I'm not big on the death penalty, but the case that's going on now in Connecticut, the Cheshire case, where two men raped and killed a mother and her two daughters and beat the living hell out of the father/husband, who managed to survived, that's where I support it.
I hear where you are coming from, terrible case
IMO general population in a supermax would be hell for someone who raped a child and murdered them. Those two idiots had nothing to live for, bottom feeders. I really feel people who commit these crimes don't care whether they live or die.
Getting eaten alive in prison by some big mutha fuckas for decades could be the real justice
you support and celebrate the killing of the wrong man in this case, and i find that utterly disgusting.
Spencer Lawton, the Savannah prosecutor who helped convict Davis, said the case shouldn't morph into a broader debate about capital punishment.
"Whether you are for or against the death penalty case is irrelevant in this case," he said. "You shouldn't be making Troy Davis into a vehicle for you to distort the truth, and that's what I think is going to happen. Whether you are for or against the death penalty, this has been a clear and fair and honest proceeding throughout. If you don't like the result, don't attack the proceeding falsely."
Public support for capital punishment remains strong, according to several polls. This month, a CBS/NY Times poll found that 60 percent of those surveyed supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, with 27 percent opposed and 13 percent unsure
I love the death penalty. The victims family has the choice to forgive or not. That's up to them. Justice must still be served. This guy will be forgotten in no time. Can't wait to see the next thread about the guilty being put to death.
Sensationalism on the Internet, how unoriginal.
The guilty, huh? We see the system fail constantly going both ways. People who should have their cases looked at..... Don't because for the most part it might shine a light on negligence from the almighty prosecutor who apparently in your eyes is some sort of infallible being who doesn't make mistakes or isn't looking to make waves in a judicial system that has a mob mentality
Love the death penalty, that's great
It doesn't seem to work, despite the FBI saying violent crimes are down a bit. This country gets off on violence
It dosent seem to work because we don't fucking hang murders in the streets anymore. It's kept from the public so people seem to not think about it before they do something stupid. Innocent people have been executed sense the dawn of man and it will never stop unfortunately.
this case, as like the WM3, was never about justice ... it was about protecting corrupt cops and an equally inept justice system ... justice hangs on a thread - they would rather kill an innocent man than show cracks in the armour ...
any reasonable person, pro capital punishment or not, would grant this man a stay of execution until there was complete certainty ... the fact he didn't get a stay is proof of how corrupt the system is ... freedom is a fantasy ...
How much longer should he have stayed alive? 20 more years?
The victims family has the choice to forgive or not. That's up to them. Justice must still be served. This guy will be forgotten in no time. Can't wait to see the next thread about the guilty being put to death.
I tend to think about the many people who were innocently executed for quite some time. I wont forget about Troy Davis, and I guarantee a lot of his friends, family, and the thousands of people who supported him along the way wont forget either.
Absolutely. I know I won't forget. This case will not just fade away. Oh yes, maybe from the popular media but the thinking public will remember.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
"Try to not spook the horse."
-Neil Young
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,433
INQUIRY
How can you sing, America,
With your souls baptized in glee,
Advertising your greatness,
Boasting your victories,
While men denied justice
Are hanging from your trees?
-John Henrik Clarke
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Innocent people have been executed sense the dawn of man and it will never stop unfortunately.
I don't know about that. There are a number of 1st world jurisdictions that have done away with the death penalty. You only have to look north of the border for an example.
MacPhail's son and brother watched the execution in silence. Prosecutors and MacPhail's family said after the execution that justice had finally been served.
Mark MacPhail Jr. was 7 weeks old when his father was taken away. He was asleep in his crib while his father worked security at a downtown bus station to help support his growing family.
RIP Mark MacPhail
And if the police had grabbed a member of your family off the street and placed them on death row for a crime they didn't commit, you'd be perfectly happy about that?
You'd stand outside the execution chamber shouting 'Woot!'
How much longer should he have stayed alive? 20 more years?
