In reply to:Dude, she conceded that she was in a bad mood. You should be understanding and let it go.I've learned that a while back. If you just keep trying to prove your point, he'll dig up some article on how your opinion is wrong (How can an opinion be wrong?). ...I've tried telling them to stop, but it'll keep going.We understand you, hon. It's your opinion and you're entitled to have it. No, I don't think you were rehashing anything. Your point is very well taken.Yeah, it's best to let this topic die.So that was you contibution to the discussion on the topic of the death penanlty, my hypocritical little opinionated feminist liberal. You just can't let go of the moderator wannabe thing, yet all it does is crap up threads and add even further to the general noise level. You are a multidimensional hypocrite. You want people to respect your authority...now, that's worthy of an lololol.In reply to:How can an opinion be wrong?I'll have ask this of you in the 80% of your posts where you disagree with the opinion of the poster above you. Are you saying that your factually incorrect opinion on contraceptives should not be challenged?In reply to:he'll dig up some article on how your opinion is wrongSo, you consider every opinion to be scriptural. You think there's no way to have an incorrect opinion. You don't live in a reality-based world.Keep that in mind next time you post, because chances are that, if you're not piling on me, you be disagreeing with someone.I'll tell you what, though. Go ask one of your professors, "How can an opionion be wrong?", and post the response in a new thread. We all have new things to learn, after all.
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Death Penalty?
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You are a moron. Now let it go. Stop posting to this thread. Can you do it?
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I think that the 'death penalty' issue needs to be looked at in a slightly different way.In my opinion, there is no excuse for a justice system to simply impose a sentence of death on somebody. Criminal investigation methods are not perfect and many innocent people have been executed, their innocence only revealed after the event. In fact it was the hanging of a (possibly) innocent man (James Hanratty) which directly led (fuelled by more than 180 years of prior campaigning, it must be admitted) to the abolition of the death penalty in the United Kingdom. Even if criminal investigation methods were perfect, there are literally hundreds of proven instances where police officers or other justice authorities have faked evidence in order to obtain convictions. As stated above, once someone is dead, you can't bring them back. At least if they're locked up, you can release them and give them some money which (although not providing anything like adequate compensation) can at least help them to enjoy whatever years of freedom they may have left.However by the same token, it's not reasonable to expect the public to pay to keep someone in prison either for the rest of their natural lives or at least until they're too feeble to commit another crime. It's also not humane to keep someone in prison that long without option of parole unless you're giving them another way out.I think that in cases where the convicted criminal has confessed and where there is supporting evidence for his/her conviction, then he/she should be offered the choice of life imprisonment or voluntary execution.I will NEVER, EVER, believe that imposed death sentences are just or justifiable. I will accept that in certain cases, where prisoners live without hope of ever getting out and being able to live an active life they become more likely to use violence towards other prisoners and towards prison staff and so for this reason alone, I would sanction lifetime solitary imprisonment despite its inherent inhumanity.And yes, before anybody says it, I am a bleeding heart liberal and proud of it
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Criminal investigation methods are not perfect and many innocent people have been executedLinks to statistics on that are available 22 posts above this on, if you scroll by all the pointless noise.> However by the same token, it's not reasonable to expect the public to pay to keep someone in prison either for the rest of their natural lives or at least until they're too feeble to commit another crime.There's an article in today's New York Times on just that subject. Here is an excerpt:In reply to:. . .But now, driven by tougher laws and political pressure on governors and parole boards, thousands of lifers are going into prisons each year, and in many states only a few are ever coming out, even in cases where judges and prosecutors did not intend to put them away forever.Indeed, in just the last 30 years, the United States has created something never before seen in its history and unheard of around the globe: a booming population of prisoners whose only way out of prison is likely to be inside a coffin.A survey by The New York Times found that about 132,000 of the nation's prisoners, or almost 1 in 10, are serving life sentences. The number of lifers has almost doubled in the last decade, far outpacing the overall growth in the prison population. Of those lifers sentenced between 1988 and 2001, about a third are serving time for sentences other than murder, including burglary and drug crimes.Growth has been especially sharp among lifers with the words "without parole" appended to their sentences. In 1993, the Times survey found, about 20 percent of all lifers had no chance of parole. Last year, the number rose to 28 percent. The phenomenon is in some ways an artifact of the death penalty. Opponents of capital punishment have promoted life sentences as an alternative to execution. And as the nation's enthusiasm for the death penalty wanes amid restrictive Supreme Court rulings and a spate of death row exonerations, more states are turning to life sentences.Defendants facing a potential death sentence often plead to life; those who go to trial and are convicted are sentenced to life about half the time by juries that are sometimes swayed by the lingering possibility of innocence.As a result the United States is now housing a large and permanent population of prisoners who will die of old age behind bars. At the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, for instance, more than 3,000 of the 5,100 prisoners are serving life without parole, and most of the rest are serving sentences so long that they cannot be completed in a typical lifetime.. . .
