| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/4/2005 3:18:52 PM | I believe in the death penalty but when more than half of death row inmates in some states (Indiana, Illinois, some others) have to be set free because DNA evidence PROVES they never could have committed the crime, it makes me believe we can never be sure enough that we're right about whether we found the right person... so I'm against it.
See "the man who wasn't there" with Billy Bob Thornton and think about how many times they must have been wrong before forensic evidence existed... like fingerprints, DNA, Luminol... they killed'em anyway... and George Bush was governor during more excutions than any other governor in history... more than 100... and he even mocked one prisoner begging for her life on tv... scrinched up his face and said "Oh PLEASE don't kill me!"
Whatta guy... OH... he says "God talks to me." | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/4/2005 3:27:17 PM | karebear: I KNOW you didn't mean that... We'd never want that to happen... Yaknow who'd be president THEN?
You don't want that... I don't want that... believe me!!!  | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/4/2005 3:40:34 PM | I'm with Elwood!
Do you really want the Government in the business of killing people? I had the government accidentally garnish tax refunds of mine because they mistook me for someone with a similar name. Not the same! Similar! And then it took a year and half to get my money back! You really want these people in the business of putting people to death?
I bristle when I think of all the innocent people who have been put to death already.
Secondly, it's an acknowledged fact that a jury is more likely to award a non-white person the death penalty than a white person. I suppose the same can be said about rich folks vs po' folks. That's F'd up and unfair.
Innocent folks who got life in prison and were later proven to be innocent are at least around to enjoy the rest of their lives.
Killing minors is just plain silly. We'd be the only western nation that does it. Not very civilized. We can't even get killing the adults right. | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/4/2005 3:51:30 PM | The death penalty is simply unworkable...on every front. The practice of killing those who committed the crime as a minor has put the U.S. on a list of two others (and not exactly progressive nations).
1. You have a flawed justice system. Public defenders who are overworked or don't care put up inadequate defences...meaning, unless you have money, you're in trouble.
2. You have a system where the poor are on death row, almost exclusively. You have yet to perfect a system where any man accused of a capital crime gets the same defense effort.
3. You have innocents on death row. Many. This should be enough to stop the list right now...
4. It costs more to kill someone than it does to keep them in jail for life. The answer to this, by the way, is removing all the protections and appeals...that's called regressive.
5. Eye for an eye justice is not what civilized society promotes. You don't cut off thieves' hands, or poke out eyes of peeping toms. You don't kill killers in a civilized society. Taliban? Sure. Western world? Frowns on it.
6. It does not lower the crime rates. Capital punishment does not show any effect of 'scaring' people from committing murder. This is a fallacy.
7. Many, many on death row have found a niche, and grown up to the point where even the prison staff recognize they are contributing. One man put to death was an advocate for inmates to get their high school diploma...he set up a system to mentor inmates in order to help them...they ARE contributing, and many of them are not the 20 year old, wacked out on PCP kid anymore...they're adults who have changed.
The arguments for capital punishment are so misspent that almost every state is reconsidering it's position (if they have it, to cancel it) and I think Minnesota's governor saw such problems with his that he immediately commuted EVERY death row inmate to life because, as he saw it, there was such an injustice in the system that there was simply no way to rectify it. | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/4/2005 10:17:35 PM | | I don't think the government has any business killing anyone, not even evil children. My main concern is whether anyone has considered and planned for what affect this ruling may have on getting kids to clean their room. It seems like parents just lost some ground. | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/4/2005 10:44:16 PM | Some laws exist not to punish people for any and every infraction, but to provide a means to intervene when something bad is happening. If it is illegal to hit children, you can at least go stop it when someone is beating up their kids. If there is no such law, then the kids have no protection. Besides, if you know what you're doing as a parent you never have to hit your kids. Discipline need not include hitting to be effective. In fact, it makes things worse.
I'm not saying we should spank 17 year olds convicted of murder. They might like that.
I prefer keeping people alive in jail to killing them. Otherwise murder by the state is used for political expediency. | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/4/2005 11:52:47 PM | karebare... i totally understand why you feel the way you do about the death penalty. but... keep in mind... the majority of murder cases that go to trial are tried based on circumstantial evidence. murderers are typically convicted on circumstantial evidence which allows for a huge margin of error to occur resulting in wrongful convictions.
also... it is a well known fact that it costs far more, almost double in most states, to execute than it does to imprison for the rest of one's natural life without the possiblity of perole, mostly due to the appelate process. see for yourself
http://www.worldpolicy.org/globalrights/dp/dp-cost.html | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/5/2005 8:01:52 AM | I'm personally a big fan of Dennis Miller's line...