Based on the following, he should have been released (even though that would have deprived you of something you love - people's lives being clinically snuffed out by the state - regardless of their guilt or innocence - in an act of blood lust and vengeance):
1. Of the nine witnesses who appeared at Davis's 1991 trial who said they had seen Davis beating up a homeless man in a dispute over a bottle of beer and then shooting to death a police officer, Mark MacPhail, who was acting as a good samaritan, seven have since recanted their evidence.
2. One of those who recanted, Antoine Williams, subsequently revealed they had no idea who shot the officer and that they were illiterate – meaning they could not read the police statements that they had signed at the time of the murder in 1989. Others said they had falsely testified that they had overheard Davis confess to the murder.
3. Many of those who retracted their evidence said that they had been cajoled by police into testifying against Davis. Some said they had been threatened with being put on trial themselves if they did not co-operate.
4. Of the two of the nine key witnesses who have not changed their story publicly, one has kept silent for the past 20 years and refuses to talk, and the other is Sylvester Coles. Coles was the man who first came forward to police and implicated Davis as the killer. But over the past 20 years evidence has grown that Coles himself may be the gunman and that he was fingering Davis to save his own skin.
5. In total, nine people have come forward with evidence that implicates Coles. Most recently, on Monday the George Board of Pardons and Paroles heard from Quiana Glover who told the panel that in June 2009 she had heard Coles, who had been drinking heavily, confess to the murder of MacPhail.
6. Apart from the witness evidence, most of which has since been cast into doubt, there was no forensic evidence gathered that links Davis to the killing.
7. In particular, there is no DNA evidence of any sort. The human rights group the Constitution Project points out that three-quarters of those prisoners who have been exonerated and declared innocent in the US were convicted at least in part on the basis of faulty eyewitness testimony.
8. No gun was ever found connected to the murder. Coles later admitted that he owned the same type of .38-calibre gun that had delivered the fatal bullets, but that he had given it away to another man earlier on the night of the shooting.
9. Higher courts in the US have repeatedly refused to grant Davis a retrial on the grounds that he had failed to "prove his innocence". His supporters counter that where the ultimate penalty is at stake, it should be for the courts to be beyond any reasonable doubt of his guilt.
10. Even if you set aside the issue of Davis's innocence or guilt, the manner of his execution tonight is cruel and unnatural. If the execution goes ahead as expected, it would be the fourth scheduled execution date for this prisoner. In 2008 he was given a stay just 90 minutes before he was set to die. Experts in death row say such multiple experiences with imminent death is tantamount to torture.
Public support for capital punishment remains strong, according to several polls. This month, a CBS/NY Times poll found that 60 percent of those surveyed supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, with 27 percent opposed and 13 percent unsure
so because the general public is still completely retarded, we should never strive for anything more? public support for witch burnings was at an all-time high back in the 1500's too. I don't think we do that anymore.
the law should strive to do better than the average opinion.
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
Public support for capital punishment remains strong, according to several polls. This month, a CBS/NY Times poll found that 60 percent of those surveyed supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, with 27 percent opposed and 13 percent unsure
so because the general public is still completely retarded, we should never strive for anything more? public support for witch burnings was at an all-time high back in the 1500's too. I don't think we do that anymore.
the law should strive to do better than the average opinion.
Yep..universal truth is not measured in mass appeal.
Spencer Lawton, the Savannah prosecutor who helped convict Davis, said the case shouldn't morph into a broader debate about capital punishment.
"Whether you are for or against the death penalty case is irrelevant in this case," he said."You shouldn't be making Troy Davis into a vehicle for you to distort the truth, and that's what I think is going to happen. Whether you are for or against the death penalty, this has been a clear and fair and honest proceeding throughout. If you don't like the result, don't attack the proceeding falsely."
Excuse me for shifting the emphasis of what you quoted, but it certainly is ironic that you chose to emphasise the distortion of the truth part, since that is precisely what Mr Lawton is doing here.