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Personally, I am for the death penalty. I don't care which costs more, or which is more punishment. In my opinion, if you took someone else's life on purpose, then you do not deserve to live. You take a life, you give up the right of yours. However, I wouldn't be against using them for medical testing. I mean, then they would be giving back to society. I am sure people will jump on me about the "Cruel and unusual punishment" thing, but again, in my opinion, once you made that choice to take another's life, you gave up the rights and protection of the US Constitution. What about the rights of the person they killed? Raping them and cutting them to pieces and burring their body wasn't cruel and unusual? So why should we care what happened to them?
Again, this is my opinion. Be gentle. lol
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Cus as we said as well as the costs of the death penelty there are alot of wrongful convictions. Im sure you would feel differant if you were on death row about to be killed for a crime you didnt comit.
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once you made that choice to take another's life, you gave up the rights and protection of the US Constitution.That's a pretty weak Constitution that you imagine the U.S. has. Perhaps we can just scrap the whole annoying thing and be more like China. They take care of their murderers quickly, regardless of their guilt or innocence.> What about the rights of the person they killed? Raping them and cutting them to pieces and burring their body wasn't cruel and unusual? So why should we care what happened to them?In the American constitutional system, everyone has rights (unless the President deems you to be an "enemy combatant"). Trampling the constitutional rights of the accused or the convicted does nothing to enhance the rights of the murdered, and has a worse effect on everyone else than you may realize.If you're as conservative than you sound, you must realize that the government can't be trusted with too much power. Remember, the government runs the justice system.
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You're right, there would be innocents. That is a fact of life. There is no perfect system. We can't have no justice system because some innocents get wrongly accused. I am not saying you send them out for testing or killing 5 minutes after the are convicted. You would still have process of appeals and such. But I would limit it. If you can't prove your're innocent in a certain amount of time, then your SOL. If it was me innocently accused? Well whether I am going to be killed, or spend my life in prison I am going to be fighting my hardest to get out. Who wouldn't? Obviously if we were to have this type of system, we would need to have more checks and balances. You couldn't just flip a switch tomorrow and start this with our current system. It would need a little more thought put into it. I am just stating a quick opinion.
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In reply to: That's a pretty weak Constitution that you imagine the U.S. has. Perhaps we can just scrap the whole annoying thing and be more like China. They take care of their murderers quickly, regardless of their guilt or innocence. No, not really. The US Constitution is to protect the citizens of the United States. In my opinion, once you are CONVICTED of a capital crime, you are slime, and no longer should be considered a ciitizen, hence loosing the rights protected by the Constitution. Keep in mind, you are innocent until proven guilty. So you are protected and allowed due process until such time as you are found guilty by 12 of your peers.The difference with China is they don't always bother with the whole proven you guilty or innocent. In reply to:Trampling the constitutional rights of the accused or the convicted does nothing to enhance the rights of the murdered, and has a worse effect on everyone else than you may realize. I am not trying to enhance the rights of the convicted (accused still have all the rights of a citizen). I am trying to take the right away from the convicted. If you could give me some examples of how a murderer losing his rights effects me (other than allows me to sleep better at night), then I will take them into consideration and think about them. About the only thing it does is make me think... oh... I better obey the laws. hmmm... isn't that what that is all supposed to do? In reply to:government can't be trusted with too much power. Remember, the government runs the justice system. You're right, the goverment does screw things up. I don't like giving them any more power. But I don't see how this really gives them more. It is 12 people who deside on guilty or innocent. Sure, they can be bought out. But how is that different from now? The government gets its way now anyway. Again, there is no perfect system. The only real solution I see is make me Emperor of the world, and I will fix everything. ;-p
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I hate to admit it but I have an underlaying optomism about the idea of reform. I know it will never hapen but the concept behind the "correctional" system is to fix be badies and return them to society. Yes, it's idealistic but I wish it could be accomplished.From my own perspective... I have a criminal record and after my punishment/reform preoccess, I will not repeat my foolishness. But I think that I might be a little different than most.
