BY FAR.Rob Iola wrote:It's worse to wrongly execute an innocent person.Vidav wrote:Is it worse to wrongly execute an innocent person or to wrongly keep an innocent person in prison for the rest of their life? Is that life they get in prison better or worse than death?
Either way you are taking away their life.Rob Iola wrote:It's worse to wrongly execute an innocent person.Vidav wrote:Is it worse to wrongly execute an innocent person or to wrongly keep an innocent person in prison for the rest of their life? Is that life they get in prison better or worse than death?
Vidav wrote:Either way you are taking away their life.Rob Iola wrote: It's worse to wrongly execute an innocent person.
I do agree that it is better to be able to let someone go if they find evidence later that proves innocence. I was just curious what others thought.TwinTownBisonFan wrote:BY FAR.Rob Iola wrote: It's worse to wrongly execute an innocent person.
Not saying imprisoning someone falsely is a good thing - but it's orders of magnitude. An innocent person can be let out of prison... you can't "un-execute" them.
Have you ever used drugs? Try taking them to Singapore...grizzaholic wrote:How about this. Hang'em all. Every. Single. One.
What?Rob Iola wrote:Have you ever used drugs? Try taking them to Singapore...grizzaholic wrote:How about this. Hang'em all. Every. Single. One.
TwinTownBisonFan wrote: We live in a civil society - we make collective decisions based on shared interest. When we as a society tell people not to commit murder, then sanction murder and call it "justice" we undermine that message.
I disagree completely with your assertion conflating vengeance and justice... they are two entirely different things - vengeance is a violent revenge by one who has been wronged. justice is about meting out a deserved punishment based upon moral rectitude. While you may see state-sanctioned killing as morally righteous, I don't.
More to the point - it's all fine and well to say "just kill them" - however, given that justice is not always perfect, and innocent (or at least not guilty) people are wrongly convicted from time to time... the specter of putting just one innocent person to death ought to be enough to give anyone pause.
As for bin Laden... if I'm honest with myself, I wasn't disappointed to hear he was gunned down - I would have preferred to see him tried and sent to prison... but there was no way he was going to let that happen. He is, in my view, no different than anyone else who drew a weapon on arresting officers. Those people aren't being executed by the state, they are being shot by law enforcement attempting to bring them to justice. Some may not see a distinction, but I do, and I think it's a very important one.
There are some rather draconian laws out there that are rigorously enforced - Singapore for example will hang you if you're caught bringing in drugs over a certain threshold (typically associated with trafficking, although the thresholds are still pretty modest). Every. Single. One.grizzaholic wrote:What?Rob Iola wrote: Have you ever used drugs? Try taking them to Singapore...
What?Rob Iola wrote:There are some rather draconian laws out there that are rigorously enforced - Singapore for example will hang you if you're caught bringing in drugs over a certain threshold (typically associated with trafficking, although the thresholds are still pretty modest). Every. Single. One.grizzaholic wrote:
What?
My point is - it could be you...
AS stated before, there are plenty of acts people commit that they should die for.....I'd be pissed if my government ever allowed either Hitler or Bin Laden close enough to a courtroom to make the argument. That's the difference. I trust our military to make a distinction and act appropriately. I don't trust a local DA or judge, pining for a conviction record to foster his upward mobility within his chosen field, to make the appropriate judgement when the glare of a spotlight isn't on the case. Do you think Troy Davis would have been convicted beyond a shadow of a doubt without the testimony later recanted and no murder weapon? IMO, it's the DA's responsibility to seek the truth with regards to a case in the best interests of the people. And part of seeking the truth is performing due diligence on his witnesses....GrizFanStuckInUtah wrote:If you don't think someone like Hitler or Bin Laden deserve the death penalty, than we will just have to forever disagree on the matter. If you don't think the death penalty is used correctly, it is a whole different arguement to me.
I'm not sure I follow you here. The chance of killing an innocent person is a FAR worse related consequence than letting guilty people rot in jail.Cluck U wrote:As far as innocents being kiled, once again you are drawing a line of convenience without thinking about other related consequences.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29552692/ns ... ntvY080kn0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;After decades of moral arguments reaching biblical proportions, after long, twisted journeys to the nation's highest court and back, the death penalty may be abandoned by several states for a reason having nothing to do with right or wrong:
Money.
Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits.
So an increasing number of them are considering abolishing capital punishment in favor of life imprisonment, not on principle but out of financial necessity.
"It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," though most Americans believe the opposite, said Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as "The Hanging Judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row.
Deep into retirement, he lost his faith in an eye for an eye and now speaks against it. What changed a mind so set on the ultimate punishment?
'Waste of time and money'
California's legendarily slow appeals system, which produces an average wait of nearly 20 years from conviction to fatal injection — the longest in the nation. Of the nine convicted killers McCartin sent to death row, only one has died. Not by execution, but from a heart attack in custody.
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"Every one of my cases is bogged up in the appellate system," said McCartin, who retired in 1993 after 15 years on the bench.