He calls it a "fair and honest proceeding". Despite:
- no physical evidence
- the ignoring of the fact that most of the remaining evidence (witness statements) proved to be unreliable and contradictory
- the refusal, for petty bureaucratic reasons, to investigate the claims from the majority of witnesses that their testimony was given under police coercion and was therefore unreliable should not have been admissible.
- the refusal to investigate the evidence that one of only two witnesses to not change his story may well have been the real murderer, including the fact that he reportedly confessed this, leading to the very high possibility of executing the wrong man.
Who is this guy trying to convince? The lack of clarity, fairness and honesty is there for all to see. So either the highlighted part of the quote above is a flat-out lie, or he is seriously self-deluded.
It is not a case of attacking the proceeding falsely because we don't like the result, and it never was. It is a case of attacking the proceeding because it was very clearly not "clear and fair and honest". It is Mr Lawton who is himself distorting the truth, because facing up to the undistorted truth - which as a lawyer it is his duty to do - would mean having to accept the gross injustice perpetrated by the justice system, and himself as a part of it, in this case.
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 death of Troy Davis will give birth to more activists against the death penalty. Those death penalty supporters who expressed doubt in this case will now begin to doubt an entire system that can execute a man amidst so many unanswered questions.
"Keep the faith. The fight is bigger than me." - Troy Davis
Excuse me for shifting the emphasis of what you quoted, but it certainly is ironic that you chose to emphasise the distortion of the truth part, since that is precisely what Mr Lawton is doing here.
He calls it a "fair and honest proceeding". Despite:
- no physical evidence
- the ignoring of the fact that most of the remaining evidence (witness statements) proved to be unreliable and contradictory
- the refusal, for petty bureaucratic reasons, to investigate the claims from the majority of witnesses that their testimony was given under police coercion and was therefore unreliable should not have been admissible.
- the refusal to investigate the evidence that one of only two witnesses to not change his story may well have been the real murderer, including the fact that he reportedly confessed this, leading to the very high possibility of executing the wrong man.
Who is this guy trying to convince? The lack of clarity, fairness and honesty is there for all to see. So either the highlighted part of the quote above is a flat-out lie, or he is seriously self-deluded.
It is not a case of attacking the proceeding falsely because we don't like the result, and it never was. It is a case of attacking the proceeding because it was very clearly not "clear and fair and honest". It is Mr Lawton who is himself distorting the truth, because facing up to the undistorted truth - which as a lawyer it is his duty to do - would mean having to accept the gross injustice perpetrated by the justice system, and himself as a part of it, in this case.
I wouldn't waste your time. He has no interest in the justice or injustice of this case. His only interest in posting here is to bait people.
Innocent people have been executed sense the dawn of man and it will never stop unfortunately.
I don't know about that. There are a number of 1st world jurisdictions that have done away with the death penalty. You only have to look north of the border for an example.
Not just "a number" - all of them. As I pointed out earlier, the US is the only developed Western nation in the world that still hasn't abolished the death penalty - the last vestige of the dark ages of bloody-minded retribution - in favour of actual rational justice. The rest of the western world has realised the utter hypocrisy of the death penalty, that it can never make sense to kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong. The US badly needs to catch up and realise this.
Here is the full company the US is in, the complete list of countries that stoop to killing their citizens as punishment for crimes:
The Americas: only the USA, Cuba, and Saint Kitts and Nevis Europe: only Belarus Oceania: none Africa: Botswana, Chad, DR Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Smaliland, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe Asia: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, North Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mongolia, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, UAE, Vietnam, Yemen
"I'm of the opinion that we should eliminate capital punishment. Having been involved with justice agencies around the world, it's been somewhat embarrassing, quite frankly, that nations just as so-called civilized as ours think we're barbaric because we still have capital punishment."