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> The difference with China is they don't always bother with the whole proven you guilty or innocent.
They don't always bother with it here either. This country has a long history of lynching, and the areas where they were most common are now where most executions are carried out. Go read some of the references I provided, and you'll see that a lot of people have been railroaded onto death row. It's not an opinion; it's a fact. The Republican former governor of Illinois didn't suddenly become a bleeding heart when he commuted the sentences of everyone on death row. People kept getting released because they were wrongly convicted.
One reason that so many were sprung from the Illinois death row is that there was a group at Northwestern University that focused examining the cases of death row inmates in that state. I doubt that things are any better in Florida or Texas.
How many mistakes are acceptable? 30%? 20%? 10%? Remember, once you're executed, there's no going back.
> I am not trying to enhance the rights of the convicted (accused still have all the rights of a citizen). I am trying to take the right away from the convicted.
Yes, that was pretty clear in your first post. What rights, specifically, would you like to take away? There once was a system where prisoners were put away for reasons the government deemed sound. Medical experiments were carried out on the prisoners, without hesitation. They were going to die anyway, so why not? Finally, most people decided that it wasn't a very good system. In fact, the country that had that system decided that the death penalty itself was not a very good idea. Most other democracies, with the exception of one big one, followed them. The one leftover, the U.S., is moving in that direction; the Supreme Court is following the popular sentiment of the country in limiting the application of the death penalty. It will eventually go away.
> how a murderer losing his rights effects me
Someone convicted of a crime doesn't have the same right that you have, but our Constitution deems that all humans have certain basic rights. The Supreme Court agrees with that interpretation, and has since 1789. The Founding Fathers didn't construct the system they did by accident. No one thinks that death row inmates should have a cushy life, but our society is diminished if we think it's OK to torture them.
> About the only thing it does is make me think... oh... I better obey the laws. hmmm... isn't that what that is all supposed to do?
Maybe there ought to be long prison terms for speeders, J-walkers and pot smokers; enforcement should be strict. The Nashua PD would love it. And it would really make you think before you hit the gas.
> It is 12 people who deside on guilty or innocent. Sure, they can be bought out. But how is that different from now? The government gets its way now anyway.
The judicial sysem is a government system. The judge and juries that serve under it are just like the people who populate all of the governmet agencies, including the people who give you your license plate. And they each have their own prejudices.
> Again, there is no perfect system.
There's no human system that's even remotely close to perfect. People are what they are, and we have to work within the confines of what we have. Humans didn't evolve to live in the type of civilization that we live in, but thankfully we have the intelligence to more or less make it work, a lot of the time.
> The only real solution I see is make me Emperor of the world, and I will fix everything. ;-p
We'll have to thank our lucky stars that George Washington didn't think that.
I suspect that your opinion would be a little different if you weren't a white guy from New Hampshire. (I was one for 7 years, mostly in Manchester). It's amazing how one's perspective can change by stepping into someone else's shoes.
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it would also be nice (Utopia again) if we could dispence with the opinion of a jury and the persuasive arguments of lawyers. It would be swell if we could decide guilt based on nothing but investigated facts.
Here, in Canada, if you might be guilty but want to walk away (and you have money) you can hire Ruby or Greenspan and probably walk. -
I don't have a record, but I was arrested on snooty Nantucket for having an open ccontaner of light beer on the street. I wasn't drunk, but the people who were bascically got the crap kicked out of them by the cops, in the holding cell area. My cellmate was coming down from a heroin trip or something, and I was explaining to him why it really wouldn't be a good idea to hit the cops. Thankfully he eventually passed out.
