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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 11:31:14 AM | Jesus, you guys could all make up some horible hypotheticals all day that I would have a hard time reading, let alone discussing the appropriate "punishment" (enough about children, ok spiff?) but that's not the point. Those arguments are infinitely regressive and I don't have the time (or the energy) to respond to each one, my point is just that we tend to act as judge and jury all too quickly when we have little on no understanding of the reasoning behind the act. Yes, crime is horrible, but most times, so are the circumstances that led to the criminal doing said. Our focus on the victim is commendable and appropriately sympathetic, but backwards. If there were proper avenues and resources for social work to act as a prophylactic rather than for the criminal justice system to just pick up the peices afterward a man or woman has been driven to some act of desperation, we might actually be able to reduce crime while at the same time allowing potential criminals to participate and produce rather than locking them up for what in some cases is an almost inevitable result to horrendous circumstances.
Ynaq, your little hypo is just sadistic, fortunately we have the 8th ammendment to preclude actions such as your proposal that smack more of revenge than they do punishment. And anyway, you may be overestimating the learning capacity of the people you are trying to "teach a lesson". Apply what I said before about people not being able to fully understand something until the have lived it themselves. Richard Gleik said it better in a text about Chaos Theory, but it aplies here: "You never really understand something until you have have the metaphor for it inside you." | |
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Posted: 11/17/2004 11:37:51 AM | As to the shock value of seeing dead bodies...
Yes that would be shocking, but is it enough to change the culture of violence that has built up from the day a kid sits down to his first exposure to TV that is not Nickelodeon? Is it enough to change the culture of violence that prevades every large American city, and most medium and small ones? You seem to have a high degree of faith in one brief encounter with the product of violence, but forget that culture is so tremendously powerful (think Japanese Kamakazi pilots) because it is built over a long and steady period and has many layers, each reinforcing the last. The point is, by the time these kids are identified as "at risk" they have been indoctrinated into a violent culture, and it will take more than the silly "scared straight" shows you sometimes see on Springer or Montel to rectify the situation. That's where the social work from above comes in... | |
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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 6:53:38 PM |
my point is just that we tend to act as judge and jury all too quickly when we have little on no understanding of the reasoning behind the act.
oh great, the whole "i'm a victom of society" speech. yeah, i know not every crime is driven by pure hate and insanity. i'm just saying that i think for those people who commit the worst of crimes, death should be an option in their sentencing. you could come up with scenarios all day long about someone acting out of revenge and having a "good" reason for commiting a crime and i know i could come up with scenarios all day long about sick and demented people. the point is, untill they can keep murderers and rapists in jail for an actual "LIFE" sentence, i feel the death penalty should be an option for punishment. | |
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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 7:02:26 PM | | but then you subect the alleged criminal to the same risk you are unwilling to have society face. You fear the prision escapees who return to murder again but are willing to place potentially innocent men and women (more increasingly women) in a position where they risk being subject to a mistaken capital sentance. It's much easier to ensure that those not convicted do not escape (in fact it almost never ever happens and when it does the escapee is likely to be caught in a matter of days) than it is to create a nationwide system of justice that is incapable of making mistakes. Remember, humanity being fallible, we will never be 100% certain that a capital sentance was justified, so our only option is to chose not to act in ways that can not be remedied. | |
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Klo
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Joined: 5/2/2004
Msg: 107 | |
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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 7:23:58 PM | ok so what's credible? How can you be sure that your two witnesses are not working together? The fact is that many many times prosecutors are more interested in finding a conviction that the truth. There has been cases where individuals have been convicted while their court appointed attourney slept through the process... even assuming there is any degree of similarity between those who can pay for defense and those upon whom court appointed representation is foisted, there are thousands of obstacles to providing each alleged criminal with the same standard of fairness.