-Reginald Wilkinson, former prison director in Ohio
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
Not just "a number" - all of them. As I pointed out earlier, the US is the only developed Western nation in the world that still hasn't abolished the death penalty - the last vestige of the dark ages of bloody-minded retribution - in favour of actual rational justice. The rest of the western world has realised the utter hypocrisy of the death penalty, that it can never make sense to kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong. The US badly needs to catch up and realise this.
this is a country that bombs first and asks questions later ... citizens care more about having the right to bear arms than global warming ... and most of all - this is a country that does not take criticism well ...
the worst way in trying to get it to change is to criticize as all it will do is make them more beholden to the ideal ... right or wrong ...
Innocent people have been executed sense the dawn of man and it will never stop unfortunately.
I don't know about that. There are a number of 1st world jurisdictions that have done away with the death penalty. You only have to look north of the border for an example.
Not just "a number" - all of them. As I pointed out earlier, the US is the only developed Western nation in the world that still hasn't abolished the death penalty - the last vestige of the dark ages of bloody-minded retribution - in favour of actual rational justice. The rest of the western world has realised the utter hypocrisy of the death penalty, that it can never make sense to kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong. The US badly needs to catch up and realise this.
Here is the full company the US is in, the complete list of countries that stoop to killing their citizens as punishment for crimes:
The Americas: only the USA, Cuba, and Saint Kitts and Nevis Europe: only Belarus Oceania: none Africa: Botswana, Chad, DR Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Smaliland, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe Asia: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, North Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mongolia, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, UAE, Vietnam, Yemen
"I'm of the opinion that we should eliminate capital punishment. Having been involved with justice agencies around the world, it's been somewhat embarrassing, quite frankly, that nations just as so-called civilized as ours think we're barbaric because we still have capital punishment."
-Reginald Wilkinson, former prison director in Ohio
maybe the rest of the world is wrong.
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,433
"maybe the rest of the world is wrong."
Not to sound rhetorical, pjhawks, but do you really believe that or is are you saying that merely as a way to poke embers in a heated discussion?
I'm against capital punishment. I believe the killing of Troy Davis was wrong for that reason. Even if I were in favor of capital punishment I would believe the killing of Troy Davis was wrong for all the reason so many people have so obviously pointed out. I'm going to leave this thread- even though I started it- because it is starting to bog down and I'm going to spend some time writing letters and writing a check to NAACP and thanking them for their tireless and brave efforts to save Troy Davis. Smug as this may sound, I have nothing further to say to those who support the killing of Troy Davis. I wish I could convice the few who think his killing was justified that it was wrong, but I've said what I beleive and I'll never be convinced otherwise so...
See you all on another thread elsewhere.
No more killing. No more hate.
"Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!" -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
i am a little pissed off at the hypocracy of liberals in the media. i understand the outrage about the Troy Davis case and how people like Al Sharpton and Barry Scheck were railing against the death penalty in this case, yet not one peep about the man who murdered James Byrd in texas. not one sentence condemning texas for the murder they were about to commit.
we can not pick and choose which cases that we are against the death penalty. either we are against it in all cases, or we support it..
The world is not that black and white, sir. You make it sound as if one can either be opposed to the death penalty in all cases, or in favor of the death penalty in all cases. In fact, the law says that anyone in either of these two groups of people cannot serve on a capital jury. Every case is different. Not every case warrants the same punishment. My belief (which is reflected in the law) is that some murder cases warrant life imprisonment, while others warrant the death penalty.
I do agree with you on the hypocricy in the media, however. It's more politically correct (and therefore more convenient to their agenda) to rally behind an accused cop killer than to rally behind a racist piece of shit who dragged that poor guy behind his truck until he died.
Not being intimately familiar with the facts of these two cases, the only comment I'll make is this: If they're guilty, they deserve what's coming to them.
Troy Davis' execution has been described as a legal lynching. Around much of the world, we are seen as a murdeous, brutal society. A friend from Germany said this morning:
"Yes, I also followed the case of Troy Davis. They 'killed' him this morning. After so much protest around the world. Yesterday I prayed to God for not executing him, but this was not in his hands. Even pro-death-penalty people in the U.S. were against this, how can they kill a man, when 7 of 9 witnesses changed their mind and nothing was really there that showed he was guilty. I don´t understand things like that!!!"
