No we are killing them because they cannot be "reformed"
Not much of a generalization there. So you're saying that no death row prisoners have ever been reformed? Really? Or are you just making this stuff up because it sounds good?
How about Stanley "Tookie" Williams, cofounder of the notorious L.A. street gang the Crips and a four-time murderer, was on death row between 1981 and 2005? In that time he had become an anti-gang crusader whose work earned him several Nobel Peace Prize nominations. He was executed on December 13, 2005 after Governor Schwarzenegger denied him clemency.
Or this fella:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/ ... -prisoners After [Wilbert Rideau's] death sentence was commuted to life when the US supreme court briefly suspended the death penalty in 1972, Rideau joined the general prisoner population of Angola. In 1974 he began writing a syndicated newspaper column entitled the Jungle, the first of its kind by a serving prisoner. In 1975 he became editor of the Angolite, Angola prison's magazine, a role that he held for more than 20 years. Under his stewardship the Angolite won a raft of major awards, and was the only uncensored prison magazine in the US. Unlike British prison magazines, which tend to be uncontroversial and filled with prisoner contributions, the Angolite operated to professional journalistic standards and tackled serious issues, such as sexual slavery in prison. Rideau branched into radio journalism and film-making and in 1993 Life magazine called him "the most rehabilitated prisoner in America".
And how about all those prisoners who have been imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit, and who were very lucky not to have been executed? Such as Leonard Peltier, and Mumia Abu-Jamal? What reforming did they need to do considering they weren't guilty of anything in the first place?
No we are killing them because they cannot be "reformed"
Not much of a generalization there. So you're saying that no death row prisoners have ever been reformed? Really? Or are you just making this stuff up because it sounds good?
How about Stanley "Tookie" Williams, cofounder of the notorious L.A. street gang the Crips and a four-time murderer, was on death row between 1981 and 2005? In that time he had become an anti-gang crusader whose work earned him several Nobel Peace Prize nominations. He was executed on December 13, 2005 after Governor Schwarzenegger denied him clemency.
Or this fella:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/ ... -prisoners After [Wilbert Rideau's] death sentence was commuted to life when the US supreme court briefly suspended the death penalty in 1972, Rideau joined the general prisoner population of Angola. In 1974 he began writing a syndicated newspaper column entitled the Jungle, the first of its kind by a serving prisoner. In 1975 he became editor of the Angolite, Angola prison's magazine, a role that he held for more than 20 years. Under his stewardship the Angolite won a raft of major awards, and was the only uncensored prison magazine in the US. Unlike British prison magazines, which tend to be uncontroversial and filled with prisoner contributions, the Angolite operated to professional journalistic standards and tackled serious issues, such as sexual slavery in prison. Rideau branched into radio journalism and film-making and in 1993 Life magazine called him "the most rehabilitated prisoner in America".
And how about all those prisoners who have been imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit, and who were very lucky not to have been executed? Such as Leonard Peltier, and Mumia Abu-Jamal? What reforming did they need to do considering they weren't guilty of anything in the first place?
Reggie Clemons: 'I know, and God knows. I know I'm innocent'
Sentenced to death in 1993 for a crime he insists he didn't commit, Reggie Clemons tells Ed Pilkington about preparing for imminent death, and why America's death penalty is 'poisonous'
Ed Pilkington in Potosi, Missouri
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 August 2012
Reggie Clemons knows what it's like to prepare for imminent death. In 2008, he came within 12 days of execution by lethal injection. In May that year he was issued with a death warrant and for the next 18 days he sat and waited in his prison cell, a short dead-man-walking distance from the death chamber. It was, he says, "a real strange time."
"Each day was real slow. You're paying attention to each and every little detail – every crack on the floor, how your shoe strings are laying that day – because these might be the very last moments of your life."
When his mother Vera Thomas came to see him, he was forced to talk to her from behind a thick bullet-proof glass window, with his hands cuffed to his waist and his feet shackled, even though he was in the middle of a maximum security prison from which there was no chance of escape. Mother and son were put in a visitors' room that just happened to be located next to the death chamber. As Clemons looked out at his mother through the glass, he could see behind her the door through which he knew he would soon be passing.
He had plenty of time during those 18 days to think about the specifics of what would happen to him once he walked through that door and was strapped onto the gurney. "The first drug is supposed to put you to sleep," he says, referring to the beginning of the lethal injection process. "The second drug paralyses you so that you can't move, so you can't talk or speak or anything. And then the third drug is like injecting fire into your veins, because what it does is fries your nervous system. Which I imagine makes your body feel like it's on fire. But I don't know. I've never been there, and nobody has come back from that to tell us."
Twelve days before the execution, the US court of appeals granted Clemons a temporary reprieve. The death he had imagined in such close detail was on hold, for now.
Reggie Clemons is on death row at the Potosi Correctional Center, pictured, an austere low-lying complex surrounded by glistening barbed wire electrified fences deep in the countryside of Missouri. We are taken into the bowels of the institution, along echoing corridors, through remote-controlled iron doors, to a small white cell where Clemons is summoned to meet us.
The Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri
Over the ensuing three hours, we discuss his version of what happened over the Mississippi river, his experience of living for almost two decades under the permanent threat of execution, and his reflections on the impact of the death penalty on American society.
Clemons was sentenced to death in 1993 for the murder of two young sisters, Julie and Robin Kerry. The women fell to their deaths off the Chain of Rocks bridge – pushed with Clemons's connivance, the prosecution said – into the brutal waters of the Mississippi on the night of the 4/5 April 1991.
Clemons will not go into great detail about the events of that night, under instruction from his lawyers. But he does confirm that he and his three co-defendants – Marlin Gray, Antonio Richardson and Daniel Winfrey – did all go onto the bridge, which at the time was fenced off and derelict, but used as a popular hangout for teenagers.
"We'd been watching a [St Louis] Blues hockey game, against Chicago I think," he recalls. After the game, they drove to the bridge and there, some time before midnight, they bumped into a group of strangers, the Kerry sisters and their cousin, Thomas Cummins.
"We came across each other, talked to each other, had a casual conversation, about the bridge, talking about a movie that had been made up there. We talked about how a lot of different people hung out up there. And the graffiti that was painted on the surface of the bridge, reflecting all the different types of people that did come up there. It's just a nice casual conversation, and then we parted ways."
Clemons says the conversation lasted about 15 minutes. "Then we left the bridge. The state says we came back. I'm saying we didn't."
He won't go further than that, saying that he is reserving his full account of what happened on the bridge that night for when he is given a chance to clear his name in a court of law.
'The rape charges were used to inflame the passions of the jury'
Though Clemons was found guilty of murdering the sisters, he was never accused of having directly pushed them into the river. No witness testified having seen him do so.
Reggie Clemons mugshot
Rather, he was convicted as an accomplice. The prosecution alleged that Clemons and his three co-defendants had returned to the bridge and accosted the Kerry sisters and their cousin, robbing them and raping the women. Clemons was alleged to have thrown the sisters' clothes off the bridge, before all three victims were forced into the river (the sisters drowned while Cummins testified that he swam to the bank). Afterwards, a co-defendant claimed in incriminating testimony that Clemons had bragged to his friends: "We threw them off."
Clemons' link to the murders, according to the prosecution, was that he had committed rape and robbery and was therefore implicated. Yet rape and robbery charges were kept separate from the murder counts, and were dismissed soon after the murder trial had ended.
"The rape and robbery charges were used to inflame the passions of the jury, as they were supposed to connect me to the murder," Clemons says. "I thought they were going to take me to trial for those charges later, but they never did. I am still pushing for it, because I strongly feel that in front of a jury I would be fully acquitted."
At his murder trial, the prosecution relied heavily on the testimonies of Thomas Cummins and Daniel Winfrey, then aged 15, who was one of Clemons' three co-defendants. Both Cummins and Winfrey were white, while Clemons, Marlin Gray and Antonio Richardson were African Americans, lending a stark racial element to the proceedings.