Next, DNA evidence only places the alleged at the scene of the crime man. It dosen't offer testimony and it dosen't explain how or why it got there. It's simply a modern fingerprint... Remember, the only thing that proves the case is the judge or jury, and these institutions only "prove" it in the most lenient interpretation of the word. | |
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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 7:36:44 PM | klocutie, it's hard to be upset when i look at a beautiful smile like yours  :)
tolstoy, i respect the hell out. i agree with you that the "justice" in this country is a** backwards. innocent people are getting convicted of crimes because of poor evidence and guilty people aren't getting convicted because the evidence isn't filed "properly". the system is based on loopholes and who can afford to pay their attorney the most money. you could easily play both sides of this. i just think the death penalty is a good option because in those cases there has to be some very solid evidence to be able to sentence them to death. have innocent people been put to death? unfortunatley yes. but i think overall the death penalty has been serving it's purpose. untill the justice department can effectivley convict people "correctly" (i use this word very loosly) i think we should keep the death penalty in use. | |
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Klo
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Joined: 5/2/2004
Msg: 112 | |
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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 8:27:43 PM | Spiff:
The legal system is a railroad. If they think you did it, you did it: next?
Unless there's a media angle, NOBODY gets the kind of trial Scott or OJ got... and that's the ONLY time that kind of trial happens.
My nephew murdered a guy in Kansas. He was 17. Said he was not guilty. Three months till trial then it took them a week. He's doing 25 to life.
As far as the death penalty "serving it's purpose"?
MYGAWD!!! WHAT IS THE PURPOSE???
Wonder how these guys feel about that?
from: http://www.sciscoop.com/story/2004/4/22/171141/406
text: Exonerations of defendants convicted of serious crimes more than tripled over the past 15 years as DNA and other new evidence overturned the convictions, a University of Michigan study shows.
The study, "Exonerations in the United States, 1989 through 2003," includes what is believed to be the most comprehensive listing of exonerations in the United States to date and was conducted by U-M law professor Samuel Gross and four students. The study reports that since 1989--when the first DNA exoneration occurred--328 defendants have been exonerated in the U.S. after being convicted of serious crimes such as rape and murder.
The exonerated were 316 men and 12 women; 145 of them were cleared by DNA identification technology, and 183 by other sorts of evidence. Exonerations increased sharply from about 12 a year through the early 1990s to an average of 43 annually after 2000, the U-M study found. The study did not include at least 135 additional innocent defendants who were framed by rogue police officers and cleared within the last five years in two mass exonerations in California and Texas.
"The most important findings of our study concern the cases that we don't see -- miscarriages of justice that are not detected," said Gross, an expert on criminal procedure and capital punishment. "The exonerations we see are just the tip of an iceberg. It is clear that there are many more false convictions that are never discovered."
Three hundred twenty-eight... Does any of us have ANY IDEA how many people were unjustly EXECUTED before this?
No way of knowing....but we DO know that in some states half the death row inmates or even more (like Indiana) had to be set free because the DNA proved they weren't guilty!!!
...and if you think the legal system is ****ed up now: see "the man who wasn't there" with Billy Bob Thornton and imagine what our legal system was like in the "good old days" before fingerprinting or any other kind of forensic evidence was developed. :-| | |
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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 8:40:27 PM | | if we can exonerate convicts with DNA then we can prosecute them and sentence them accordingly. why can't we put these people in jail and keep them there for life? i just hate hearing people getting off cause of "good behavior" or some stupid loophole. if a life sentence meant life i would be fine with that but i think if people like that were put to death they wouldn't have a chance for their lawyers to find loopholes or for them to get off for ANY reason (except proof of innocence, which is where DNA comes into play). that's my 2 cents | |
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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 9:10:05 PM | -because exoneration and conviction are not the opposite of each other spiff. I knew I should have put this in the post to begin with, but kudos for finding the mistake I made by not clarifying in the first place.
Yeah, it seems like that if I am willing to use DNA to free someone I should be happy to allow it to convict in the same way. However, in most cases of DNA evidence, as I stated before, the presence of DNA means only that the alleged was at the scene of the crime. Presence at the scene of the crime, however, does not equal guilt, it simply means that the alleged was there or that some accident brought DNA bearing tissue to the crime scene. Thus, there are still uncertanties concerning the guilt of the alleged.
