One related to the joke thread controversy

[LX_Emergency]

This is another thing that angers me. Why does it cost so much to lock someone in a cell and give them three meals a day?

If the cost wasn't so artificially high, they wouldn't be releasing offenders so early. (At least that is the case here.)

I don't actually want the death penalty. I just want murdering scum kept off the streets.

Simple, 1000 is cheap actually if you look at what is provided by that:

Housing, Power, Water, Food, Recreational facilities, guards, doctors, management. All that is why it's soo expensive.




Some people show by their actions that they are a danger to society and do not value the life of others OR their own.

In such cases I personally deem death a proper precaution.

I'd rather execute 3 people wrongly if thereby I can make certain that 50 psychopaths are loosed upon society.

I know I know, where is the line you ask. But there are certain cases (like that animal Dutroux) where death is warranted. Such a man has shown that he does not value life in any manner. Such a man does not deserve to be upkept by society. Society should not have the burdon of keeping alive someone who does not value life.

In olden times there was banishment as an alternative. With the globalisation of everything we don't have that option anymore.

Death is now the only way in which certain individuals can be disposed of.

The fact that a man decides to kill, maim, slaughter and abuse does not grant him the right to be upkept by those to whom he did that.

[gratewhitehuntr]

off with their heads !!!!

I want to second the notion that some crimes are so heinous and the proof so positive that death should be the first option.
I'm also in favor of a more liberal application of the term "heinous".

As for the innocent guy?
No one ever REALLY considers his plight.

Would you rather
A spend 40 years in prison and then be found not guilty.
B Be put to death.

Keep in mind that 40 years is enough to drastically change you, especially if you have been stewing in hatred for the system for all that time due to your innocence.
What would there really be when you got out?

Wife? no
Kids? maybe they might let you visit but don't expect them waiting at the gate
job? house?
everything will be different and you WON'T FIT

congrats my friend
you are society's fifth wheel

no thanks, I'll take the needle

[Wildtim]

Heres an interesting case study. This is the other side of the coin for me, here we have an idiot elected official shortciruting the process of justice and letting an admittedly insane woman out of prison. Notice he Commuted her sentence which means she gets out scott free, no required counseling or anything, something she did get in prison. Its sad when we have a need to kill criminals to keep our own leader from losing them on us, even when we the people have said in no uncertain terms to keep them locked up.

The new Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has commuted the sentence of Debra Lynn Gindorf, a woman some experts believe was suffering from postpartum depression when she killed her two children more than two decades ago. Gindorf, now 45, was found guilty but mentally ill for the 1985 murders of Christina, 23 months and Jason, 3 months. Gindorf was given a sentence of life without parole, but Quinn shortened the sentence to 48 years. In Illinois, she will receive a day of credit for every day she has served under "good conduct" rules and will be eligible for immediate release on parole because she has already served 24 years. The 45-year-old Gindorf was found guilty but mentally ill in the 1985 slayings of 23-month-old Christina and 3-month-old Jason. She tried to kill herself and the children but she survived the blend of alcohol and sleeping pills and woke the next morning beside her dead children. Quinn spokesman Bob Reed declined comment. The Lake County State's Attorney's office had supported clemency for Gindorf. In interviews published in local papers, Gindorf refers to the murder of her children as "the accident."

This guy killed, went to prison, had his sentence reduced got out and killed again and almost got his sentence reduced again. when will we learn.

RENO, NV -- A man who earlier escaped a death sentence on appeal has been sentenced again to die for a 1992 killing. His attorney said he will appeal again. A Washoe District Court jury deliberated about four hours Tuesday before choosing death for Melvin Geary. His public defender, Steve Gregory, asked unsuccessfully for a mishearing because Deputy District Attorney Egan Walker said Geary had chosen death. District Judge Margaret Springgate rejected the motion, and Gregory said he would appeal. Geary had faced death for stabbing 71-year-old Edward Colvin of Sparks with a boning knife after Colvin took him in. The sentence was reversed by the state Supreme Court, which found an error in the penalty hearing and ordered the new hearing. Geary served 13 years of a life sentence for the stabbing death of a Las Vegas woman in 1973, again with a boning knife. He was freed after the state Parole Board commuted his sentence from life without parole to life with parole.