This is how most of the world sees this act. None of us are happy that Mark MacPhail was killed- that was tragic- but killing Troy Davis was wrong. In my opinion, all killing is wrong. This is a dark day in America.
No more killing, no more hate.
Ok, so Germany is accusing the USA of being a murderous, brutal society???
i am a little pissed off at the hypocracy of liberals in the media. i understand the outrage about the Troy Davis case and how people like Al Sharpton and Barry Scheck were railing against the death penalty in this case, yet not one peep about the man who murdered James Byrd in texas. not one sentence condemning texas for the murder they were about to commit.
we can not pick and choose which cases that we are against the death penalty. either we are against it in all cases, or we support it..
The world is not that black and white, sir. You make it sound as if one can either be opposed to the death penalty in all cases, or in favor of the death penalty in all cases. In fact, the law says that anyone in either of these two groups of people cannot serve on a capital jury. Every case is different. Not every case warrants the same punishment. My belief (which is reflected in the law) is that some murder cases warrant life imprisonment, while others warrant the death penalty.
I do agree with you on the hypocricy in the media, however. It's more politically correct (and therefore more convenient to their agenda) to rally behind an accused cop killer than to rally behind a racist piece of shit who dragged that poor guy behind his truck until he died.
Not being intimately familiar with the facts of these two cases, the only comment I'll make is this: If they're guilty, they deserve what's coming to them.
my point is absolutely black and white. if you do not oppose capital punishment in all cases, then you support capital punishment. in this issue there no different degrees. you either oppose it in all cases, or you believe in it as a form pf punishment. there is no debating that.
and yes, if sharpton and sheck were opposed to the dp in all cases they would have condemned texas. but they didn't. so they are not as opposed to it as they say they are...these fools are the ones who give liberals a bad name. the inconsistency in their position is nothing but hypocracy...
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
i am a little pissed off at the hypocracy of liberals in the media. i understand the outrage about the Troy Davis case and how people like Al Sharpton and Barry Scheck were railing against the death penalty in this case, yet not one peep about the man who murdered James Byrd in texas. not one sentence condemning texas for the murder they were about to commit.
we can not pick and choose which cases that we are against the death penalty. either we are against it in all cases, or we support it..
The world is not that black and white, sir. You make it sound as if one can either be opposed to the death penalty in all cases, or in favor of the death penalty in all cases. In fact, the law says that anyone in either of these two groups of people cannot serve on a capital jury. Every case is different. Not every case warrants the same punishment. My belief (which is reflected in the law) is that some murder cases warrant life imprisonment, while others warrant the death penalty.
I do agree with you on the hypocricy in the media, however. It's more politically correct (and therefore more convenient to their agenda) to rally behind an accused cop killer than to rally behind a racist piece of shit who dragged that poor guy behind his truck until he died.
Not being intimately familiar with the facts of these two cases, the only comment I'll make is this: If they're guilty, they deserve what's coming to them.
my point is absolutely black and white. if you do not oppose capital punishment in all cases, then you support capital punishment. in this issue there no different degrees. you either oppose it in all cases, or you believe in it as a form pf punishment. there is no debating that.
and yes, if sharpton and sheck were opposed to the dp in all cases they would have condemned texas. but they didn't. so they are not as opposed to it as they say they are...these fools are the ones who give liberals a bad name. the inconsistency in their position is nothing but hypocracy...
As for your first paragraph, I understand what you were saying now.
As to your second paragraph...agreed. (Have we ever agreed before????)
The death of Troy Davis will give birth to more activists against the death penalty. Those death penalty supporters who expressed doubt in this case will now begin to doubt an entire system that can execute a man amidst so many unanswered questions.
"Keep the faith. The fight is bigger than me." - Troy Davis
Not to sound rhetorical, pjhawks, but do you really believe that or is are you saying that merely as a way to poke embers in a heated discussion?