Both Cummins and Winfrey arguably had ulterior motives to implicate Clemons – Cummins because he was himself initially accused by police of murdering his cousins, though the investigation of him was later dropped, and Winfrey because the prosecution arranged a plea bargain with him in which he would be spared the death penalty in exchange for turning star witness against his black co-defendants. He pleaded guilty, was given a 30-year sentence and was released on parole in 2007.
"I was a little angry and confused," Clemons says about Winfrey, who he had never met before the night the Kerry sisters died. "I didn't fully understand why he made the deal and turned states [witness]. I've wondered about it over the years. He was young, 15 years old. Here it is, he's facing the real serious case like this, with some strangers that he don't even know. So …"
The other key evidence presented to the jury at the 1993 trial was Clemons's own confession to police made two days after the Kerry sisters went missing. In it, Clemons admitted to raping one of the sisters, though not to murdering them.
Twenty years later, Clemons still insists, as he told internal affairs investigators 48 hours after he made the confession, that it was beaten out of him. He says: "I remember police mainly beating me in the chest. While they were beating me, they were telling me what they wanted to admit to. One of their punches skipped off my shoulder and caught me in my cheek, cut me right in front of my eye. Then another punch caused my lip to start bleeding."
Clemons says that he agreed to make a statement just to "get my bearings a little bit. I needed a break from this beating before these people kill me, so I can think a little bit."
He began to give a statement, Clemons says, along the lines dictated by the detectives, but in the middle of it he blurted out that he was being assaulted. They immediately stopped the tape and discarded it. "They came back about five minutes later, and started beating on me some more. So I made a second tape. I barely even remember it. It's like, hazy, the memory of it."
The second tape was his confession to rape, which was crucial in putting him on death row.
The account that Clemons gave the Guardian is the same as what he told officers of the St Louis police internal affairs unit when he complained of being beaten up two days after his initial interview, and echoes too what his lawyers said in appeal documents lodged with the Missouri supreme court. Yet why did he make that tape when it in effect put the seal on his own death sentence?
"If you believe that someone is willing to beat you to death, while they're beating you they can just about get you to admit to anything."
In addition to the police who he alleges attacked him, Clemons is very critical of other aspects of the criminal justice system. He accuses his own lawyers at the time of the trial of acting against his interests – the two lead attorneys were going through a divorce at the time of his trial and he believes they were ill-prepared to defend him.
A separate team of defence lawyers who represented Clemons in his appeal for clemency at the time of his 2009 scheduled execution alleged in court papers that his trial attorneys had "failed him at every stage of his representation".
All in all, Clemons says, "the pack was stacked against me. I knew I was going to get the death sentence, even before the trial started. I had already been tried and convicted in the media."
In separate trials, Marlin Gray and Antonio Richardson were also put on death row. Richardson later had his conviction commuted to life imprisonment, but Gray was executed by lethal injection in October 2005.
Clemons says Gray's death hit him hard. "He clearly didn't have any blood on his hands, either. No one said he pushed the two young women into the water. So I felt, well, they've executed him, they definitely can't not execute me. It created a feeling of inevitability. It's only by mercy of God that I feel I'm here still breathing today."
Before he died, Gray seemed to Clemons to have lost all hope. "He kind of took the attitude of 'whatever.' At one point he said: 'I can't believe you still think that people are going to listen.' But I said, that don't mean I got to quit talking, trying to explain, and explain, and explain."
In doing all that explaining, over so many years, Clemons has thought a lot about the death penalty and its impact on him. "It's like somebody pointing a gun to your head, every day, and telling you that I'm going to kill you some day, I just haven't decided when."
'The death penalty in America is poisonous'
Now aged 40, he's lost count of the number of his fellow death row inmates who have been taken away, never to return. "I'm too young to know as many dead people as I do," he says.
But he believes he's come to terms with the surreal character of life on death row. "This might sound crazy to some people, but I'm already free on the inside. I know I don't belong in here, and I'm free to think for myself. If my mind and spirit is free, my body is soon to follow."
He's also had time to think about the death penalty's impact on America in a wider sense. Before his arrest, he was an advocate of capital punishment. Now he's come to the conclusion that the death penalty has a pervasive and negative effect that permeates itself throughout society.
"The death penalty in America is poisonous to the social consciousness. It makes people consider death as a solution. Murder as a solution.
"The death penalty desensitizes people to the human aspect of crime and punishment. You forget about the human being. You have to dehumanise somebody in order to kill them. And it's not a penalty at all. We are all going to die some day. So who are you punishing? Me or my family?"
He says his heart goes out to the family of Julie and Robin Kerry. "I can't imagine what they're going through. I wish I could find a way to take their pain away, but that's not possible. You can't bring people back."
Clemons says he can't express remorse, "because remorse requires that you're guilty of something." But what about the two women who died on the bridge?
"I think about them a lot," Clemons says. "It's sad that they're not here to see the first black president, because from what I've read about them, that's something that they would definitely want to see. I've read that they were against the death penalty, and they would be fighting against a lot of wrongs that's going on in the world."
To hear a man on death row for double murder saying that he thinks a lot about his alleged victims will be offensive to people sceptical of Clemons's protestations of innocence. It may also be difficult to hear for the family of the Kerry sisters, who have largely avoided media contact and are disdainful towards what one family member has called the "Reggie Clemons circus".
No matter what comes out of the September hearings into his case, there will always be those who see Reggie Clemons as a cold-hearted killer deserving of the ultimate punishment. So how does he deal with the knowledge that a perception of guilt will hang over him always?
"Whatever conclusion a person reaches, that is their own choice. I don't have any control over that, and I've learned not to give a lot away to what somebody thinks about me.
"Not because I'm arrogant or because I'm unconcerned about other people's opinions. But because I know, and God knows. I know I'm not a rapist. I know I'm not a murderer or a killer. I know that I didn't do any of these things. I know I'm innocent."
i always find it ironic that a country that has a huge population interested in protecting human life that they are so comfortable killing so many people ... from capital punishment to wars to day in day out violence .. .stop murdering the fetuses! ... but go ahead and kill women and children overseas ...
The death penalty serves no purpose whatsoever other than the fulfillment of blood-lust. It does not work as a deterrent, therefore it's revenge, pure and simple. And what sort of society should function on the level of vengeance and blood-lust? Should not any just society place itself on a higher moral footing than that of rapists and murderers? Is it not the test of any society to not allow itself to sink to the same level as those it condemns - even those guilty of the most savage of crimes?
According to a 2011 study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, eighty-eight percent of the country’s top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent.
http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/stude ... ment1b.htm '...some criminologists, such as William Bowers of Northeastern University, maintain that the death penalty has the opposite effect: that is, society is brutalized by the use of the death penalty, and this increases the likelihood of more murder. States in the United States that do not employ the death penalty generally have lower murder rates than states that do. The same is true when the U.S. is compared to countries similar to it. The U.S., with the death penalty, has a higher murder rate than the countries of Europe or Canada, which do not use the death penalty. The death penalty is not a deterrent because most people who commit murders either do not expect to be caught or do not carefully weigh the differences between a possible execution and life in prison before they act. Frequently, murders are committed in moments of passion or anger, or by criminals who are substance abusers and acted impulsively.'
The death penalty serves no purpose whatsoever other than the fulfillment of blood-lust. It does not work as a deterrent, therefore it's revenge, pure and simple. And what sort of society should function on the level of vengeance and blood-lust? Should not any just society place itself on a higher moral footing than that of rapists and murderers? Is it not the test of any society to not allow itself to sink to the same level as those it condemns - even those guilty of the most savage of crimes?
