Thread: Am I missing something?

a good pice of nylon rope can be used ofer and over again one week after convitied of murder one and don in pulbic wher the crime was comited, open to the pulbic. that would send a hell of a message.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

But that's the issue; having a death penalty doesn't save money, and I don't think it saves much prison space either.

Well damn! I had to pull up some facts: Cali estimates the cost at $232.7 million per year were Texas is estimating $400 million in costs per year. Looking at the details it looks like the appeals processes sucks up most of the resources. Which.... suggests under the current circumstances it doesn't work.

I guess a viable solution would be to make the law firms responsible for the expenses if their clients appeals process failed; because we all know they file appeal after appeal simply to stall the process!

Man, this sucks!

Originally Posted by Chimensch

Another important thing to think about is the high number of people sentenced to death who are later proved to be innocent. Here is a report (Prisons.net - One Hundred Innocent Men) from 2002 that talks about the fact that 100 people were released from death row after having been proven innocent in the 29 years before 2002.

Devil's Advocate I see; however, you have a very valid point.

Originally Posted by ronnie brown

a good pice of nylon rope can be used ofer and over again one week after convitied of murder one and don in pulbic wher the crime was comited, open to the pulbic. that would send a hell of a message.

Under the current "crappy" systems here I'd have to agree; but, I think I'd save the state a little $$ and do it "old school".

Originally Posted by jmueller8

Devil's Advocate I see; however, you have a very valid point.

Thanks for noticing. The bottom line is that the death penalty satisfies people's desire for revenge but is not a deterrent. There are many documented cases of murderers who had an opportunity to kill their victim in a jurisdiction where there was no death penalty and eventually killed in a jurisdiction where there was a death penalty. This is because murderers are basically not rational when they kill.

There are a lot of arguments against the death penalty and more countries in the world have decided to abolish it than maintain it.

I think its really a simple matter once you cut through all the legal and moral mumbo jumbo. You kill someone in the commission of a crime (unless it can be proved you are so mentally in competent you didn't know what you were doing) you then forfeit your own life. That seems very fair to me.

Originally Posted by Chimensch

Thanks for noticing. The bottom line is that the death penalty satisfies people's desire for revenge but is not a deterrent. There are many documented cases of murderers who had an opportunity to kill their victim in a jurisdiction where there was no death penalty and eventually killed in a jurisdiction where there was a death penalty. This is because murderers are basically not rational when they kill.

There are a lot of arguments against the death penalty and more countries in the world have decided to abolish it than maintain it.

Alright; you've made a hell of a good point here! What then do we do with all the scum of our societies?

Originally Posted by jmueller8

Alright; you've made a hell of a good point here! What then do we do with all the scum of our societies?

Well, I think we continue to do what we have been doing. We put the bad people away in a place where they can't hurt others. My only point was that capital punishment is not very effective or cost-efficient. If you want to discuss the best way to decrease crime in our society, I'd have to start by saying that a lot of crime, in general, starts with poverty. I guess I'm a sixties liberal, I would like to see our government spend more on making sure that people had enough to eat, a place to sleep and a job rather than putting its money into weapons and fighting wars in far away places. I would also stop putting people in prison for using drugs, but that's another discussion.

Originally Posted by Chimensch

Well, I think we continue to do what we have been doing. We put the bad people away in a place where they can't hurt others. My only point was that capital punishment is not very effective or cost-efficient. If you want to discuss the best way to decrease crime in our society, I'd have to start by saying that a lot of crime, in general, starts with poverty. I guess I'm a sixties liberal, I would like to see our government spend more on making sure that people had enough to eat, a place to sleep and a job rather than putting its money into weapons and fighting wars in far away places. I would also stop putting people in prison for using drugs, but that's another discussion.

LOL! You and I are on opposite sides of the field on this one! I'm from the military mindset where if you mess up, just once, there's hell to pay and if you're foolish to let it happen again.... oh well I don't know many who didn't learn the first lesson. Your statement about decreasing crime in the society is accurate but there's still more incentive to stealing than being morally honest. Ultimately; I think that's the one thing that separates us all... morality. What's right and what's wrong period.

As for drug users: I spent 10 years in ER's and on rigs caring for druggies who only cared about their next fix.. I have no love there.

Jeff

I'm all for speeding th processs. let them have their appeals, just schedule them on consecutive days then harvest their organs for sale to the highest bidder thus paying for the system. It could pay for itself and then some.

The number of innocent freed from dealth row is dwarfed by the number of appeals denied by the same system. Even those found innocent of the crime for wich they were sent to death row are rarely "innocent" of all crimes, often they are one parking ticket shot of death row anyway and most probably would have put themselves their had thy not been already sitting there.

Funny how places with the deathe penalty usually have lower crime rates than the areas that don't have it if it isn't a deterant. It may not deter the insane murderer but the more calculating criminal stays away, that give it a very positive value to me.

Originally Posted by jmueller8

I guess a viable solution would be to make the law firms responsible for the expenses if their clients appeals process failed; because we all know they file appeal after appeal simply to stall the process!

Mueller, please tell me you are trying to be funny here. This thread is drastically off balance. I can't tell if you gents are joking or have no concern for the single most important point as stated in very clear terms by Chimensch. It has been proven with dreadful repeatability that there have been wrongful convictions. Many men have been exhonerated and released from prison while awaiting execution. Illinois about five years ago abolished the death penalty because easily obtained DNA evidence proved 13 of the 24 prisoners awaiting execution were innocent of the crimes thay had been convicted of. The State decided that if 54% of the prisoners on Death Row at that point in time were innocent then it is statistically certain that the State of Illinois has killed innocent people. It is not a rare occurence. Remember Reuben "Hurricane" Carter?

Why would you concern yourself with who will pay for the appeals to which a prisoner is legally entitled? Are you so far above it that the criminal justice system is completely alien to you? Do you consider the people that have been wrongfully convicted and executed due to failings in the government's system somehow less valuable than you? Are they disposable humans? Why don't you imagine for a moment that you or your father or your brother or your son have somehow gotten caught up in the system or worse, imagine they were at the wrong place at the wrong time and the prosecuter needed a victory. Imagine it is your son and he cashed in all his chips but he still hasn't enough money for a good lawyer so he gets the court appointed defence attorney who loves his new job but he just isn't any good at research or organizing the case. Imagine your loved one came home from work one day and found his wife had been strangled only five hours after the neighbor heard him threaten to kill her and they saw him storm out of the apartment. Even though he was at work and felt so bad all day he left early so he could patch things up. When he got home the police were there and they had already made up their minds your son was guilty. Then the prosecuter hand picked a jury of women who all believe your son was always drunk and beating his wife, even though he loved her more than life itself. So he doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell and almost before it started, the trial is over and your boy is sentenced to die by lethal injection. So he files two appeals and the public defender F's them up. Who should pay for the process then, or perhaps that isn't so important now? What is important now is than an innocent man who never had the opportunity to even grieve for the loss of the woman he loved is going to die. Who will raise his two young children? Who will speak for your son? Who will pay for your loss? Who will tell your wife that her only son is to be killed by the government? What will they say, "Accidents will happen?"

While I believe that a person who is absolutely guilty of murdering an innocent person with malice of forethought should be executed. I don't believe that capital punishment is a deterrent. I see it as a surgical removal of a malignant tumor from the body of our society. Still, I would rather house and feed a hundred guilty men for a hundred years thhan to take the life of a single innocent human being.

Brad