After all that, they dropped the charge against me. Somehow, I still had to pay court costs. How do they get away with that?
The pendulum swings back and forth in the U.S., between focusing on reform and punishment. Now it's pretty far on the punishment side. There is no effort made for rehabilitaion of death row inmates.
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Here you can get off if you're rich enough to hire O.J. Simpson's legal team.
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> You are a class act, my friend. Please, just let it go.
Why did you just send me this PM?
In reply to:
You are a moron. Leave the death penalty thread alone.
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In reply to: They don't always bother with it here either. This country has a long history of lynching, and the areas where they were most common are now where most executions are carried out. Go read some of the references I provided, and you'll see that a lot of people have been railroaded onto death row. It's not an opinion; it's a fact. I am sure that your references are great. But I don’t really care what we did in the past. I am voicing my opinion on what we should do in the future. That stuff happens now, and it would happen in the future. As we have talked about, and you agreed, there is no perfect system. I am not saying have more or less people on death row, I am simply saying lets put them to good use instead of killing them. Just seems pointless and a waste to kill them. In reply to: The Republican former governor of Illinois didn't suddenly become a bleeding heart when he commuted the sentences of everyone on death row. People kept getting released because they were wrongly convicted. You have mentioned the governor of Illinois quite a lot in other posts on this subject. Is he a personal friend or something? It is not MY fault he is a weak governor. I wouldn’t have commuted those sentences. Actually what that tells me is specifically there is something wrong with the system in Illinois. So are you saying since they had a problem we should scrap the whole system? You ask me they need to hire better investigators.All you people who are against the death penalty, why don’t you keep the death penalty and focus more on fixing the problem with innocent people getting convicted. Those are two different issues. Prosecution and punishment. In my opinion, you don’t throw away the punishment just because people suck at the prosecution part. Fix that and keep the punishment.Let me ask you this. Are you fundamentally against the death penalty, or are you against it just because of the innocent people who are on death row? Would you be so against the death penalty if there were little to no innocents? I just want to see where you stand on that.In reply to: How many mistakes are acceptable? 30%? 20%? 10%? Remember, once you're executed, there's no going back. Sounds like to me you are looking at the class as half empty. You are forgetting that 70%, 80% or even 90% of those are KILLERS, MURDERERS, and RAPISTS. See, I look at this whole situation as the glass is half full. The fact is, no matter what way you look at it, the MAJORITY of people on death row are NOT innocent. Do I like killing innocent people? No. Do I know what ratio is acceptable? No. I don’t have all the answers. I have my opinion. But I would sleep better knowing that we have rid this planet of some murderers.In reply to: What rights, specifically, would you like to take away? The right to breath.In reply to: They were going to die anyway, so why not? Exactly.In reply to: The one leftover, the U.S., is moving in that direction; the Supreme Court is following the popular sentiment of the country in limiting the application of the death penalty. It will eventually go away. I find that a sad day. It is becoming a nation where it is more enjoyable to live a life of crime. Think about it. Lets see, I have to work everyday 8-14 hours. Have to work to feed myself, pay to go through school. I have to work to keep my internet, my computer, and I also have to pay for my own healthcare.Or I could live a life of crime. Sure I may be caught, but so what. In many cases I would have it made. Place to sleep, get free food. I can get a free education. Free internet, free everything. If we keep getting softer and softer on punishments, what reason do I have to NOT do crime? Where do we stop babying and pacifying the criminals? At what point do we make people accountable for things they do and have REAL consiquenes?Trust me, knowing this country, once we get rid of capital punishment, it is only a matter of time before they start looking at something else to get rid of. Why don’t we just get rid of punishment altogether? Seems people can’t handle it. You know… locking someone in a cell the rest of their life is cruel and unusual punishment. I say stop your b*tching and don’t kill anyone and you don’t have to worry about it. Follow the damn law. I have never been arrested and I am damn proud