I'm against capital punishment. I believe the killing of Troy Davis was wrong for that reason. Even if I were in favor of capital punishment I would believe the killing of Troy Davis was wrong for all the reason so many people have so obviously pointed out. I'm going to leave this thread- even though I started it- because it is starting to bog down and I'm going to spend some time writing letters and writing a check to NAACP and thanking them for their tireless and brave efforts to save Troy Davis. Smug as this may sound, I have nothing further to say to those who support the killing of Troy Davis. I wish I could convice the few who think his killing was justified that it was wrong, but I've said what I beleive and I'll never be convinced otherwise so...
See you all on another thread elsewhere.
No more killing. No more hate.
well if i believe that the death penalty is just and justice served then i must believe that those other countries are wrong if they don't believe the same. that's what opinions are.
as for 'no more killing no more hate' someone should teach the murderers that 1st wouldn't you say? then we wouldn't have a need for death penalties and executions. we aren't executing nuns and angels here.
edit: and just to be clear i don't believe the execution of troy davis was justified. i do believe in other cases it surely is and has been justified.
0
g under p
Surfing The far side of THE Sombrero Galaxy Posts: 18,200
Lawrence Russell Brewer, who was executed Wednesday for the hate crime slaying of James Byrd Jr. more than a decade ago, asked for two chicken fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, three fajitas, a meat lover's pizza, a pint of ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts. Prison officials said Brewer didn't eat any of it.
Peace
*We CAN bomb the World to pieces, but we CAN'T bomb it into PEACE*...Michael Franti
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
The world is not that black and white, sir. You make it sound as if one can either be opposed to the death penalty in all cases, or in favor of the death penalty in all cases. In fact, the law says that anyone in either of these two groups of people cannot serve on a capital jury. Every case is different. Not every case warrants the same punishment. My belief (which is reflected in the law) is that some murder cases warrant life imprisonment, while others warrant the death penalty.
Fuck the law.
You make it sound like the law is carved in stone. Laws are created by people. Laws change.
It used to be law that white people and black people couldn't sit next to each other on a bus.
Comments
I hear where you are coming from, terrible case
IMO general population in a supermax would be hell for someone who raped a child and murdered them. Those two idiots had nothing to live for, bottom feeders. I really feel people who commit these crimes don't care whether they live or die.
Getting eaten alive in prison by some big mutha fuckas for decades could be the real justice
Ask Dahmer..... Now that's justice
Spencer Lawton, the Savannah prosecutor who helped convict Davis, said the case shouldn't morph into a broader debate about capital punishment.
"Whether you are for or against the death penalty case is irrelevant in this case," he said. "You shouldn't be making Troy Davis into a vehicle for you to distort the truth, and that's what I think is going to happen. Whether you are for or against the death penalty, this has been a clear and fair and honest proceeding throughout. If you don't like the result, don't attack the proceeding falsely."
Public support for capital punishment remains strong, according to several polls. This month, a CBS/NY Times poll found that 60 percent of those surveyed supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, with 27 percent opposed and 13 percent unsure
It dosent seem to work because we don't fucking hang murders in the streets anymore. It's kept from the public so people seem to not think about it before they do something stupid. Innocent people have been executed sense the dawn of man and it will never stop unfortunately.
How much longer should he have stayed alive? 20 more years?
Absolutely. I know I won't forget. This case will not just fade away. Oh yes, maybe from the popular media but the thinking public will remember.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
How can you sing, America,
With your souls baptized in glee,
Advertising your greatness,
Boasting your victories,
While men denied justice
Are hanging from your trees?
-John Henrik Clarke
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
I don't know about that. There are a number of 1st world jurisdictions that have done away with the death penalty. You only have to look north of the border for an example.
And if the police had grabbed a member of your family off the street and placed them on death row for a crime they didn't commit, you'd be perfectly happy about that?
You'd stand outside the execution chamber shouting 'Woot!'
