The Death Penalty - Page 3

Check this out: AG Gonzales can now determine if a death-penalty prisoner has had sufficient legal counsel. This will speed up executions. I got it from here.


Here's a good graf:
God I hate these fucking autocratic conservatives. Why is it these patriotic people hate everything that makes America great? Due Process is in there to prevent the Government from being overly oppressive. Its purpose is to make sure before someone loses their life, liberty, or property, the government has a damn good reason and has done enough to prove that reason is sufficient. Of course, that gets in the way of a good killin, so let's do away with it. Assholes, to the fucking man, assholes.

The Patriot Act is pure fascism. It always was. Nobody wanted to believe it at the time, but the more comes out about it, the more apparent it becomes.

Can someone tell me what this Patriot Act is about? I've always found it to sound a bit... suspect, to say the least.

The PATRIOT Act was essentially a 400+ page paper hoagie of a DOJ wet dream. Everything they ever wanted was in this bill, from warrantless surveillance to disappearing people. It was passed within 3 weeks of the 9/11 attacks and has been a thorn in all good people's sides ever since.

A general rule of thumb: if anything has the words Patriot,Victory, or some Mom and Apple Pie type title, it's probably something you should vote against, since that title is designed to quell dissent. As in, "How can you oppose the PATRIOT Act? Are you not a patriot?" For some reason, our elected officials fall for those hamfisted tactics.

Which is why we should be really scared when they roll out the Blowjobs and Pizza Act. "What??? You don't like blowjobs and pizza?"

Hey, if Clinton's Administration couldn't get that bill passed, I don't think it will ever become law.

I wrote a lengthy blog piece about my changing opinions on the death penalty. I'd prefer we scrap it altogether, as it's a primitive system that is basically impossible to fairly or rationally implement. But, if we keep it, the following changes should be made:

1)No more killing of children. If elected officials arbitrarily set the age of adulthood at 18, everyone in the U.S. needs to live with that.
2)No more killing of the mentally incompetent. If we think they may be mentally competent, but aren't sure, that specific issue should be decided by the using the "beyond a reasonable doubt" methodology.
3)The standard should not be "beyond a reasonable doubt" (which I think is a good standard for a lifetime in prison) in terms of deciding the underlying guilt of the accused. For the death penalty to be applied, the trier of fact should be unanimous in declaring that the accused is "guilty to a knowable certainty". Basically, the jury should be told that you need to be as sure of this person's guilt as you are that the earth is going to revolve on its axis one time in approximately the next 24 hours. If the jury can't be that sure, then the person shouldn't be eligible for the death penalty.

The possible execution of innocents cannot be tolerated in a civilized society. But, people love their death penalty, so at least make sure that mistakes won't happen.

There's a joke in there about pork but I can't quite work it out.

I feel about the death penalty much like I feel about that time the Baltimore Ravens played in the for-charity Prison Bowl championships in 1998. There are Pros and Cons.

Amazingly, Foster's sentence has been commuted.

All due respect, Capital Crime and trying the case.That is causing the most money.
Period.
Someone can research here?
Check Your facts.

Awesome.

The real perpetrators gave states evidence against him. He is doomed to die.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2159468,00.html

Learn to put together a coherent sentence. I have no idea what you just said.

The incoherence, it burns!

I feel that this should be a solely philosophical debate. To me, just having this debate is sort of like looking at our justice system through rose colored glasses. Many of the points I've read seem mute due to the impotence of the current system. We would have to overhaul everything about it to make either side work perfectly or really even remotely the way it should. Both sides of this argument rely on the system actually working the way it's supposed to. The pro-death penalty crowd relies on the assumption that the courts are never wrong, while the anti-death crowd seems to feel that the prisons are actually turning out a good ratio of rehabilitated criminals.

The monetary aspects of this discussion should only come into play if were taliking specific law and statutes. Changing the system to accomidate either a pro or anti view could alleviate cost in each case.

Oh and just something to rile some people up who use the argument that prison is worse than death therefore we shouldn't use it. Doesn't that go for the wrongly convicted too? By this logic we should kill all lifers so any innocents unlucky enough to be there won't be forced to suffer.

P.S.-I'm anti death penalty. However if someone murdered or raped someone I love, I'm pretty certain I'd see them dead.

Then you're either advocating vigilantism, which would make you a murderer as well, or you don't really oppose the death penalty.

No, because a life sentence is revocable in a way that death is not. If it was just an argument about how to make the most sadistic system, we'd say to hell with the 8th Amendment and play Mind of Mencia reruns round-the-clock in all federal and state penitentiaries.

I never understood why these ostensibly "small-government" republicans would ever support government-sponsored executions. I guess blood lust trumps small government.

http://ethics.sandiego.edu/Blackmun.html

Justice Harry Blackmun said it best.

I'm not advocating vigilantism, I'm giving my likely reaction to a horrible hypothetical event. Likely, because in either case life in prison would not be likely, something I don't think I could let stand. I'm also aware that I would be subject to punishment if I did take matters into my own hands, something that doesn't even enter into the equation at the national level. As a state sponsored institution I oppose the death penalty,as it is not infallible, and because I know that the penile system is broken. We can't even properly convict and incarcerate therefore we as a country shouldn't kill convicts. Also I'm not a murderer until I murder. So like I said, keep this philosophical.

Ouch.

I know this may sound strange given the location of this discussion, but you've seen too many movies.

DAVEB-Totally saw that coming

Schwartz-I haven't even seen death sentence!

Aside from satisfying a need for vengeance, I dont see anything a death penalty achieves, that a life-long prison sentence does not.

Its not a deterrant, as everyone doing a bit of research knows.
It costs more money.
It eats up more valuable time in court.
It cannot be fixed/remedied/revoked if a mistake is spotted later.
It doesnt protect society in a better way (prison breaks of mass murderers are not reality, folks. Con Air didnt happen.)

However, I think it should be a voluntary option for a life-sentence inmate if they are, confirmed by a psychatrist or so, in a mentally healthy state, and decide to want it. But thats best kept out of the media + politics. There are too many cases of long-term inmates trying to get themselves killed by attacking guards, attacking each other, attempted suicide and whatnot to ignore that some people may honestly decide they've had it.

Ah, and religious arguments are irrelevant in a world where not everybody believes in them. Some stupid "afterlife" argument is junk.

Ahem...Fuck that.

If you had read the link provided in above post you would have realized my dilemma, and not made the uncivil remark that you did. Turning states evidence and trying the convicted (2 of them) in court on the same charge is terribly unjustified. Maybe in this country we should look at the means to a conviction first, and work on the other later. Got It? It may take a while but I think we could get there.
ie: They don't have a chance. He was driving the car, the other committed the murder, but he got Life the same as the shooter (2, tried for one case as stated above). I'm against the death penalty and a staunch supporter of CCADP.

Thats my point.

This and any other points in the future will be better recieved if you use complete sentences and with some rudimentary grammar. This is an important step, though, witchesbrew, and I'm proud of you.

I'm absolutely, categorically, unconditionally opposed to capital punishment. It's obscene.

It's amazing to me how many people still think "an eye for an eye" is sound moral philosophy.

No person should have the right to decide whether another person should live or die.

I mean, how extremely authoritarian is that? Not to mention hypocritical.

One viscerally compelled to take a life: wrong. Others viscerally compelled to take his in return: right.

Violence is cyclical.

There's a difference between being able to psychologically empathise with another's desire for revenge and believing that vengeance is morally virtuous. You can understand and sympathise without condoning it ethically.