There are a million of these out there out there, perhaps there whould be death penalty for politicians who endanger the public.

[Wildtim]

How about this case: He's on death row for killing people. People he murdered after he escaped from prison. Why was he in prison because he had been sentenced to life without parol for killing people. Had they had the courage to sentence him correctly the first time at least four people would still be alive today.

An inmate sentenced to death for a killing committed during a 1999 escape has written a letter to a newspaper confessing to another killing. The slaying to which Kenneth D. Williams confessed would make him responsible for the deaths of four people, including a Springfield, Mo., man killed after Williams escaped in 1999. Williams, 26, says in a 5 1/2-page letter to the Pine Bluff Commercial newspaper that he shot and killed Jerrell Jenkins, 36, of Pine Bluff on Dec. 13, 1998, the same day that he fatally shot Dominique Hurd, a cheerleader at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Police had listed Jenkins' death as unsolved. "I take full responsibility for my actions and whatever consequences my peers see fit," Williams wrote. Williams said he was a born-again Christian and wanted to confess his sins. He was convicted of kidnapping and killing Hurd and of kidnapping and assaulting her date. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He escaped on Oct. 3, 1999, while serving that sentence at the Cummins Unit of the state prison system in Lincoln County, Ark. After 57-year-old farmer Cecil Boren was slain at his home near the prison, Williams fled to Missouri in Boren's truck. He was captured near Urbana after an accident that killed Culligan delivery driver Michael Greenwood, 24, of Springfield, Mo. Williams was convicted for Boren's slaying and sentenced to death. He has appealed that verdict. "For a long time I was in denial of the things I had done," Williams wrote. "I couldn't believe it myself. How can someone go five years in denial of something that they obviously did. I have killed or caused the death of four people in my life." The Commercial provided a copy of Williams' letter to police detectives. Police Lt. Terry Hopson and Sgt. Danny Belvedresi met with Williams on Tuesday at the prison system's Varner Supermax Unit near the Cummins unit. Hopson said the inmate declined to make a formal statement in the death of Jenkins, saying only that "the letter to the newspaper spoke for itself." "I wish we would have more people write letters confessing to some of our unsolved homicides," Hopson said, indicating he believed that Williams killed Jenkins. "The bottom line is, I don't think we will have to go looking for a suspect in the Jenkins killing." Hopson said he would discuss with prosecutors whether Williams would be charged in Jenkins' death. Larry A. Sullivan, editor of The Commercial, said it was gratifying that the newspaper "can help solve a homicide, and it appears that may be the case in this instance." Jenkins, whose body was found in a ditch by a youngster walking to school, had been shot to death. Williams claimed in his letter that he killed Jenkins with two shots from a .357-caliber

I'm betting there are as many people who escape from maximum security prison, as there are innocent men sentenced to death.

[JimR]

I'm betting there are as many people who escape from maximum security prison, as there are innocent men sentenced to death.

Then fix the prisons.

[icedog]

I personally don't believe there is any effective deterrent to any crime. Man has a criminal component which allows even the most gentle, law abiding soul to go against the law when conditions become appropiate. The criminal justice systems devised by Man have been designed as punishment, society's retribution for the injury caused by the criminal. Some promote the idea of a rehabilitative penal system which will take in a criminal and release back into society a new, better person, a person who has learned a trade, who has seen the error of his/her ways and wants to become a contributing member of the population. We know the delivery of the punishment has never been fair nor swift. While some people are devoured by the system and become a victim of the system's weaknesses (i.e. Rubin Carter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and/or Damien Echols - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ), others are exonerated despite clear and abundant evidence of their guilt (like John DeLorean).