"It's a waste of time and money," said the 82-year-old, self-described right-wing Republican whose sonorous voice still commands attention. "The only thing it does is prolong the agony of the victims' families."
ASUG8 wrote:I hope we never get to the point where we start cost justifying the choice between death and life imprisonment, DJ. No question it's a decision that no jury takes lightly.
That being said, look at what's happening nationwide - prisons are overcrowded, there's no money in the system to expand or build new ones so people are getting shorter sentences. Freeing up space by killing more people certainly isn't the answer, and I'd hate to see us being forced to build more prisons or give an early release to violent offenders. Rape, murder, repeat offenders of domestic violence, arsonists, child molesters should be the ones occupying the prisons - I don't agree with the whole three strikes policy where you serve time for sometimes petty crimes.
The US executes 40-45 people per year. Yeah, it would add up over years, but we're not talking thousands.ASUG8 wrote:I hope we never get to the point where we start cost justifying the choice between death and life imprisonment, DJ. No question it's a decision that no jury takes lightly.
That being said, look at what's happening nationwide - prisons are overcrowded, there's no money in the system to expand or build new ones so people are getting shorter sentences. Freeing up space by killing more people certainly isn't the answer, and I'd hate to see us being forced to build more prisons or give an early release to violent offenders. Rapists, murderers, repeat offenders of domestic violence, arsonists, child molesters should be the ones occupying the prisons - I don't agree with the whole three strikes policy where you serve time for sometimes petty crimes.
ASUG8 wrote:I hope we never get to the point where we start cost justifying the choice between death and life imprisonment, DJ. No question it's a decision that no jury takes lightly.
... I think we all at least agree there's a problem with the system.In 2007, time and money were the reasons New Jersey became the first state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine commuted the executions of 10 men to life imprisonment without parole. Legal costs were too great and produced no result, lawmakers said. After spending an estimated $4.2 million for each death sentence, the state had executed no one since 1963. Also, eliminating capital punishment eliminated the risk of executing an innocent person.
Why the89Hen wrote:BlueHen86 wrote:
We should be allowed to harvest the organs. I'm pretty sure the law currently prevents it, that law should be changed.
emoticon?Or at least use the bodies for research or practice cadavers for med students.BlueHen86 wrote:Why the89Hen wrote:
I am against the death penalty, but if were going to execute people shouldn't we harvest their organs so that people in need can benefit?
I honestly don't know how you can think that. The idea that it is the least dangerous branch is based upon the premise that it has very little power because it has, on the Federal level at least, virtually zero accountability. But it obviously has evolved into an institution with a LOT of power. Lots of power with zero accountability is, to me, obviously a dangerous combination.The judiciary remains the least dangerous branch
It's a less dangerous combination than having lots of power and accountability to a special interest or party. I trust the judiciary more than I trust the other two branches.JohnStOnge wrote:I honestly don't know how you can think that. The idea that it is the least dangerous branch is based upon the premise that it has very little power because it has, on the Federal level at least, virtually zero accountability. But it obviously has evolved into an institution with a LOT of power. Lots of power with zero accountability is, to me, obviously a dangerous combination.The judiciary remains the least dangerous branch
If it was as intended and the Judiciary had no influence on how the society is run that would be one thing. But that's not how it is.
The Supreme Court is so powerful that it couldn't prevent the Trail of Tears. What aJohnStOnge wrote:I honestly don't know how you can think that. The idea that it is the least dangerous branch is based upon the premise that it has very little power because it has, on the Federal level at least, virtually zero accountability. But it obviously has evolved into an institution with a LOT of power. Lots of power with zero accountability is, to me, obviously a dangerous combination.The judiciary remains the least dangerous branch
If it was as intended and the Judiciary had no influence on how the society is run that would be one thing. But that's not how it is.
Indeeddbackjon wrote:ASUG8 wrote:I hope we never get to the point where we start cost justifying the choice between death and life imprisonment, DJ. No question it's a decision that no jury takes lightly.
That being said, look at what's happening nationwide - prisons are overcrowded, there's no money in the system to expand or build new ones so people are getting shorter sentences. Freeing up space by killing more people certainly isn't the answer, and I'd hate to see us being forced to build more prisons or give an early release to violent offenders. Rape, murder, repeat offenders of domestic violence, arsonists, child molesters should be the ones occupying the prisons - I don't agree with the whole three strikes policy where you serve time for sometimes petty crimes.
The problem with prison overcrowding is the long sentences given for petty crimes - pushed by private industrial prisons.
For-profit prisons are a blight on our counry.
Correct, YT!youngterrier wrote:The Supreme Court is so powerful that it couldn't prevent the Trail of Tears. What aJohnStOnge wrote:
I honestly don't know how you can think that. The idea that it is the least dangerous branch is based upon the premise that it has very little power because it has, on the Federal level at least, virtually zero accountability. But it obviously has evolved into an institution with a LOT of power. Lots of power with zero accountability is, to me, obviously a dangerous combination.
If it was as intended and the Judiciary had no influence on how the society is run that would be one thing. But that's not how it is.