According to a 2011 study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, eighty-eight percent of the country’s top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent.
http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/stude ... ment1b.htm '...some criminologists, such as William Bowers of Northeastern University, maintain that the death penalty has the opposite effect: that is, society is brutalized by the use of the death penalty, and this increases the likelihood of more murder. States in the United States that do not employ the death penalty generally have lower murder rates than states that do. The same is true when the U.S. is compared to countries similar to it. The U.S., with the death penalty, has a higher murder rate than the countries of Europe or Canada, which do not use the death penalty. The death penalty is not a deterrent because most people who commit murders either do not expect to be caught or do not carefully weigh the differences between a possible execution and life in prison before they act. Frequently, murders are committed in moments of passion or anger, or by criminals who are substance abusers and acted impulsively.'
what about the punishment ? is a life for a life fair ?
what about the punishment ? is a life for a life fair ?
Premeditated state-sponsored revenge killing has nothing to do with fairness.
As for punishment, prison would take care of that.
but prisons are overcrowded. and keeping someone in prison incurs a cost on society, which frankly, I don't feel like it's fair that I pay as a law abiding, tax paying citizen of this country.
If there is damning evidence against someone then I have no issue with the death penalty. Some crimes justify someone losing their life.
but prisons are overcrowded. and keeping someone in prison incurs a cost on society, which frankly, I don't feel like it's fair that I pay as a law abiding, tax paying citizen of this country.
If there is damning evidence against someone then I have no issue with the death penalty. Some crimes justify someone losing their life.
it is a well known fact that the path to execution costs tax payers way more than keeping someone in jail for life.
I don't care if the person was caught on video bludgeoning a baby and its 95 year old gramma; humans shouldn't be allowed to decide who lives or dies. or we risk becoming like the killers.
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
i always find it ironic that a country that has a huge population interested in protecting human life that they are so comfortable killing so many people ... from capital punishment to wars to day in day out violence .. .stop murdering the fetuses! ... but go ahead and kill women and children overseas ...
What country do you speak of?
and what makes you assume all this?
what about the punishment ? is a life for a life fair ?
Godfather.
and eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
exactly,correct..
its called civilization..we dont live in caves anymore..those times was eye for an eye..
"...Dimitri...He talks to me...'.."The Ghost of Greece..".
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
what about the punishment ? is a life for a life fair ?
Premeditated state-sponsored revenge killing has nothing to do with fairness.
As for punishment, prison would take care of that.
You speak from a slightly idealistic general society's perspective. What of the victim's survivors perspective?
With exceptions of course, I think it's safe to suggest that most grieving parents would prefer that the rodent that (as an example) raped and killed their 8 year old daughter be strapped into a chair and executed. Call it bloodlust if you wish, but if I was placed in that position... I would demand watching the asshole fry. Call me weak, shallow, or insensitive as well, but I would not be able to summon any empathy for such a scoundrel. It would not bring my daughter back... but at least I would not need to think of what books the bastard has been reading in the relative comfort of his isolated cell or read of him getting married to some pen pal.
Should we concern ourselves at all with how we might consider the wishes or needs of the survivors- scarred and battered victims in their own right? Or do we- from a safe distance of course given that we have not been directly impacted- 'take the high road' and feel good about our level of humanistic development that we can extend mercy to someone who many feel deserves none?
I know you'll likely disagree, but I strongly feel the death penalty is appropriate in some cases.
, but I strongly feel the death penalty is appropriate in some cases.
i really feel that this is the first reaction,for a human beign..
i mean,u see someone kiil 30 people,or he rape and killed,or put a bomb and the explode killed alot of people..i really think is the first reaction.,lets kill him too..
and for sure everyone thinks what if was me,or my people..what i would do?for sure i want him killed..
but i think society in general must think different...cant go in the same low level with the bad guys..with the kilers..
is very diffeicult conversation this..you are right that some people do horrible things dont deserve to live..
but lets not us play Gods,who will live or dies..
just lock those bastards for ever in jail so cant do bad to anyone else..
let them fuckin realise for the next years of their lifes,that all their millions breaths they will take,will never be Free ones...
let them u nderstand,that life is so important only when its Free..
and in the end...even if u kill the bad guy..the victim..,will not come back..
"...Dimitri...He talks to me...'.."The Ghost of Greece..".
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
You speak from a slightly idealistic general society's perspective. What of the victim's survivors perspective?
With exceptions of course, I think it's safe to suggest that most grieving parents would prefer that the rodent that (as an example) raped and killed their 8 year old daughter be strapped into a chair and executed. Call it bloodlust if you wish, but if I was placed in that position... I would demand watching the asshole fry. Call me weak, shallow, or insensitive as well, but I would not be able to summon any empathy for such a scoundrel. It would not bring my daughter back... but at least I would not need to think of what books the bastard has been reading in the relative comfort of his isolated cell or read of him getting married to some pen pal.
Should we concern ourselves at all with how we might consider the wishes or needs of the survivors- scarred and battered victims in their own right? Or do we- from a safe distance of course given that we have not been directly impacted- 'take the high road' and feel good about our level of humanistic development that we can extend mercy to someone who many feel deserves none?
I know you'll likely disagree, but I strongly feel the death penalty is appropriate in some cases.
And I strongly feel that it's that kind of smug, self-righteous attitude that perpetuates the hypocrisy and violence in American society.
You speak from a slightly idealistic general society's perspective. What of the victim's survivors perspective?
With exceptions of course, I think it's safe to suggest that most grieving parents would prefer that the rodent that (as an example) raped and killed their 8 year old daughter be strapped into a chair and executed. Call it bloodlust if you wish, but if I was placed in that position... I would demand watching the asshole fry. Call me weak, shallow, or insensitive as well, but I would not be able to summon any empathy for such a scoundrel. It would not bring my daughter back... but at least I would not need to think of what books the bastard has been reading in the relative comfort of his isolated cell or read of him getting married to some pen pal.
Should we concern ourselves at all with how we might consider the wishes or needs of the survivors- scarred and battered victims in their own right? Or do we- from a safe distance of course given that we have not been directly impacted- 'take the high road' and feel good about our level of humanistic development that we can extend mercy to someone who many feel deserves none?
I know you'll likely disagree, but I strongly feel the death penalty is appropriate in some cases.
And I strongly feel that it's that kind of smug, self-righteous attitude that perpetuates the hypocrisy and violence in American society.
You describe my position as smug and self-righteous? I presented a position that people surviving violent crimes might possess- accented with a slice of personal opinion.
There can be varying opinions on the subject you introduced for discussion. Sorry mine doesn't mesh with yours. I understand you hold your position dear to you, however, that doesn't necessarily make it right. Regardless, I never attacked your character for holding it.
When you created the thread... were you thinking everyone would just simply agree?
You speak from a slightly idealistic general society's perspective. What of the victim's survivors perspective?
ok, but you are speaking as if most victim's families would prefer the convicted be put to death, which is wholely untrue. I think those numbers are actually a lot closer than you think.
in the cases where the family of the victim opposes death for the convicted, should it be their choice then whether he lives or dies?
the whole point of making laws and having objective strangers deciding the outcome of someone's fate is to take the emotion, wherever possible, out of the equation. because that's how justice gets served.
how does killing someone serve the dead? it doesn't. they are still dead. how does killing someone serve society? it doesn't. it serves only revenge of the loved ones of the victims. is that any way to decide someone's fate?
I don't believe so.
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
You speak from a slightly idealistic general society's perspective. What of the victim's survivors perspective?
With exceptions of course, I think it's safe to suggest that most grieving parents would prefer that the rodent that (as an example) raped and killed their 8 year old daughter be strapped into a chair and executed. Call it bloodlust if you wish, but if I was placed in that position... I would demand watching the asshole fry. Call me weak, shallow, or insensitive as well, but I would not be able to summon any empathy for such a scoundrel. It would not bring my daughter back... but at least I would not need to think of what books the bastard has been reading in the relative comfort of his isolated cell or read of him getting married to some pen pal.
Should we concern ourselves at all with how we might consider the wishes or needs of the survivors- scarred and battered victims in their own right? Or do we- from a safe distance of course given that we have not been directly impacted- 'take the high road' and feel good about our level of humanistic development that we can extend mercy to someone who many feel deserves none?