:think:
Based on the following, he should have been released (even though that would have deprived you of something you love - people's lives being clinically snuffed out by the state - regardless of their guilt or innocence - in an act of blood lust and vengeance):
1. Of the nine witnesses who appeared at Davis's 1991 trial who said they had seen Davis beating up a homeless man in a dispute over a bottle of beer and then shooting to death a police officer, Mark MacPhail, who was acting as a good samaritan, seven have since recanted their evidence.
2. One of those who recanted, Antoine Williams, subsequently revealed they had no idea who shot the officer and that they were illiterate – meaning they could not read the police statements that they had signed at the time of the murder in 1989. Others said they had falsely testified that they had overheard Davis confess to the murder.
3. Many of those who retracted their evidence said that they had been cajoled by police into testifying against Davis. Some said they had been threatened with being put on trial themselves if they did not co-operate.
4. Of the two of the nine key witnesses who have not changed their story publicly, one has kept silent for the past 20 years and refuses to talk, and the other is Sylvester Coles. Coles was the man who first came forward to police and implicated Davis as the killer. But over the past 20 years evidence has grown that Coles himself may be the gunman and that he was fingering Davis to save his own skin.
5. In total, nine people have come forward with evidence that implicates Coles. Most recently, on Monday the George Board of Pardons and Paroles heard from Quiana Glover who told the panel that in June 2009 she had heard Coles, who had been drinking heavily, confess to the murder of MacPhail.
6. Apart from the witness evidence, most of which has since been cast into doubt, there was no forensic evidence gathered that links Davis to the killing.
7. In particular, there is no DNA evidence of any sort. The human rights group the Constitution Project points out that three-quarters of those prisoners who have been exonerated and declared innocent in the US were convicted at least in part on the basis of faulty eyewitness testimony.
8. No gun was ever found connected to the murder. Coles later admitted that he owned the same type of .38-calibre gun that had delivered the fatal bullets, but that he had given it away to another man earlier on the night of the shooting.
9. Higher courts in the US have repeatedly refused to grant Davis a retrial on the grounds that he had failed to "prove his innocence". His supporters counter that where the ultimate penalty is at stake, it should be for the courts to be beyond any reasonable doubt of his guilt.
10. Even if you set aside the issue of Davis's innocence or guilt, the manner of his execution tonight is cruel and unnatural. If the execution goes ahead as expected, it would be the fourth scheduled execution date for this prisoner. In 2008 he was given a stay just 90 minutes before he was set to die. Experts in death row say such multiple experiences with imminent death is tantamount to torture.
so because the general public is still completely retarded, we should never strive for anything more? public support for witch burnings was at an all-time high back in the 1500's too. I don't think we do that anymore.
the law should strive to do better than the average opinion.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
Yep..universal truth is not measured in mass appeal.
meta-ethical relativists
Excuse me for shifting the emphasis of what you quoted, but it certainly is ironic that you chose to emphasise the distortion of the truth part, since that is precisely what Mr Lawton is doing here.
He calls it a "fair and honest proceeding". Despite:
- no physical evidence
- the ignoring of the fact that most of the remaining evidence (witness statements) proved to be unreliable and contradictory
- the refusal, for petty bureaucratic reasons, to investigate the claims from the majority of witnesses that their testimony was given under police coercion and was therefore unreliable should not have been admissible.
- the refusal to investigate the evidence that one of only two witnesses to not change his story may well have been the real murderer, including the fact that he reportedly confessed this, leading to the very high possibility of executing the wrong man.
Who is this guy trying to convince? The lack of clarity, fairness and honesty is there for all to see. So either the highlighted part of the quote above is a flat-out lie, or he is seriously self-deluded.
It is not a case of attacking the proceeding falsely because we don't like the result, and it never was. It is a case of attacking the proceeding because it was very clearly not "clear and fair and honest". It is Mr Lawton who is himself distorting the truth, because facing up to the undistorted truth - which as a lawyer it is his duty to do - would mean having to accept the gross injustice perpetrated by the justice system, and himself as a part of it, in this case.
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
"Keep the faith. The fight is bigger than me." - Troy Davis
I wouldn't waste your time. He has no interest in the justice or injustice of this case. His only interest in posting here is to bait people.