"It strikes me as funny that so many pro-lifers are also pro-death penalty...I guess it's all in the timing, huh?"
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/5/2005 8:12:37 AM | | or as my sister says why do the sterilise the needle its not like they are going to die from a dirty needle | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/5/2005 9:36:30 AM | | woody - they need to kill people to make room for all the babies they want ot forcee women to have. That and the fact they're a bunch of control fereaks, and howmuchmorecontrol can you have if you can control both birth AND death? | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/5/2005 9:59:13 AM | Whoohooo! Abortion AND the death penalty...
My sincere apologies for marrying those two into this...
Hey, if we consider abortion and death penalty the same sex...we can have a gay marriage of the topics in this thread...3 smack-your-head-against-a-brick-wall topics in ONE thread...
Sheesh... | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/5/2005 10:26:06 AM | | I remember coming away from the movie "Dead Man Walking" with the feeling that the worst thing about the death penalty is what is does to us. We, as a society, designate others to carry out the dirty work, without any thought to what it does to them spiritually. It was horrifying to see a clergyman and medical personnel acting in a way antithetical to the values of their professions. And listen to Steve Earle's "Ellis Unit One" for the perspective of a prison guard working on death row. | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/5/2005 10:58:10 AM | | kipling said it all... "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." - Gandhi | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/5/2005 11:58:51 AM | | Yea o.k. fry them for not cleaning their rooms...Just make sure they are the ones guilty...I'm not prolife..I'm prochoice it's a womans right to choose..I'm also for same sex marriage..Let people do what the hell they want as long as they are not hurting anyone it's fine by me...Now B.M. Will tell you I bash gay people because I was insuatating one of his rightwing buddies is gay actually I don't remember what it was about and it doesn't matter the right winger in question is a friend of mine so B.M. And the rest of the world can take a hike as far as I'm concerned I guess I'm just not that innocent..As far as violent crime I was a victim and now I am a survivor of child rape when I was 14 I ranaway from home and was abducted by a molester who told me if I didn't do what he wanted me to do he was going to take my life..Will I got ahold of a brick and I let him have it, I was just trying to get away from the guy slow him down will he died and I spent several years in several places that were not so nice and that's life just the way I feel about things having been through hell I can't think of a better send off for a sonofa**** than frying them..Others who have been through it might feel different..For me to really fry a kid it would have to be a very brutal homicide with intent..No 2nd degree murders.. | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/5/2005 12:14:16 PM | I can't see how putting someone to death is more expensive than keeping someone in jail for the rest of their lives. If an 18 year old killed someone and was sentenced to life in prison for his crime, he could be in jail for 80 years..who knows how long he will live, right?? Given an average of 32,000 dollars a year
http://www.sccsuperiorcourt.org/jury/GJreports/2004/ImpactofDrugOffenderDiversiononJailCosts.pdf
(thereabouts) to keep an inmate in prison times 80 years....that's 2.56 million dollars per inmate..now multiply that by about 4000 inmates for some jails...you do the math. How can shooting someone by firing squad or killing them by lethal injection cost even remotely close to that?? | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/5/2005 1:54:14 PM | How can shooting someone by firing squad or killing them by lethal injection cost even remotely close to that??
Simply put, it cannot. It is far less expensive to just kill them. After all, a jury decided they should die for their crimes. Why should we throw out their verdict and not just terminate the lives of those killers? | |
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| teens and the death penalty
Posted: 3/5/2005 2:18:03 PM | What Watchman means is that once you're convicted, take them out back and shoot them.
Actually, I sense he'd like to give the victim's family the right to choose to do the job with a ball bat themselves, but let's just say for argument's sake he means some cop goes behind the building and shoots the guy.
So without the appeals processes, special reviews, and what pathetic resources are made available to them currently...
You see, the cost of killing someone is not the cost of the drug****ail. It's the cost of the appeals (and the staff time for all involved, from judge through to all the lawyers). It's the cost of special jail areas and certain other things that happen because...we're not f*cking animals. It's where the many mistakes of the justice system get caught...and it's the bare minimum that measures up to standards of decency and humanity (and in my opinion doesn't meet the bare minimum).
Watchman figures that if we just gun 'em down outside the court...all it costs is the price of the bullet.
He's (get this, surprise surprise...) wrong.
There is the cost of a society's soul to think about also...
Watchguy...try that link from paul45...gots some 'rithmaticking for ya there... | |
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