Meanwhile, the absense of positive DNA evidence not only does not place the accused at the crime scene, it implicates another, unknown individual. Remember the standard of proof is rightly set very high for criminal trials: beyond a reasonable doubt has come to be evaluated at around 99% certain... so while DNA evidence can not be used to determine with 99% certainity that one is guilty, it can be used to introduce doubt for the purpose of exoneration... If the story that the prosecution is trying to tell to gain a conviction cannot account for the presence of this new, unknown DNA at the scene, there is cetainly reasonable doubt as to whether or not the prosecution has the correct story. Basically, DNA evidence is not a smoking gun or a slam dunk, but in the alternative, it does introduce enough of a doubt to preclude a conviction... so anti-death advocates get to have it both ways. Unfair, isn't it? | |
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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 9:20:08 PM | | DNA was used to prove OJ did it. BUT unfortunatly the evidence was filed incorrectly. it's unfortunate that people who can kill people in cold blood get off cause off something like that. DNA proved he did it but he got off on a technicality. i think it was used in the civil trial though which he was found guilty in. i can't recall | |
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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 9:35:24 PM | I always find these big ones late... Now I have to respond to 6 pages of posts... Bummer. Ha Ha
Anyway, I have several logical arguments, (as I always do when I'm going to argue), why I am against the death penalty. It seems there are quite a few people with the, "Lets kill people, who kill people, to show that killing people is wrong!" viewpoint. But the two most prominent I saw were Spiff and Yna6, so I will mostly be responding to you guys, but my views are for all to read... Oh, and by the way Tolstoy, you have some excellent points, it just seems that no one is listening... Well where do I begin...
Every society needs a judicial system with laws and punishments for breaking laws... Else there would be anarchy. For such a system to work, the punishment must be 1) It must be moral, logical and related to the crime. 2) It must be consistanly applied to like crimes. 3) It must be administered quickly. 4) It must prevent the crime from reoccurring. 5) The accused must be given the chance to prove innocence.
I believe someone on page 1 stated that the US has the perfect system... Is this a joke? If it is I don't find it very funny. The US has one of the highest crime rates in the world. It is obvious that our system is flawed.
Oh, Spiff, one quick thing before I get started, there are several "Life" sentencing options available. The usual "Life" sentence is somewhere around 25yrs, depending on the state. There is also "Life without the posibility of parole" Which is a permanent prison sentence, unless charges are reduced or something later on through appeals. Very few prisoners have the money for the appeal process, and the chance of winning an appeal with a public defender is next to none. And you don't get "good time" in a prison for "cooking meals for inmates". You get good time for following the rules, like not continuing to assult staff/inmates, etc. It demonstrates rehabilitation in an extremely violent setting and is justly rewarded. And most murderers/drug dealers do quite a bit of time. A lot more than 5. Unfortunatley sex offenders do get out unreasonably early, usually within several years.
This quick note is for Yna6 conjugal visits are for hollywood, and are almost non-existant in todays prison systems. Concurrent sentences are usually for multiple felonies from the same crime... You see if you commit a crime they charge you with 10-15 outrageous felonies, hoping they will land at least one, or you will plead guilty to lesser charges after they scare the crap out of you. Usually you will get convicted of most of them though. Then you are sentenced for each one separately. This is when the judge can decide if he sentences you to the separate charges consecutively, or concurrently, even though it was only one crime. This is how outrageous amouts of years can get piled up, like 450 years or something! For one offense! It happens.
And one quick note for anyone who thinks money is the issue here. All you who complain that you are wasting your money on prisoners ought to consider this... You didn't write a check to the prison. That is the government's money that they choose to spend on whatever the h*ll they want. Do you really think that you will get a tax break if there are less prisons and more executions???? Ha Ha Ha, if so, you are delusional. You will continue to pay your taxes, and the government will just find something else to spend THEIR money on....
Anyway, let us review our judicial system with the rules above.