I know you'll likely disagree, but I strongly feel the death penalty is appropriate in some cases.
And I strongly feel that it's that kind of smug, self-righteous attitude that perpetuates the hypocrisy and violence in American society.
Wouldn't any attempt to empathize with such a person immediately elevate you above him/her? Why descend to his level by cheering a pre-meditated murder that dresses itself in the cloak of 'justice'? Shouldn't the test of any just society be that it refuses to sink to the level of those it condemns?
what about the punishment ? is a life for a life fair ?
Godfather.
and eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
exactly,correct..
its called civilization..we dont live in caves anymore..those times was eye for an eye..
why isit so different now ? believe me if someone breaks into my home and threatens my family or myself that person will be carried out of my house when it's all said and done.
why is it so hard to understand a punishment of death for killing ?
everybody here speaks so highly of their personal morals and opinions like they're the only ones who know right from wrong,useing terms like "state sanctioned revenge killing" and prison don't fix it every time...you all talk about the wrong man being exacuted but you don't talk about the ones that are guilty and spend 5 years or less in prison..well I have not heard of a drug that brings dead victims of violent crimes back to life, it's not about revenge in a court of law it's about laws that have been in place for a long time and if you kill and don't know the punishment for murder then I'd say you fucked up or your lieing.
our court systems and laws are not perfect for sure but if you take a life with out provacation it stands to reason you will forfit yours thru a court of law...you may even lose it trying to commit a murder.
You speak from a slightly idealistic general society's perspective. What of the victim's survivors perspective?
ok, but you are speaking as if most victim's families would prefer the convicted be put to death, which is wholely untrue. I think those numbers are actually a lot closer than you think.
in the cases where the family of the victim opposes death for the convicted, should it be their choice then whether he lives or dies?
the whole point of making laws and having objective strangers deciding the outcome of someone's fate is to take the emotion, wherever possible, out of the equation. because that's how justice gets served.
how does killing someone serve the dead? it doesn't. they are still dead. how does killing someone serve society? it doesn't. it serves only revenge of the loved ones of the victims. is that any way to decide someone's fate?
I don't believe so.
Hugh... we've had a similar discussion before. We could have it again, but I feel we won't be any closer to reaching common ground. To address your comments:
I wish that we wouldn't have to discuss such things, but there are incidents where people cross the line in brutal fashion- leaving society to deal with the aftermath. Even though- as you put it- the victims are still dead (so why take an attitude such as mine?)... justice absolutely needs to be served. We don't disregard victims because 'what's done is done'. Similar to soldiers placing themselves at great risk to bring back bodies from the battlefield so that they may be buried with honour and dignity, we need to speak and act for those that cannot anymore because of cold, callous actions that cut their life short. It's appropriate to serve them after the fact. Acting on their behalf assists with the grieving process as well- people forced to live with the tragedy take measures of comfort.
That aside, the fundamental disagreement you and I have lies within the manner in which we deal with some offenders. I think you have implied that victims are normally distraught and being emotional... their wishes for justice are not legitimate because they are based on revenge. Even if this is the case, I'm not so sure this is a poor thing.
Regardless... let's do what you suggest and take emotion out of the equation then... both ways: let the punishment fit the crime in an objective manner. I ask you then... what sentence would be appropriate for a guy such as Clifford Olson (the child serial murderer in British Columbia)? Does 11 child murders equate to solitary confinement with prepared meals, cable television, books, internet access, and (laughably) an old age pension? Emotions aside, with all checks and balances in place... I see how one such as this should shape up.
You speak from a slightly idealistic general society's perspective. What of the victim's survivors perspective?
With exceptions of course, I think it's safe to suggest that most grieving parents would prefer that the rodent that (as an example) raped and killed their 8 year old daughter be strapped into a chair and executed. Call it bloodlust if you wish, but if I was placed in that position... I would demand watching the asshole fry. Call me weak, shallow, or insensitive as well, but I would not be able to summon any empathy for such a scoundrel. It would not bring my daughter back... but at least I would not need to think of what books the bastard has been reading in the relative comfort of his isolated cell or read of him getting married to some pen pal.
Should we concern ourselves at all with how we might consider the wishes or needs of the survivors- scarred and battered victims in their own right? Or do we- from a safe distance of course given that we have not been directly impacted- 'take the high road' and feel good about our level of humanistic development that we can extend mercy to someone who many feel deserves none?
I know you'll likely disagree, but I strongly feel the death penalty is appropriate in some cases.
And I strongly feel that it's that kind of smug, self-righteous attitude that perpetuates the hypocrisy and violence in American society.
Wouldn't any attempt to empathize with such a person immediately elevate you above him/her? Why descend to his level by cheering a pre-meditated murder that dresses itself in the cloak of 'justice'? Shouldn't the test of any just society be that it refuses to sink to the level of those it condemns?
I'm not so sure it would be "cheering a pre-meditated murder". I think it is more along the lines of playing the hand you were dealt. It's not as if society is anxiously awaiting the opportunity to fry someone. I view capital punishment as a solemn affair that marks closure to an undesirable event: an unfortunate event that is borne out of necessity given the nature of the case.
I'm not so sure it would be "cheering a pre-meditated murder". I think it is more along the lines of playing the hand you were dealt. It's not as if society is anxiously awaiting the opportunity to fry someone. I view capital punishment as a solemn affair that marks closure to an undesirable event: an unfortunate event that is borne out of necessity given the nature of the case.
Necessity? Why is it necessary to murder someone who is already cut off from society behind bars?
From Reflections on the Guillotine - Albert Camus:
"For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him to his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."
I'm not so sure it would be "cheering a pre-meditated murder". I think it is more along the lines of playing the hand you were dealt. It's not as if society is anxiously awaiting the opportunity to fry someone. I view capital punishment as a solemn affair that marks closure to an undesirable event: an unfortunate event that is borne out of necessity given the nature of the case.
Necessity? Why is it necessary to murder someone who is already cut off from society behind bars?
From Reflections on the Guillotine - Albert Camus:
"For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him to his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."
Camus omits the part about the fact that the murderer intitated the event and had a level of control over his actions before doing so- he brought this upon himself. Sticking with my previous example, Olson never fought the sadistic urges that moved him forward through his killing spree (at least not effectively). Camus also dismisses the victims and annoints the murderer a victim while, at the same time, equates law-abiding society forced to deal with the offence as an unparalleled monster- he obviously never met or heard of Michael Rafferty. I'm not buying it.
, but I strongly feel the death penalty is appropriate in some cases.
i really feel that this is the first reaction,for a human beign..
i mean,u see someone kiil 30 people,or he rape and killed,or put a bomb and the explode killed alot of people..i really think is the first reaction.,lets kill him too..
and for sure everyone thinks what if was me,or my people..what i would do?for sure i want him killed..
but i think society in general must think different...cant go in the same low level with the bad guys..with the kilers..
is very diffeicult conversation this..you are right that some people do horrible things dont deserve to live..
but lets not us play Gods,who will live or dies..
just lock those bastards for ever in jail so cant do bad to anyone else..
let them fuckin realise for the next years of their lifes,that all their millions breaths they will take,will never be Free ones...
let them u nderstand,that life is so important only when its Free..
and in the end...even if u kill the bad guy..the victim..,will not come back..
I'll agree with you regarding the fact that these discussions are difficult. I'll also agree with you that prison would not be a fun time.
I don't think we're playing God though, Dimi. I think we're just dealing with situations that are difficult to deal with. When forced to... one side takes a hard line while the other takes a 'milder' stance. Who decides who's right?
Camus omits the part about the fact that the murderer intitated the event and had a level of control over his actions before doing so- he brought this upon himself. Sticking with my previous example, Olson never fought the sadistic urges that moved him forward through his killing spree (at least not effectively). Camus also dismisses the victims and annoints the murderer a victim while, at the same time, equates law-abiding society forced to deal with the offence as an unparalleled monster- he obviously never met or heard of Michael Rafferty. I'm not buying it.