Not just "a number" - all of them. As I pointed out earlier, the US is the only developed Western nation in the world that still hasn't abolished the death penalty - the last vestige of the dark ages of bloody-minded retribution - in favour of actual rational justice. The rest of the western world has realised the utter hypocrisy of the death penalty, that it can never make sense to kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong. The US badly needs to catch up and realise this.
Here is the full company the US is in, the complete list of countries that stoop to killing their citizens as punishment for crimes:
The Americas: only the USA, Cuba, and Saint Kitts and Nevis
Europe: only Belarus
Oceania: none
Africa: Botswana, Chad, DR Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Smaliland, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe
Asia: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, North Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mongolia, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, UAE, Vietnam, Yemen
"I'm of the opinion that we should eliminate capital punishment. Having been involved with justice agencies around the world, it's been somewhat embarrassing, quite frankly, that nations just as so-called civilized as ours think we're barbaric because we still have capital punishment."
-Reginald Wilkinson, former prison director in Ohio
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 is a country that bombs first and asks questions later ... citizens care more about having the right to bear arms than global warming ... and most of all - this is a country that does not take criticism well ...
the worst way in trying to get it to change is to criticize as all it will do is make them more beholden to the ideal ... right or wrong ...
maybe the rest of the world is wrong.
Not to sound rhetorical, pjhawks, but do you really believe that or is are you saying that merely as a way to poke embers in a heated discussion?
I'm against capital punishment. I believe the killing of Troy Davis was wrong for that reason. Even if I were in favor of capital punishment I would believe the killing of Troy Davis was wrong for all the reason so many people have so obviously pointed out. I'm going to leave this thread- even though I started it- because it is starting to bog down and I'm going to spend some time writing letters and writing a check to NAACP and thanking them for their tireless and brave efforts to save Troy Davis. Smug as this may sound, I have nothing further to say to those who support the killing of Troy Davis. I wish I could convice the few who think his killing was justified that it was wrong, but I've said what I beleive and I'll never be convinced otherwise so...
See you all on another thread elsewhere.
No more killing. No more hate.
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
The world is not that black and white, sir. You make it sound as if one can either be opposed to the death penalty in all cases, or in favor of the death penalty in all cases. In fact, the law says that anyone in either of these two groups of people cannot serve on a capital jury. Every case is different. Not every case warrants the same punishment. My belief (which is reflected in the law) is that some murder cases warrant life imprisonment, while others warrant the death penalty.
I do agree with you on the hypocricy in the media, however. It's more politically correct (and therefore more convenient to their agenda) to rally behind an accused cop killer than to rally behind a racist piece of shit who dragged that poor guy behind his truck until he died.
Not being intimately familiar with the facts of these two cases, the only comment I'll make is this: If they're guilty, they deserve what's coming to them.
Ok, so Germany is accusing the USA of being a murderous, brutal society???
and yes, if sharpton and sheck were opposed to the dp in all cases they would have condemned texas. but they didn't. so they are not as opposed to it as they say they are...these fools are the ones who give liberals a bad name. the inconsistency in their position is nothing but hypocracy...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
As for your first paragraph, I understand what you were saying now.
As to your second paragraph...agreed. (Have we ever agreed before????)
+1
well if i believe that the death penalty is just and justice served then i must believe that those other countries are wrong if they don't believe the same. that's what opinions are.
as for 'no more killing no more hate' someone should teach the murderers that 1st wouldn't you say? then we wouldn't have a need for death penalties and executions. we aren't executing nuns and angels here.
edit: and just to be clear i don't believe the execution of troy davis was justified. i do believe in other cases it surely is and has been justified.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
haha! cheers!
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
For your information the Third Reich ended 60 years ago.
If you want to talk about brutal societies then ask the native Americans what happened to them 100 years ago.
Fuck the law.
You make it sound like the law is carved in stone. Laws are created by people. Laws change.
It used to be law that white people and black people couldn't sit next to each other on a bus.
The death penalty is pointless and barbaric.