2) It must be consistanly applied to like crimes. Is our system consistant with dealing out punishment? No. It obviously cannot give exactly the same punishment for each crime, as every offense is different, (for example all murders are not heinious crimes), but our system is inconsistant in much greater depth. If you are not rich, if you are a minority, if you are the "dregs of society" you will recieve a larger punishment for like crimes than someone of greater stature would. OJ Simpson...
3) It must be administered quickly. We are supposed to have the right to 'a quick and speedy trial'. The fact is, it is not very speedy. Prisoners can spend months even years wainting for trial. Look at Kobe Bryant. ( he is obviously trying to stretch it out, but that is beside the point). If you are not punished soon after you commit a crime, you forget what you are being punished for, and it has no effect. The average years spent on Death Row is somewhere around 20. That is definately not quick punishment.
5) The accused must be given the chance to prove innocence. I don't think I need to mention the fact that way too many innocents have been tried and hung. A lot of people have already brought that point up, so I will bring another. Innocent until proven guilty, unfortunately only works if you are rich. If you are a suspect, you will be arrested, if you cannot post bail, then you stay your happy *ss in jail. After sitting in jail for 6months to a year waiting for trial, if you are found innocent, you are released. Hmmm, this seems more like 'guilty till proven innocent' to me. Public defenders are no help. They get paid minimal for each client, but get paid per client. So after the DA scares you to death with hundreds of possible years, your defender works a deal with the DA to get you to plead guilty to lesser charges. That gets you through the door so they can move to the next sucker, and avoids the lengthy trial process, which they wont get paid extra for. Oh, and 2 "credible" witnesses need for an execution? WOW, that's rough.... Who determines what is "credible" All humans lie. And all humans mispercieve things. So when two witnesses pick the closest looking guy to what they thought they saw out of a line up, that is enough evidence for you to end that person's life? You ought to pray then that the police never have you sit in the lineup as an extra.
4) It must prevent the crime from re-occurring. Here's a big one... How do you do that? Spiff and Yna6 both seem to think that harsher punishments are in order... Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time, right? The problem is, is that might be a motivator for YOU not to commit a crime. You are not thinking like someone who is going to commit a crime. There are many motivations for commiting a crime. Lets go over some. First there is a crime of passion. Someone tries to rape or beat your sister in front of you. You rage, and kill the guy. You just got laid off from work, come home and catch your wife cheating and beat the cr*p out of both of them. Now think of these situations. What would you do? Easy to say, but much more difficult if the situation actually occurred. Do you have such control of your emotion that you could even consider any possible punishment that will happen to you because of your reactions to the situation at hand, needing immediate action? I doubt it. If someone tried to rape my sister, I would beat the piss out of him without a moment hesitation. Ok, you say, Im talking about someone who conciously makes a decision to murder. Well lets review those. Lets say it doesnt matter what the reason is, just a conscious decision to kill, like a drive by, or to rob someone, or whatever, they are planning to kill and go do it. How many of these killers do you think actually know how much time they will get for what crime? They're not thinking, "Well let me see, Ill get 10 years for this, but only 8 for that, I think Ill do the latter." I mean come on, how many people on this forum can recite the Revised Statutes for their state on how many years they will get for a certain crime? The fact is, people don't know the exact punishment. Do you think that this killer is unaware that prisons exist? The criminal is not going to report himself to the cops after he kills! He's trying to get away with it! More than the majority of prisoners committed their crime thinking they weren't gonna get caught! It is irrelevant how harsh the punishment because the criminal doesn't think he will be punished. Not to mention that even if you do get caught, but have a nice lawyer, you can get off. In Asia somewhere, I am not sure if it is the Phillipenes, (somone ought to know where) Anyway, they still cut off peoples hands for stealing. Under Spiff and Yna6 logic this ought to reduce theft. Unfortunately it actually increases it. The punishment is so harsh, it has become a thrill to try to get away with it. Fear is not a good deterrent, and the Death Penalty will never deter crime, so this cannot be used as an excuse for allowing its existance.