Why can't the punishment fit the crime?
Have you read 'Reflections on The Guillotine'? No, you haven't. Does Camus dismiss the victims and annoint any murderer? No, he doesn't.
Albert Camus:
'Could not justice concede to the criminal the same weakness in which society finds a sort of permanent extenuating circumstance for itself? Can the jury decently say: “If I kill you by mistake, you will forgive me when you consider the weaknesses of our common nature. But I am condemning you to death without considering those weaknesses or that nature"? There is a solidarity of ill men in error and aberration. Must that solidarity operate for the tribunal and be denied the accused? No, and if justice has any meaning in this world, it means nothing but the recognition of that solidarity; it cannot, by its very essence, divorce itself from compassion. Compassion, of course, can in this instance be but awareness of a common suffering and not a frivolous indulgence paying no attention to the sufferings and rights of the victim. Compassion does not exclude punishment, but it suspends the final condemnation. Compassion loathes the definitive, irreparable measure that does an injustice to mankind as a whole because of failing to take into account the wretchedness of the common condition.'
Camus omits the part about the fact that the murderer intitated the event and had a level of control over his actions before doing so- he brought this upon himself. Sticking with my previous example, Olson never fought the sadistic urges that moved him forward through his killing spree (at least not effectively). Camus also dismisses the victims and annoints the murderer a victim while, at the same time, equates law-abiding society forced to deal with the offence as an unparalleled monster- he obviously never met or heard of Michael Rafferty. I'm not buying it.
Why can't the punishment fit the crime?
Have you read 'Reflections on The Guillotine'? No, you haven't. Does Camus dismiss the victims and annoint any murderer? No, he doesn't.
Albert Camus:
'Could not justice concede to the criminal the same weakness in which society finds a sort of permanent extenuating circumstance for itself? Can the jury decently say: “If I kill you by mistake, you will forgive me when you consider the weaknesses of our common nature. But I am condemning you to death without considering those weaknesses or that nature"? There is a solidarity of ill men in error and aberration. Must that solidarity operate for the tribunal and be denied the accused? No, and if justice has any meaning in this world, it means nothing but the recognition of that solidarity; it cannot, by its very essence, divorce itself from compassion. Compassion, of course, can in this instance be but awareness of a common suffering and not a frivolous indulgence paying no attention to the sufferings and rights of the victim. Compassion does not exclude punishment, but it suspends the final condemnation. Compassion loathes the definitive, irreparable measure that does an injustice to mankind as a whole because of failing to take into account the wretchedness of the common condition.'
You left your quote there for me to digest. From what you left for me, there was much to be explained. You have now offered another quote to clarify. Byrnzie, I can go find proponents for the death penalty, quote them, and place their quotes on here to make my case for me (and look impressive to some for doing so). I'd rather try and articulate my stance on the subject myself. If I care to read Camus... then I'd go do it. I'm not interested. This subject can be discussed without intervention from scholars outside the 10C- it's really not that profound a topic.
The fact that you have read Camus and I have not does not make your position more legitimate.
We don't disregard victims because 'what's done is done'.
... their wishes for justice are not legitimate because they are based on revenge.
what sentence would be appropriate for a guy such as Clifford Olson (the child serial murderer in British Columbia)? Does 11 child murders equate to solitary confinement with prepared meals, cable television, books, internet access, and (laughably) an old age pension? Emotions aside, with all checks and balances in place... I see how one such as this should shape up.
I did not ever suggest that victim's wishes aren't legitimate. they are, they are just clouded with emotion.
I also never suggested that we shouldn't serve justice because what is done is done. I merely pointed out that killing the perpetrator really serves no purpose other than the revenge of the living. My personal belief is that no matter what was done by the perpetrator, killing them is a useless and unreasonable reaction.
what I don't like is when people who are pro-death penalty try to paint the picture of being in prison as being some sort of holiday. most inmates conditions, save for people like Martha Stewart, are far from country club. it is a miserable existence full of violence, fear, and sometimes death.
let me say this: if it were my kid, one of my beautiful daughters, who was a victim, and I was living to mourn her, for sure I'd want the bastard dead who did it! And I'd want to do it myself! but that's not a rational or reasonable response, and why revenge killing is a crime just like any other murder.
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
We don't disregard victims because 'what's done is done'.
... their wishes for justice are not legitimate because they are based on revenge.
what sentence would be appropriate for a guy such as Clifford Olson (the child serial murderer in British Columbia)? Does 11 child murders equate to solitary confinement with prepared meals, cable television, books, internet access, and (laughably) an old age pension? Emotions aside, with all checks and balances in place... I see how one such as this should shape up.
I did not ever suggest that victim's wishes aren't legitimate. they are, they are just clouded with emotion.
I also never suggested that we shouldn't serve justice because what is done is done. I merely pointed out that killing the perpetrator really serves no purpose other than the revenge of the living. My personal belief is that no matter what was done by the perpetrator, killing them is a useless and unreasonable reaction.
what I don't like is when people who are pro-death penalty try to paint the picture of being in prison as being some sort of holiday. most inmates conditions, save for people like Martha Stewart, are far from country club. it is a miserable existence full of violence, fear, and sometimes death.
let me say this: if it were my kid, one of my beautiful daughters, who was a victim, and I was living to mourn her, for sure I'd want the bastard dead who did it! And I'd want to do it myself! but that's not a rational or reasonable response, and why revenge killing is a crime just like any other murder.
I get everything you are saying. These things have never been lost on me.
Allow me to allude to your last paragraph: my position supports those like yourself (and I) who would seek and need that form of justice given the most traumatic moment of their life. As 'irrational' as the response might be from a logical 'middle way' sense... my personal position is one that allows for those who need that form of closure to get it. I don't care for these types of offenders at all- not a bit.
With the aforementioned said, I appreciate the position you have taken the time to detail for me- providing balance to the subject and food for thought to say the least.
If I care to read Camus... then I'd go do it. I'm not interested.This subject can be discussed without intervention from scholars outside the 10C- it's really not that profound a topic.
You're not interested in what one of the 20th Century's leading intellectuals had to say on the subject?
And what could be more profound a topic than the taking of a life?
why isit so different now ? believe me if someone breaks into my home and threatens my family or myself that person will be carried out of my house when it's all said and done.
why is it so hard to understand a punishment of death for killing ?
everybody here speaks so highly of their personal morals and opinions like they're the only ones who know right from wrong,useing terms like "state sanctioned revenge killing" and prison don't fix it every time...you all talk about the wrong man being exacuted but you don't talk about the ones that are guilty and spend 5 years or less in prison..well I have not heard of a drug that brings dead victims of violent crimes back to life, it's not about revenge in a court of law it's about laws that have been in place for a long time and if you kill and don't know the punishment for murder then I'd say you fucked up or your lieing.
our court systems and laws are not perfect for sure but if you take a life with out provacation it stands to reason you will forfit yours thru a court of law...you may even lose it trying to commit a murder.
Godfather.
i agree with you,that seems not fair punishment prison,for someone do horrible crimes,
believe me ,im with the good guys and not with the ones do crimes..
i dont have any interest to support them.as u said,the system of laws,not only isnt perfect,my opinion is that sucks/..i believe this need to fixed,and not just say,..:
what this guy did?he kill someone,?ok,kill him too..
when someone come to your house and threat u is different to protect your self..we are talking for someone do a crime and he gotr arrested..
as u understand we arent in wild west anymore,we have courts,we dont do public trials,in 2 min,anfd put a rope in someone throat..
we need to do seperate things than monsters..
monsters do crimes,humans need to do different..
we need to control our instincts,we arent a jungle..we are a society..
"...Dimitri...He talks to me...'.."The Ghost of Greece..".
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
Comments
Not much of a generalization there. So you're saying that no death row prisoners have ever been reformed? Really? Or are you just making this stuff up because it sounds good?