of that.I bet you would find the people who complain about capital punishment probably 90% of them have had a brush with the law. I would like to point out, that isn’t fact. Just my guess. In reply to: Someone convicted of a crime doesn't have the same right that you have, but our Constitution deems that all humans have certain basic rights. That is my point though. I don’t think a murderer IS a human being. Once you willing take another life, you are an animal. I am not saying you have to agree with me, that is just my view.In reply to: No one thinks that death row inmates should have a cushy life, but our society is diminished if we think it's OK to torture them. That is the problem. Some people DO think they should. No one said torture them. When I said medical testing, I don’t mean do stuff to hurt them out right. Sure the drug could have a bad effect. But all drugs go through a process because being given to a human. But all drugs eventually have to be tested on a human. I am just saying, make them first. lolIn reply to: Maybe there ought to be long prison terms for speeders, J-walkers and pot smokers; enforcement should be strict. I had assumed that this whole discussion was about capital punishment for people who are on death row for killing and such. I am not sure when or how punishing J-walkers and such is relevant to this discussion.In reply to: The judicial sysem is a government system. The judge and juries that serve under it are just like the people who populate all of the governmet agencies, including the people who give you your license plate. And they each have their own prejudices. This is true. But how is that different from the past, present, and future? You can’t change it so that computers make the decision. So this is also not relevant. You are always going to be having humans making the decision, so there will always be a degree of error.In reply to: We'll have to thank our lucky stars that George Washington didn't think that. Well, he can’t be right all the time. lolIn reply to: I suspect that your opinion would be a little different if you weren't a white guy from New Hampshire. (I was one for 7 years, mostly in Manchester). It's amazing how one's perspective can change by stepping into someone else's shoes. It may be. There are lots of things in life that changes your opinions and views (although I can’t change that I am white). That is the way life is. We live and learn. The same way when I was a kid I didn’t like zucchini, but now it isn’t bad. If we have this talk in 20 years, I might think about it totally different. All I can express are my views right now.
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In reply to:But I don’t really care what we did in the past. I am voicing my opinion on what we should do in the future.Americans tend to have an abiding belief that everything can be fixed, even fundamental issues of human nature; that we can always screen the "bad apples" out of the system. There's no way to make a death penalty system fair and equitable. It has never been done. It never will be done, because it can't be done. As far as rapid executions are concerned, the faster you do it, the more innocent people will die. The more slowly you do it, the more it will cost. So any way you slice it, you will be paying much more in taxes to execute people than you will to warehouse them until they die. That point, at least, should be beyond dispute.In reply to:You have mentioned the governor of Illinois quite a lot in other posts on this subject. Is he a personal friend or something? It is not MY fault he is a weak governor. I wouldn’t have commuted those sentences. Actually what that tells me is specifically there is something wrong with the system in Illinois. So are you saying since they had a problem we should scrap the whole system? You ask me they need to hire better investigators.You wouldn't have commuted the sentences not because you're strong, but because you're ignorant of the facts. The Illinois system is broken, as are all the others. It was noticed there because someone made the effort to look into it. In the time it took you to type your post, you could have learned all about the situation there. It took political courage to do what he did; if he was a weak governor, it wasn't in that department.In reply to:All you people who are against the death penalty, why don’t you keep the death penalty and focus more on fixing the problem with innocent people getting convicted. Those are two different issues. Prosecution and punishment. In my opinion, you don’t throw away the punishment just because people suck at the prosecution part. Fix that and keep the punishment."All you people...". I think I see where you're coming from. Are "all you people" who are for the death penalty vicious, angry, Unchristian haters?The system of prosecution certainly can improve. DNA testing has shown that there have been a lot of people wrongfully convicted for a variety of crimes, especially rape (since DNA-containing