1) It must be moral, logical and related to the crime. How can "killing someone who killed somone else, to show that killing is wrong" be moral. It cannot. It is a hypocrytical action. How can it be logical, when it does not deter crime, it does not rehabilitate, it does not allow for the proof of innocence down the road when new evidence surfaces, It is not quick, and it is never consistant. It is only related to the crime if we still live in the biblical world of "eye for an eye". But I hope we have grown as a civilization past that era.
So now there are no arguments left for the death penalty except one... REVENGE. That is the only reason the death penalty exists. There are no other logical explanations. The death penalty satisfies the humanly inborn urge for violence for those who are higher in status, yet have not defined their own sense of morality. That is why Bush was re-elected, and why we are still in Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqies and thousands of our own countrymen. To satisfy the "Upper Class' " need for violence, legally of course, Bush won't be doing "Life" in prison. You vengeful people are just as sick in your mind as the murderer next door. You just haven't been forced into a situation that your impulse will show.... Yet. I pitty you on that day, your world will be turned upside down. I just hope the death penalty will no longer exist then, becuase you will not deserve it. | |
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| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 10:05:16 PM | well first i feel flattered you took that much time to respond. so thank you.
first, i think life starts at 20 years. that's why i was putting life in quotations. isn't placing someone in jail for life also revenge? in a way it is, you could argue that you are punishing them and keeping them from interacting with society, but it is still indeed an act of revenge. i don't think the death penalty would defer people from doing in THAT much but i think it helps some IMO. untill they put murderers and rapists behind bars for actual LIFE i think the death penalty is sufficient. i respect your views and would think much diferently if i had more faith in our justice system. | |
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yna6
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Joined: 5/2/2004
Msg: 122 | |
| Dear God are we actually considering cost in the same sentance as the Death Penalty?
Posted: 11/17/2004 11:48:54 PM | Well people...we seem to be chasing our tails here.
tolstoy...you do have some points there, some of which I do have to agree with. Some, I do not.
Let's take a look at the "social" aspect of things. Do drug users "choose" to use drugs OR, are they forced to use them? There are many programs out there for detox...
Do these same people support the local drug dealers? Sure they do, or they wouldn't have drugs, would they? Are drug dealers violent? It has been proven so time and time again.
Are people "undereducated"? I thnk not. there are schools to go to, to be able to get an education. Again., even in the worst of the inner-city areas there are schools. Is getting an education a choice here? yes it is.
Does TV play a role in getting information out to the general public, advising them of gov't run programs to help them? Yes....
So...we have a population that CHOOSES to be uneducated, prefers to sit back on the welfare roll (3-4 generations worth!) or work sometimes, if possible. They CHOOSE not to go where the jobs are, even though there are gov't programs to help pay for this, and pay to train them in their new jobs. Are these people aware of them? some are...most don't care enough about it to help themselves. They want the "hand-out", rather than the "hand-up".
Lawyers....BIG argument here. Maybe the playing field should be leveled. Defence and prosecution lawyers placed on a flat fee. Bonus paid for wins. Juries to be enrolled from welfare lists, and paid by the hour. (Some exceptions provided. Free daycare for those with kids, etc while they are "working".)
force the law to work within a reasonable time-frame. If it is a "caught red-handed" type crime, front of the line within 24 hours, and gone!
Courts to operate 24/7 with bonuses for wekend and holiday work.
think of the jobs opening up here.
Murderers....sometimes hard to know if they really DID do it or not. But there are cases where there is no doubt whatsoever. Not one person here has suggested a way to punish these people except for life in prison, at taxpayers expense. The death penalty could be used in these cases without hesitation.
Life sentence as "life", means you have some guy with nothing to lose in a violent setting. He doesn't care what happens, or what he does. He's already serving "life" right? That makes these guys a walking time-bomb, set to go off at a moments provocation! Why have them around? Here, "life without parole" is a sentence that is used....BUT....to help curb the violence, we have something called "the faint hope" clause. They COULD be out in 25 or more years IF they be good.....if not....well, their decision, their choice. | |
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yna6
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Joined: 5/2/2004
Msg: 123 | |
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yna6
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Joined: 5/2/2004
Msg: 125 | |
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