Chapman's words on the slaying
He was last up for parole in 2010 but was denied because his "discretionary release remains inappropriate at this time and incompatible with the welfare of the community," according to the New York State Division of Parole.
He was also denied parole in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008.
Chapman, 57, is serving a sentence of 20 years to life in prison and is being held at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden.
He is in protective custody in a single-person cell, Claren-Weaver said, and is allowed out three hours per day.
Since his transfer from Attica this year, Chapman has reapplied to participate in a state program called "family reunion," which allows inmates to spend more time with family members.
Chapman has not had an infraction since 1994. It is not clear whether he currently has legal representation.
Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, in previous years has submitted a letter requesting that parole be denied. Her attorney reiterated her position in an e-mail to CNN over the weekend.
Are you forgetting that they have already killed? That is the crime, that is what they are being held accountable for.
Hell, by your logic, we shouldn't put anyone in jail because the only reason we are doing that is so that they won;t commit more crimes, no? That is not very sound logic and I think if you re-read it you will see it that way as well.
As for your first question, it's all going to depend on the specific situation. The reality is that once someone commits a violent crime, they are very likely to do it again. I can;t find it now, but one article I read put it at 90% (again, another violent crime, not just murder). But, like I said, individual cases. Depends on the crime, the motive, the outcome (how many victims, etc) and medical opinion as to whether the individual displays any real remorse, etc.
No, that is not the point I was making. My point it that the fact that they have killed is no guarantee that they will kill again, and if they are given life without parole and a properly operational penal detention system that should be the case, without resorting to killing them. Of course it is the murder they have committed that they are being held accountable for, which is why it is invalid to give as a reason for the death penalty that they might do it again. It is you who is basing your justification for the death penalty on the anticipation of future danger.
So no, that doesn't follow from my logic, because I am not saying that it is not the only reason we put people in prison - it is by definition punitive. I put it in these terms, in this case, simply because that is the specific reason you were giving in your post for execution - to remove the danger to others. The point I am making is that that argument doesn't logically stand up.
That's exactly my point - you can't just make a sweeping statement and say "they" can't be reformed. Also, and to bring it back to the other point, since we're talking about convicted murderers here - they are not very likely to do it again if they are in max security prison, with no opportunity for parole. That will obviously reduce the chances of them doing it again to as good as zero. I'm not saying that it hasn't happened in rare circumstances where the system has failed, but it certainly doesn't happen enough to warrant killing them to make sure.
I would like to see that article, if you can find it. I can't remember where, but I'm sure I've read that murder has a much lower recidivism rate than many other violent crimes, as it is very often (obviously not by any means always) a crime of passion. There are a lot more career robbers than career murderers, you can be sure of that.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Yeah, I'm looking for it, found some others but not sure how there are for sources...might be biased, etc.
And when I said "they" can;t be rehabilitation, I was referring to the ones that I feel should get the death penalty, which would meet the criteria I laid out n the next post.
Actually, you save money by not frying the bastards, and letting them stew in prison for life.
Execution is far more expensive than life imprisonment.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/past/16/2012
The Davis County prosecutor, Troy Rawlings, a proponent of the death penalty, nevertheless agreed that replacing the death penalty with life without parole "would remove some of the significant complications of cases and expedite them, as well as save money."
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
That's because of the ineffectiveness of the process. It doesn't have to be that way.
And if you put some quick qualifiers in you could move many death penalty cases to life in prison cases, and then deal with the death penalty cases in a much quicker, efficient, yet still complaint fashion. If that makes any sense.
Nope, this has nothing to do with it.