How about Stanley "Tookie" Williams, cofounder of the notorious L.A. street gang the Crips and a four-time murderer, was on death row between 1981 and 2005? In that time he had become an anti-gang crusader whose work earned him several Nobel Peace Prize nominations. He was executed on December 13, 2005 after Governor Schwarzenegger denied him clemency.
Or this fella:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/ ... -prisoners
After [Wilbert Rideau's] death sentence was commuted to life when the US supreme court briefly suspended the death penalty in 1972, Rideau joined the general prisoner population of Angola. In 1974 he began writing a syndicated newspaper column entitled the Jungle, the first of its kind by a serving prisoner. In 1975 he became editor of the Angolite, Angola prison's magazine, a role that he held for more than 20 years. Under his stewardship the Angolite won a raft of major awards, and was the only uncensored prison magazine in the US. Unlike British prison magazines, which tend to be uncontroversial and filled with prisoner contributions, the Angolite operated to professional journalistic standards and tackled serious issues, such as sexual slavery in prison. Rideau branched into radio journalism and film-making and in 1993 Life magazine called him "the most rehabilitated prisoner in America".
And how about all those prisoners who have been imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit, and who were very lucky not to have been executed? Such as Leonard Peltier, and Mumia Abu-Jamal? What reforming did they need to do considering they weren't guilty of anything in the first place?
You clearly can read, so try it. I clarified.
Reggie Clemons: 'I know, and God knows. I know I'm innocent'
Sentenced to death in 1993 for a crime he insists he didn't commit, Reggie Clemons tells Ed Pilkington about preparing for imminent death, and why America's death penalty is 'poisonous'
Ed Pilkington in Potosi, Missouri
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 August 2012
Reggie Clemons knows what it's like to prepare for imminent death. In 2008, he came within 12 days of execution by lethal injection. In May that year he was issued with a death warrant and for the next 18 days he sat and waited in his prison cell, a short dead-man-walking distance from the death chamber. It was, he says, "a real strange time."
"Each day was real slow. You're paying attention to each and every little detail – every crack on the floor, how your shoe strings are laying that day – because these might be the very last moments of your life."
When his mother Vera Thomas came to see him, he was forced to talk to her from behind a thick bullet-proof glass window, with his hands cuffed to his waist and his feet shackled, even though he was in the middle of a maximum security prison from which there was no chance of escape. Mother and son were put in a visitors' room that just happened to be located next to the death chamber. As Clemons looked out at his mother through the glass, he could see behind her the door through which he knew he would soon be passing.
He had plenty of time during those 18 days to think about the specifics of what would happen to him once he walked through that door and was strapped onto the gurney. "The first drug is supposed to put you to sleep," he says, referring to the beginning of the lethal injection process. "The second drug paralyses you so that you can't move, so you can't talk or speak or anything. And then the third drug is like injecting fire into your veins, because what it does is fries your nervous system. Which I imagine makes your body feel like it's on fire. But I don't know. I've never been there, and nobody has come back from that to tell us."
Twelve days before the execution, the US court of appeals granted Clemons a temporary reprieve. The death he had imagined in such close detail was on hold, for now.
Reggie Clemons is on death row at the Potosi Correctional Center, pictured, an austere low-lying complex surrounded by glistening barbed wire electrified fences deep in the countryside of Missouri. We are taken into the bowels of the institution, along echoing corridors, through remote-controlled iron doors, to a small white cell where Clemons is summoned to meet us.
The Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri
Over the ensuing three hours, we discuss his version of what happened over the Mississippi river, his experience of living for almost two decades under the permanent threat of execution, and his reflections on the impact of the death penalty on American society.
Clemons was sentenced to death in 1993 for the murder of two young sisters, Julie and Robin Kerry. The women fell to their deaths off the Chain of Rocks bridge – pushed with Clemons's connivance, the prosecution said – into the brutal waters of the Mississippi on the night of the 4/5 April 1991.
Clemons will not go into great detail about the events of that night, under instruction from his lawyers. But he does confirm that he and his three co-defendants – Marlin Gray, Antonio Richardson and Daniel Winfrey – did all go onto the bridge, which at the time was fenced off and derelict, but used as a popular hangout for teenagers.
"We'd been watching a [St Louis] Blues hockey game, against Chicago I think," he recalls. After the game, they drove to the bridge and there, some time before midnight, they bumped into a group of strangers, the Kerry sisters and their cousin, Thomas Cummins.
"We came across each other, talked to each other, had a casual conversation, about the bridge, talking about a movie that had been made up there. We talked about how a lot of different people hung out up there. And the graffiti that was painted on the surface of the bridge, reflecting all the different types of people that did come up there. It's just a nice casual conversation, and then we parted ways."
Clemons says the conversation lasted about 15 minutes. "Then we left the bridge. The state says we came back. I'm saying we didn't."
He won't go further than that, saying that he is reserving his full account of what happened on the bridge that night for when he is given a chance to clear his name in a court of law.
'The rape charges were used to inflame the passions of the jury'
Though Clemons was found guilty of murdering the sisters, he was never accused of having directly pushed them into the river. No witness testified having seen him do so.
Reggie Clemons mugshot
Rather, he was convicted as an accomplice. The prosecution alleged that Clemons and his three co-defendants had returned to the bridge and accosted the Kerry sisters and their cousin, robbing them and raping the women. Clemons was alleged to have thrown the sisters' clothes off the bridge, before all three victims were forced into the river (the sisters drowned while Cummins testified that he swam to the bank). Afterwards, a co-defendant claimed in incriminating testimony that Clemons had bragged to his friends: "We threw them off."
Clemons' link to the murders, according to the prosecution, was that he had committed rape and robbery and was therefore implicated. Yet rape and robbery charges were kept separate from the murder counts, and were dismissed soon after the murder trial had ended.
"The rape and robbery charges were used to inflame the passions of the jury, as they were supposed to connect me to the murder," Clemons says. "I thought they were going to take me to trial for those charges later, but they never did. I am still pushing for it, because I strongly feel that in front of a jury I would be fully acquitted."
At his murder trial, the prosecution relied heavily on the testimonies of Thomas Cummins and Daniel Winfrey, then aged 15, who was one of Clemons' three co-defendants. Both Cummins and Winfrey were white, while Clemons, Marlin Gray and Antonio Richardson were African Americans, lending a stark racial element to the proceedings.
Both Cummins and Winfrey arguably had ulterior motives to implicate Clemons – Cummins because he was himself initially accused by police of murdering his cousins, though the investigation of him was later dropped, and Winfrey because the prosecution arranged a plea bargain with him in which he would be spared the death penalty in exchange for turning star witness against his black co-defendants. He pleaded guilty, was given a 30-year sentence and was released on parole in 2007.
"I was a little angry and confused," Clemons says about Winfrey, who he had never met before the night the Kerry sisters died. "I didn't fully understand why he made the deal and turned states [witness]. I've wondered about it over the years. He was young, 15 years old. Here it is, he's facing the real serious case like this, with some strangers that he don't even know. So …"
The other key evidence presented to the jury at the 1993 trial was Clemons's own confession to police made two days after the Kerry sisters went missing. In it, Clemons admitted to raping one of the sisters, though not to murdering them.
Twenty years later, Clemons still insists, as he told internal affairs investigators 48 hours after he made the confession, that it was beaten out of him. He says: "I remember police mainly beating me in the chest. While they were beating me, they were telling me what they wanted to admit to. One of their punches skipped off my shoulder and caught me in my cheek, cut me right in front of my eye. Then another punch caused my lip to start bleeding."
Clemons says that he agreed to make a statement just to "get my bearings a little bit. I needed a break from this beating before these people kill me, so I can think a little bit."
He began to give a statement, Clemons says, along the lines dictated by the detectives, but in the middle of it he blurted out that he was being assaulted. They immediately stopped the tape and discarded it. "They came back about five minutes later, and started beating on me some more. So I made a second tape. I barely even remember it. It's like, hazy, the memory of it."