While it seems noble and progressive to change a draconian penal system from punative to rehabilitative, it is a myth. As I said earlier, Man will break any law when conditions becomee appropriate. Any rehabilitation process is flawed because it is incapable of reproducing all conditions on demand and therefore cannot address all possible causal factors. But this has nothing to do with the death penalty.

The excution of a criminal is neither a punishment nor a deterrrent. It seems to me that the death penalty is best justified as the surgical removal of a malignant tumor from the body of society. Its utility and efficacy is highly debateable. Certainly if the convicted criminal is guilty beyond all possible doubt he should not be allowed to ever walk freely again. However, what authority grants us license to end a human life? My attitude regarding execution is that society should not perform any act that cannot be reversed. In a previous post Alex wrote, "I'd rather execute 3 people wrongly if thereby I can make certain that 50 psychopaths are loosed upon society." I am sure he meant to say he'd sacrifice the lives of 3 innocent people to ensure 50 murderers were executed. Me? I disagree with all my heart. I'd rather the fifty murderers walked free than to mistakely execute one innocent person. I am certain the families of those innocents would agree with me.
Alex, let me take your proposal to your wife, "Hello Mrs. Emergency, how are you today? Your husband, in his remarkably magnanimous concern for the safety of society has said he'd gladly sacrifice three innocent lives in order to ensure that 50 killers are put to death. We, the government of the World have decided to let him help with his generous offer. We arrested your husband this afternoon on his way home from work. We are going to execute him tomorrow at noon. After his death, we will then proceed with the executions of 50 known psychopathic killers. If Alex doesn't die, those 50 killers will spend the rest of their lives in prison. Do you have anything to say about this Mrs. Emergency? Will you support your husband's wishes and allow him to die? Would you like your son to grow up without his father so those fifty evil men will be put to death?"

What do you think she'd say?

[gratewhitehuntr]

that is all well and fine when you think that everything can be talked out

I'm not so sure it can

we aren't talking about stealing to feed your family

some people are just rabid dogs suffering from acute lead deficiency

[LX_Emergency]

This is not about my wife's opinion Brad. Please leave my family out of this.


Also, there is quite the difference between misstakingly executing 3 people and consciously executing those same.

If you don't know the difference then I don't think we should be talking about this.

[LX_Emergency]

My attitude regarding execution is that society should not perform any act that cannot be reversed.

Then society can not perform any act but at all. No act can be reversed EVER.
You can not go back in time and reverse the consequences of any action.

You can not say to a man that was wrongly incarcerated for 20+ years, sorry....here's some money you now have those 20 years back that we took from you.

You can not say to a man that was wrongly fined a large sum of money "I'm sorry, here's the money back that we took from you." when the paying of the fine caused the downfall of the rest of his life, buisiness, mariage, and everything he loved dear.

Nothing can ever be reversed.

[ChrisL]

" A society that sentences killers to nothing worse than prison -- no matter how depraved the killing or how innocent the victim -- is a society that doesn't *really* think murder is so terrible."
JEFF JACOBY, September 28, 2003

Oh gosh, I couldn't disagree more with that quote. If prison is designed in a way that doesn't seem so "terrible" then I'll give you that the quote you've cited would have validity and at present probably does given the prison system.

However, what if prison were designed in the following way?

An 8x8 cell with a metal door a toilet and a mattress........and nothing else but bare walls. Solitary for all murderers for life. Can you think of anything more terrifying? Decades and decades of being confined to the same small box with essentially nothing in it? No books, magazines, TV, cigarettes, posters, no real sensory stimulation. I don't think it would be long before even the most sane person would fashion a doll out of their own feces and regard it as a friend to talk with.

Now I think that would be more cruel and strike fear in the minds of most anyone who would take even a moment to consider what that would really be like versus death before they'd commit a crime.

Chris L