samples are generally kept as evidence). But it will never be close to perfect. And it is subjected to the winds of politics.People are working on examining the cases of people not on death row also. It's charity work. But that doesn't get to the crux of the problem. I just addresses the symptoms. The problem is basically political, and people who are concerned about the court system can't just flip a switch and change the political system. It's not like building a house.I am against the death penalty in general (if for no other reason than it is immoral), but the fact that so many innocent people are killed by the state slams the lid on the idea.In reply to:See, I look at this whole situation as the glass is half full. The fact is, no matter what way you look at it, the MAJORITY of people on death row are NOT innocent. Do I like killing innocent people? No. Do I know what ratio is acceptable? No. I don’t have all the answers. I have my opinion.There's no "right" answer to how many mistakes are acceptable. It's not a logic question. There is no "answer", as you define the word. But apparently a 49% error rate is acceptable to you.They kill innocent people--that's bad. The government kills innocent people (your father? brother? friend?)--that's fine. I hope you're not involved in the design of life support equipment. You have a low regard for human life. In reply to:It is becoming a nation where it is more enjoyable to live a life of crime. ...On one hand, there's your belief system. On the other hand, there's the reality-based world. The fact is that sentences are getting longer, and a lot more people are dying in prison than used to be the case. I hate to poison your ideology with facts, but did you read the NYT quote (from a long article) in my post above? Are you familiar with the three-strike system and sentencing guidelines that exist in most states?You have been watching way too much cable TV, because you appear to have the idea that crime is spiraling out of control in the U.S. It is not. Europe has had no death penalty for decades, but their murder rate is much lower than ours. How can this be?How many people have been executed in New Hampshire? Is the murder rate spiraling there? Every time it's examined, there is not a positive correlation between the death penalty and lower murder rates. So it all boils down to vengeance.In reply to:I bet you would find the people who complain about capital punishment probably 90% of them have had a brush with the law. I would like to point out, that isn’t fact. Just my guess.Talk about an ad hominem argument....I'll bet that that you're wrong. In fact, I'll bet that the people who are short on facts but shrill on the wonders of the death penalty sometimes have the violent personality component that makes it more likely (than the average person) that they will kill. Are they just overcompensationg?In reply to:I had assumed that this whole discussion was about capital punishment for people who are on death row for killing and such. I am not sure when or how punishing J-walkers and such is relevant to this discussion.The idea is that harsh sentences reduce crime. We don't like crime, so sentences for all offenses should be harsh. That's the hypothesis. But sometimes ideas can be taken in absurd directions.> All I can express are my views right now.No, no, no! You can read up on the subject, and not just go with your gut 100% of the time! You could have perused a lot of relevant information in the time it took you to read and compose posts in this thread. With the Web, factual data is now at your fingertips. No one can looke into your mind and argue with your opinions. But if you choose to express them, you'll make a better case if they're informed.The slippery slope argument that repealing the death penalty will lead to the end of the justice system is absurd. It hasn't happened in states that don't apply the death penalty (like yours). It hasn't happened in other countries that have no death penalty. The U.S. is of a like mind with Saudi Arabia and Syria in that regard. That should lead to some contemplation.Don't get the idea that people who are against the death penalty are soft on crime. I think someone who commits murder should be in jail for decades (depending on their circumstances, and if they're rehabilitated), or until they die (if they're not). "Against the death penalty" does not equal "soft on crime".
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We can't have no justice system because some innocents get wrongly accused.There is a justice system, the fact that there is no death penelty means that if somone is wrongly accused they have time to get out rather than saying oops we have new evidence but now hes dead. As SteveA pointed out the amount of wrongly conviced people on death row too high. Personaly I think being imprissioned for life is worse than the death penelty, I would take the noose to life imprisenment anyday. Since the killing is so humane its barely a punishment.