The second tape was his confession to rape, which was crucial in putting him on death row.
The account that Clemons gave the Guardian is the same as what he told officers of the St Louis police internal affairs unit when he complained of being beaten up two days after his initial interview, and echoes too what his lawyers said in appeal documents lodged with the Missouri supreme court. Yet why did he make that tape when it in effect put the seal on his own death sentence?
"If you believe that someone is willing to beat you to death, while they're beating you they can just about get you to admit to anything."
In addition to the police who he alleges attacked him, Clemons is very critical of other aspects of the criminal justice system. He accuses his own lawyers at the time of the trial of acting against his interests – the two lead attorneys were going through a divorce at the time of his trial and he believes they were ill-prepared to defend him.
A separate team of defence lawyers who represented Clemons in his appeal for clemency at the time of his 2009 scheduled execution alleged in court papers that his trial attorneys had "failed him at every stage of his representation".
All in all, Clemons says, "the pack was stacked against me. I knew I was going to get the death sentence, even before the trial started. I had already been tried and convicted in the media."
In separate trials, Marlin Gray and Antonio Richardson were also put on death row. Richardson later had his conviction commuted to life imprisonment, but Gray was executed by lethal injection in October 2005.
Clemons says Gray's death hit him hard. "He clearly didn't have any blood on his hands, either. No one said he pushed the two young women into the water. So I felt, well, they've executed him, they definitely can't not execute me. It created a feeling of inevitability. It's only by mercy of God that I feel I'm here still breathing today."
Before he died, Gray seemed to Clemons to have lost all hope. "He kind of took the attitude of 'whatever.' At one point he said: 'I can't believe you still think that people are going to listen.' But I said, that don't mean I got to quit talking, trying to explain, and explain, and explain."
In doing all that explaining, over so many years, Clemons has thought a lot about the death penalty and its impact on him. "It's like somebody pointing a gun to your head, every day, and telling you that I'm going to kill you some day, I just haven't decided when."
'The death penalty in America is poisonous'
Now aged 40, he's lost count of the number of his fellow death row inmates who have been taken away, never to return. "I'm too young to know as many dead people as I do," he says.
But he believes he's come to terms with the surreal character of life on death row. "This might sound crazy to some people, but I'm already free on the inside. I know I don't belong in here, and I'm free to think for myself. If my mind and spirit is free, my body is soon to follow."
He's also had time to think about the death penalty's impact on America in a wider sense. Before his arrest, he was an advocate of capital punishment. Now he's come to the conclusion that the death penalty has a pervasive and negative effect that permeates itself throughout society.
"The death penalty in America is poisonous to the social consciousness. It makes people consider death as a solution. Murder as a solution.
"The death penalty desensitizes people to the human aspect of crime and punishment. You forget about the human being. You have to dehumanise somebody in order to kill them. And it's not a penalty at all. We are all going to die some day. So who are you punishing? Me or my family?"
He says his heart goes out to the family of Julie and Robin Kerry. "I can't imagine what they're going through. I wish I could find a way to take their pain away, but that's not possible. You can't bring people back."
Clemons says he can't express remorse, "because remorse requires that you're guilty of something." But what about the two women who died on the bridge?
"I think about them a lot," Clemons says. "It's sad that they're not here to see the first black president, because from what I've read about them, that's something that they would definitely want to see. I've read that they were against the death penalty, and they would be fighting against a lot of wrongs that's going on in the world."
To hear a man on death row for double murder saying that he thinks a lot about his alleged victims will be offensive to people sceptical of Clemons's protestations of innocence. It may also be difficult to hear for the family of the Kerry sisters, who have largely avoided media contact and are disdainful towards what one family member has called the "Reggie Clemons circus".
No matter what comes out of the September hearings into his case, there will always be those who see Reggie Clemons as a cold-hearted killer deserving of the ultimate punishment. So how does he deal with the knowledge that a perception of guilt will hang over him always?
"Whatever conclusion a person reaches, that is their own choice. I don't have any control over that, and I've learned not to give a lot away to what somebody thinks about me.
"Not because I'm arrogant or because I'm unconcerned about other people's opinions. But because I know, and God knows. I know I'm not a rapist. I know I'm not a murderer or a killer. I know that I didn't do any of these things. I know I'm innocent."
According to a 2011 study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, eighty-eight percent of the country’s top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent.
http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/stude ... ment1b.htm
'...some criminologists, such as William Bowers of Northeastern University, maintain that the death penalty has the opposite effect: that is, society is brutalized by the use of the death penalty, and this increases the likelihood of more murder. States in the United States that do not employ the death penalty generally have lower murder rates than states that do. The same is true when the U.S. is compared to countries similar to it. The U.S., with the death penalty, has a higher murder rate than the countries of Europe or Canada, which do not use the death penalty. The death penalty is not a deterrent because most people who commit murders either do not expect to be caught or do not carefully weigh the differences between a possible execution and life in prison before they act. Frequently, murders are committed in moments of passion or anger, or by criminals who are substance abusers and acted impulsively.'
what about the punishment ? is a life for a life fair ?
Godfather.
and eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
Premeditated state-sponsored revenge killing has nothing to do with fairness.
As for punishment, prison would take care of that.
but prisons are overcrowded. and keeping someone in prison incurs a cost on society, which frankly, I don't feel like it's fair that I pay as a law abiding, tax paying citizen of this country.
If there is damning evidence against someone then I have no issue with the death penalty. Some crimes justify someone losing their life.
it is a well known fact that the path to execution costs tax payers way more than keeping someone in jail for life.
I don't care if the person was caught on video bludgeoning a baby and its 95 year old gramma; humans shouldn't be allowed to decide who lives or dies. or we risk becoming like the killers.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
What country do you speak of?
and what makes you assume all this?
its called civilization..we dont live in caves anymore..those times was eye for an eye..
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
You speak from a slightly idealistic general society's perspective. What of the victim's survivors perspective?
With exceptions of course, I think it's safe to suggest that most grieving parents would prefer that the rodent that (as an example) raped and killed their 8 year old daughter be strapped into a chair and executed. Call it bloodlust if you wish, but if I was placed in that position... I would demand watching the asshole fry. Call me weak, shallow, or insensitive as well, but I would not be able to summon any empathy for such a scoundrel. It would not bring my daughter back... but at least I would not need to think of what books the bastard has been reading in the relative comfort of his isolated cell or read of him getting married to some pen pal.
Should we concern ourselves at all with how we might consider the wishes or needs of the survivors- scarred and battered victims in their own right? Or do we- from a safe distance of course given that we have not been directly impacted- 'take the high road' and feel good about our level of humanistic development that we can extend mercy to someone who many feel deserves none?
I know you'll likely disagree, but I strongly feel the death penalty is appropriate in some cases.
i mean,u see someone kiil 30 people,or he rape and killed,or put a bomb and the explode killed alot of people..i really think is the first reaction.,lets kill him too..
and for sure everyone thinks what if was me,or my people..what i would do?for sure i want him killed..
but i think society in general must think different...cant go in the same low level with the bad guys..with the kilers..
is very diffeicult conversation this..you are right that some people do horrible things dont deserve to live..
but lets not us play Gods,who will live or dies..
just lock those bastards for ever in jail so cant do bad to anyone else..
let them fuckin realise for the next years of their lifes,that all their millions breaths they will take,will never be Free ones...
let them u nderstand,that life is so important only when its Free..
and in the end...even if u kill the bad guy..the victim..,will not come back..
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”
And I strongly feel that it's that kind of smug, self-righteous attitude that perpetuates the hypocrisy and violence in American society.
You describe my position as smug and self-righteous? I presented a position that people surviving violent crimes might possess- accented with a slice of personal opinion.
There can be varying opinions on the subject you introduced for discussion. Sorry mine doesn't mesh with yours. I understand you hold your position dear to you, however, that doesn't necessarily make it right. Regardless, I never attacked your character for holding it.
When you created the thread... were you thinking everyone would just simply agree?
ok, but you are speaking as if most victim's families would prefer the convicted be put to death, which is wholely untrue. I think those numbers are actually a lot closer than you think.
in the cases where the family of the victim opposes death for the convicted, should it be their choice then whether he lives or dies?
the whole point of making laws and having objective strangers deciding the outcome of someone's fate is to take the emotion, wherever possible, out of the equation. because that's how justice gets served.
how does killing someone serve the dead? it doesn't. they are still dead. how does killing someone serve society? it doesn't. it serves only revenge of the loved ones of the victims. is that any way to decide someone's fate?
I don't believe so.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
Wouldn't any attempt to empathize with such a person immediately elevate you above him/her? Why descend to his level by cheering a pre-meditated murder that dresses itself in the cloak of 'justice'? Shouldn't the test of any just society be that it refuses to sink to the level of those it condemns?
why isit so different now ? believe me if someone breaks into my home and threatens my family or myself that person will be carried out of my house when it's all said and done.
why is it so hard to understand a punishment of death for killing ?
everybody here speaks so highly of their personal morals and opinions like they're the only ones who know right from wrong,useing terms like "state sanctioned revenge killing" and prison don't fix it every time...you all talk about the wrong man being exacuted but you don't talk about the ones that are guilty and spend 5 years or less in prison..well I have not heard of a drug that brings dead victims of violent crimes back to life, it's not about revenge in a court of law it's about laws that have been in place for a long time and if you kill and don't know the punishment for murder then I'd say you fucked up or your lieing.
our court systems and laws are not perfect for sure but if you take a life with out provacation it stands to reason you will forfit yours thru a court of law...you may even lose it trying to commit a murder.
Godfather.
Hugh... we've had a similar discussion before. We could have it again, but I feel we won't be any closer to reaching common ground. To address your comments:
I wish that we wouldn't have to discuss such things, but there are incidents where people cross the line in brutal fashion- leaving society to deal with the aftermath. Even though- as you put it- the victims are still dead (so why take an attitude such as mine?)... justice absolutely needs to be served. We don't disregard victims because 'what's done is done'. Similar to soldiers placing themselves at great risk to bring back bodies from the battlefield so that they may be buried with honour and dignity, we need to speak and act for those that cannot anymore because of cold, callous actions that cut their life short. It's appropriate to serve them after the fact. Acting on their behalf assists with the grieving process as well- people forced to live with the tragedy take measures of comfort.
That aside, the fundamental disagreement you and I have lies within the manner in which we deal with some offenders. I think you have implied that victims are normally distraught and being emotional... their wishes for justice are not legitimate because they are based on revenge. Even if this is the case, I'm not so sure this is a poor thing.
Regardless... let's do what you suggest and take emotion out of the equation then... both ways: let the punishment fit the crime in an objective manner. I ask you then... what sentence would be appropriate for a guy such as Clifford Olson (the child serial murderer in British Columbia)? Does 11 child murders equate to solitary confinement with prepared meals, cable television, books, internet access, and (laughably) an old age pension? Emotions aside, with all checks and balances in place... I see how one such as this should shape up.
I'm not so sure it would be "cheering a pre-meditated murder". I think it is more along the lines of playing the hand you were dealt. It's not as if society is anxiously awaiting the opportunity to fry someone. I view capital punishment as a solemn affair that marks closure to an undesirable event: an unfortunate event that is borne out of necessity given the nature of the case.
Necessity? Why is it necessary to murder someone who is already cut off from society behind bars?
From Reflections on the Guillotine - Albert Camus:
"For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him to his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."
Camus omits the part about the fact that the murderer intitated the event and had a level of control over his actions before doing so- he brought this upon himself. Sticking with my previous example, Olson never fought the sadistic urges that moved him forward through his killing spree (at least not effectively). Camus also dismisses the victims and annoints the murderer a victim while, at the same time, equates law-abiding society forced to deal with the offence as an unparalleled monster- he obviously never met or heard of Michael Rafferty. I'm not buying it.
Why can't the punishment fit the crime?
I'll agree with you regarding the fact that these discussions are difficult. I'll also agree with you that prison would not be a fun time.
I don't think we're playing God though, Dimi. I think we're just dealing with situations that are difficult to deal with. When forced to... one side takes a hard line while the other takes a 'milder' stance. Who decides who's right?
Have you read 'Reflections on The Guillotine'? No, you haven't. Does Camus dismiss the victims and annoint any murderer? No, he doesn't.
Albert Camus:
'Could not justice concede to the criminal the same weakness in which society finds a sort of permanent extenuating circumstance for itself? Can the jury decently say: “If I kill you by mistake, you will forgive me when you consider the weaknesses of our common nature. But I am condemning you to death without considering those weaknesses or that nature"? There is a solidarity of ill men in error and aberration. Must that solidarity operate for the tribunal and be denied the accused? No, and if justice has any meaning in this world, it means nothing but the recognition of that solidarity; it cannot, by its very essence, divorce itself from compassion. Compassion, of course, can in this instance be but awareness of a common suffering and not a frivolous indulgence paying no attention to the sufferings and rights of the victim. Compassion does not exclude punishment, but it suspends the final condemnation. Compassion loathes the definitive, irreparable measure that does an injustice to mankind as a whole because of failing to take into account the wretchedness of the common condition.'
You left your quote there for me to digest. From what you left for me, there was much to be explained. You have now offered another quote to clarify. Byrnzie, I can go find proponents for the death penalty, quote them, and place their quotes on here to make my case for me (and look impressive to some for doing so). I'd rather try and articulate my stance on the subject myself. If I care to read Camus... then I'd go do it. I'm not interested. This subject can be discussed without intervention from scholars outside the 10C- it's really not that profound a topic.
The fact that you have read Camus and I have not does not make your position more legitimate.
I did not ever suggest that victim's wishes aren't legitimate. they are, they are just clouded with emotion.
I also never suggested that we shouldn't serve justice because what is done is done. I merely pointed out that killing the perpetrator really serves no purpose other than the revenge of the living. My personal belief is that no matter what was done by the perpetrator, killing them is a useless and unreasonable reaction.
what I don't like is when people who are pro-death penalty try to paint the picture of being in prison as being some sort of holiday. most inmates conditions, save for people like Martha Stewart, are far from country club. it is a miserable existence full of violence, fear, and sometimes death.
let me say this: if it were my kid, one of my beautiful daughters, who was a victim, and I was living to mourn her, for sure I'd want the bastard dead who did it! And I'd want to do it myself! but that's not a rational or reasonable response, and why revenge killing is a crime just like any other murder.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
I get everything you are saying. These things have never been lost on me.
Allow me to allude to your last paragraph: my position supports those like yourself (and I) who would seek and need that form of justice given the most traumatic moment of their life. As 'irrational' as the response might be from a logical 'middle way' sense... my personal position is one that allows for those who need that form of closure to get it. I don't care for these types of offenders at all- not a bit.
With the aforementioned said, I appreciate the position you have taken the time to detail for me- providing balance to the subject and food for thought to say the least.
You're not interested in what one of the 20th Century's leading intellectuals had to say on the subject?
And what could be more profound a topic than the taking of a life?
believe me ,im with the good guys and not with the ones do crimes..
i dont have any interest to support them.as u said,the system of laws,not only isnt perfect,my opinion is that sucks/..i believe this need to fixed,and not just say,..:
what this guy did?he kill someone,?ok,kill him too..
when someone come to your house and threat u is different to protect your self..we are talking for someone do a crime and he gotr arrested..
as u understand we arent in wild west anymore,we have courts,we dont do public trials,in 2 min,anfd put a rope in someone throat..
we need to do seperate things than monsters..
monsters do crimes,humans need to do different..
we need to control our instincts,we arent a jungle..we are a society..
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”