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In reply to:There's no way to make a death penalty system fair and equitable. It has never been done. It never will be done, because it can't be done. Sure it can. You take a life, you give up yours. The two choices everyone has is… 1) Don’t kill someone, and live your life as you see fit. Or, 2) Kill someone, and lose your life for doing it. Two simple choices. I know which one I would pick. Sounds like a pretty fair system to me. How can you say that is not fair? Seems to me only murderers would find that not fair. Have you killed someone? Is that why you are against the death penalty?In reply to:As far as rapid executions are concerned, the faster you do it, the more innocent people will die. The more slowly you do it, the more it will cost. So any way you slice it, you will be paying much more in taxes to execute people than you will to warehouse them until they die. That point, at least, should be beyond dispute.Actually, it can be disputed. I think we make it more expensive then it has to be. All you need it some rope and a stout tree. Or even a single bullet. How is that more expensive then taking care of them for the rest of their lives? Please help me with your fuzzy math.I am not worried about taking a little longer before killing them to make sure they are not too many innocents. But warehousing them, as you put it, for a while is still cheaper then doing it for the rest of their lives in your plan.In reply to: You wouldn't have commuted the sentences not because you're strong, but because you're ignorant of the facts. Actually, I was mainly being sarcastic with that whole statement. Guess you didn’t pick up on that. Without all the facts I couldn’t say what I would do. In reply to:The Illinois system is broken, as are all the others. It was noticed there because someone made the effort to look into it. In the time it took you to type your post, you could have learned all about the situation there. It took political courage to do what he did; if he was a weak governor, it wasn't in that department.What do you think I am a slow typist or something? It didn’t take me long at all to type my post. I am not writing a research paper here. I am not looking to do foot notes and cite my sources. I am just expressing my views. Those don’t typically need to be backed up. For example… I like the color blue. I don’t think I need to do research on that to prove to you why that is ok. It is just my opinion. As is with the death penalty, it is my opinion. Now if I was writing a paper on it, or was actually going to try to make changes, then yeah, I would look up more information.In reply to:The system of prosecution certainly can improve. DNA testing has shown that there have been a lot of people wrongfully convicted for a variety of crimes, especially rape (since DNA-containing samples are generally kept as evidence). But it will never be close to perfect. And it is subjected to the winds of politics.Many of the cases you speak of are a trial that took place before DNA testing was main stream. Now however, DNA testing is used during the trial if possible and not later. So in theory there should be less mistakes. Of course will always be some. I would also like to re-iterate that I am not for the death penalty for except for taking someone else’s life. Or even someone who has taken more than one life. Other crimes, such as rape, etc. they should spend the rest of their lives in prison where they can be raped by their cell mates to see what it is like.How is DNA testing subject to winds of politics?In reply to:I am against the death penalty in general (if for no other reason than it is immoral), but the fact that so many innocent people are killed by the state slams the lid on the idea.So what do you call the guy who murdered your mother, father or sister? Is he moral? Do you give him a treat and thank him? Murderers kill innocent people every day. Obviously you don’t care about them.You are really big on facts and research, why don’t you use the Internet and find out what the actual estimated innocents are on death row. The way you talk you make it sound like 80% of the people on death row are innocent. Oh yeah, and please, I don’t want the stats from Illinois. Get the whole country please. Lets chat when you have that info. And bring your sources to the table. I will check them.You made me think about a post you had about you bring on a long sabbatical. You wouldn’t by chance be writing to us from prison would you? Cause I would expect you to be biased at that point. Just curious.In reply to:But apparently a 49% error rate is acceptable to you.I re-read my post, and I don’t recall saying that, but hey, thanks for putting words in my mouth. I do however recall saying I don’t know what ratio would be acceptable. My guess is, it wouldn’t be 49%.In reply to:They kill innocent people--that's bad. The government kills innocent people (your father? brother? friend?)--that's fine. Am I correct that you are bring things like war into this discussion? If not, how are you referring to the government killing innocent people? If you are talking about innocent people on death row, well, as I said before, I am not going to talk more on this until you bring some actual numbers to backup how many are killed. Until we have real facts, it is pointless to argue about it. However, when the government kills someone as part of the justice system, then yeah, that is fine with me. If you can’t deal with that, then stop getting arrested and don’t kill anyone. Was that hard?In reply to:I hope you're not involved in the design of life support equipment. You have a low regard for human life. I have a low regard for murderers yes. I am not going to lose sleep over a small number of innocents that get caught in the system. And until proven to me otherwise, yes, I do believe that number is small. Without a real fact, you can't argue that it isn’t small either.In reply to:You have been watching way too much cable TV, because you appear to have the idea that crime is spiraling out of control in the U.S. You make me laugh. Where do you pull some of this stuff out of? In reply to:It is not. Europe has had no death penalty for decades, but their murder rate is much lower than ours. How can this be?Good for Europe. I don’t live there. They also don’t have the population that we do. In reply to:there is not a positive correlation between the death penalty and lower murder rates. So it all boils down to vengeance.First off, I don’t have any facts on the death penalty and lower murder rates. However, most likely the group that did the study on those was a group against the death penalty. You will be amazed at how any statistic and research can be made to support any idea. In fact, research has shown that 76.8% of statistics are made up.Second, who said vengeance was a bad thing? I didn’t.In reply to:Talk about an ad hominem argument....I'll bet that that you're wrong.Dude, I know I am wrong. I even said “I would like to point out, that isn’t fact.” In reply to:In fact, I'll bet that the people who are short on facts but shrill on the wonders of the death penalty sometimes have the violent personality component that makes it more likely (than the average person) that they will kill. Actually, beginning that statement with in fact kind of takes away from the whole thing. In reply to:Are they just overcompensationg?I dunno. Lets meet in a dark alley and see what happens. ;-pIn reply to:The idea is that harsh sentences reduce crime. We don't like crime, so sentences for all offenses should be harsh. That's the hypothesis. But sometimes ideas can be taken in absurd directions.Well, I am not sure about you, but I am only talking about the death penalty. If you want to talk about all other crime, we can go else where to do so. That is not this discussion.In reply to:No, no, no! You can read up on the subject, and not just go with your gut 100% of the time! You could have perused a lot of relevant information in the time it took you to read and compose posts in this thread. With the Web, factual data is now at your fingertips. Why? I work for a living. I have better things to do then research things so I can write to you. I am not going to get you to see things from my point of view then you are going to get me to see it from yours. So what would the point be? I am not that concerned with the subject.In reply to:No one can look into your mind and argue with your opinions. But if you choose to express them, you'll make a better case if they're informed.So why are you trying to then? I am not in court, I am not trying to prepare for a case. I am actually just enjoying a friendly talk with you on this subject.In reply to:The slippery slope argument that repealing the death penalty will lead to the end of the justice system is absurd. Who said that? I surely didn’t. But thanks for bringing it up though. So are you saying the opposite though? Will keeping the death penalty destroy civilization even with some innocents put to death? I don’t think so. In reply to:It hasn't happened in states that don't apply the death penalty (like yours).Just because I live in a state with no death penalty, doesn’t mean I agree with it.In reply to:Don't get the idea that people who are against the death penalty are soft on crime. I think someone who commits murder should be in jail for decades (depending on their circumstances, and if they're rehabilitated), or until they die (if they're not). "Against the death penalty" does not equal "soft on crime".Generally speaking, they ARE soft on crime. You may not be, but usually they are. They are the same ones who like it when a murderer has life in prison, but gets out after 10 years of good behavior. That is BS. If you guys don’t want them killed by the death penalty, then WTF are you letting them out on good behavior? Seems pretty soft to me.Oh well. Like you did with me, I bet your would be singing a different tune if it was someone you loved who was brutally murdered.
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There is a justice system, the fact that there is no death penelty means that if somone is wrongly accused they have time to get out rather than saying oops we have new evidence but now hes dead.
You're right, that does happen. That is why you give a certain amount of time before doing it. I am not saying take him from the trial to the noose. Lets stop blaming the death penalty for innocent people getting accused. That is a different problem that needs to be fixed. Whether we have the death penatly or not, innocent people get convicted. That isn't going away.
SteveA has said that it is high. I don't recall having any other source except his word. That doesn't really mean a whole lot to me. Do you always trust what a complete strangers says? If so, then I think you should send me all your money. It is for a good cause. :wink:
I am not really worried about what the criminal thinks. I just would sleep better knowing that there are some killers no longer on this planet.
Our legal system works both ways. Some innocent people get wrongly convicted. But we also have some murderers get off as well. Does that mean we should scrap the justice system? I think not. In my eyes, the majority of people put to death are correctly there. It saddens me to have to kill innocents, I don't like it. But I feel that it is the price you pay when you can't have a perfect system. Can the system be improved? Yes. But I don't think getting rid of the death penatly is the answer. Again, just my opinion.
