Death Penalty

Others here apparently don't.

The Bible does not equate executing the guilty with murdering the innocent. See Gen. 9:6 and Rom. 13:4.

For the record, I oppose capital punishment, but only because I think the risk of error and/or abuse is unacceptable and because life without parole is a suitable alternative. I don't think it is "unjust" to execute murderers; the penalty fits the crime.

 

quote: For the record, I oppose capital punishment, but only because I think the risk of error and/or abuse is unacceptable and because life without parole is a suitable alternative

We agree on that.

 

The death penalty can not be justified until it is used as a last resort. Only after every form of rehabilitation, real and experimental, has been exhausted can a violent and unrepenting individual be killed.

This is the only time that it is just. Even for christians.

 

Why should we put our society at risk to give murders and rapists a second chance? Huck is right, their victims don't get second chances. So neither should they. I think even allowing them the number of appeals they get is rediculous. I don't want my tax dollars going to feed and house murderers for the rest of their life. I am much more happy with my tax dollars going into their vein.

Maybe it sounds cold, very un-liberal and un-hippy like, but I don't care. Why should I care, especially since this killer didn't care about his victim's life?

I also think any murderer, after being convicted, should have to fight to convince a jury or judge of why he shouldn't get the death penalty, instead of prosecuters having to convince a judge of why he should.

 

Mistakes are made. The government has put innocent people to death...the system is invalid.

 

Well we sould give people under indictment the option to take some sort of absolute test. We have working on reading brain activity to tell if a person is lying or not. There are also truth serums of sorts.

Anyone have soem good numbers of the amount of innocent people put to death under the death penalty?

 

But remember, anyone who is sentenced is by a jury of your peers, so any mistakes that are made are brought to you by your local idiots.

 

I agree... there have been 117 exonerations since 1973. There are 5 very strong cases of people having been executed who were innocent.

I'm very strongly against the death penalty. It doesn't deter crime, juveniles are still sitting on death row in some states, and those sentenced to death often get terrible representation and the allegations of racism in are quite strong. With little to no deterrence in it's favor, I also think it's far too expensive a system.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/

 

from www.deathpenaltyinfo.org

[size=+1][/size]
[size=+1]Executed Despite Doubts About Guilt[/size]
There is no way to tell how many of the over 750 people executed since 1976 may also have been innocent. Courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead. Defense attorneys move on to other cases where clients' lives can still be saved. Some of those with strong claims include:

Roger Keith Coleman Virginia Conviction 1982 Executed 1992
Coleman was convicted of raping and murdering his sister-in-law in 1981, but both his trial and appeal were plagued by errors made by his attorneys. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the merits of his petition because his state appeal had been filed one day late. Considerable evidence was developed after the trial to refute the state's evidence, and that evidence might well have produced a different result at a re-trial. Governor Wilder considered a commutation for Coleman, but allowed him to be executed when Coleman failed a lie detector test on the day of his execution.

Joseph O'Dell Virginia Conviction 1986 Executed 1997
New DNA blood evidence has thrown considerable doubt on the murder and rape conviction of O'Dell. In reviewing his case in 1991, three Supreme Court Justices, said they had doubts about O'Dell's guilt and whether he should have been allowed to represent himself. Without the blood evidence, there is little linking O'Dell to the crime. In September, 1996, the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated his death sentence and upheld his conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review O'Dell's claims of innocence and held that its decision regarding juries being told about the alternative sentence of life-without-parole was not retroactive to his case. O'Dell asked the state to conduct DNA tests on other pieces of evidence to demonstrate his innocence but was refused. He was executed on July 23rd.

David Spence Texas Conviction 1984 Executed 1997
Spence was charged with murdering three teenagers in 1982. He was allegedly hired by a convenience store owner to kill another girl, and killed these victims by mistake. The convenience store owner, Muneer Deeb, was originally convicted and sentenced to death, but then was acquitted at a re-trial. The police lieutenant who supervised the investigation of Spence, Marvin Horton, later concluded: "I do not think David Spence committed this crime." Ramon Salinas, the homicide detective who actually conducted the investigation, said: "My opinion is that David Spence was innocent. Nothing from the investigation ever led us to any evidence that he was involved." No physical evidence connected Spence to the crime. The case against Spence was pursued by a zealous narcotics cop who relied on testimony of prison inmates who were granted favors in return for testimony.

Leo Jones Florida Convicted 1981 Executed 1998
Jones was convicted of murdering a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida. Jones signed a confession after several hours of police interrogation, but he later claimed the confession was coerced. In the mid-1980s, the policeman who arrested Jones and the detective who took his confession were forced out of uniform for ethical violations. The policeman was later identified by a fellow officer as an "enforcer" who had used torture. Many witnesses came forward pointing to another suspect in the case.

Gary Graham Texas Convicted 1981 Executed 2000
On June 23, 2000, Gary Graham was executed in Texas, despite claims that he was innocent. Graham was 17 when he was charged with the 1981 robbery and shooting of Bobby Lambert outside a Houston supermarket. He was convicted primarily on the testimony of one witness, Bernadine Skillern, who said she saw the killer's face for a few seconds through her car windshield, from a distance of 30 -40 feet away. Two other witnesses, both who worked at the grocery store and said they got a good look at the assailant, said Graham was not the killer but were never interviewed by Graham's court appointed attorney, Ronald Mock, and were not called to testify at trial. Three of the jurors who voted to convict Graham signed affidavits saying they would have voted differently had all of the evidence been available.

 

It is wrong.

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

So what do we do differently? How do we punish them without burdening our citizens?

I think it is terrible that taxpayers have to foot the bill to care for members in our society that have done this kind of damage to us.

I don't want innocent people put to death either, but no more than I wan't to put a roof over the head, and food in the mouth of a murderer.

 

quote: I think it is terrible that taxpayers have to foot the bill to care for members in our society that have done this kind of damage to us.

I'm sure you have heard that it costs more to execute someone than put them in prison for life....I suppose you could limit the appeals process to trim cost..and ensure that more innocents are likely to be killed by the government.

 

As the system is right now, it's more expensive to execute them than it is to house them for the rest of their lives without parole. With a complete judicial overhaul, I'd probably be for the death penalty; but there's just way too much wrong with our system right now. The first step, as proposed by some professors for the Texas Law Review, is to create an independent judicial review committee to ensure that the defendent has received Habeaus Corpus. When you have a appeals courts upholding the verdict of a jury when the defendent's lawyer slept through the trial; something's got to be wrong. Of course the jury's going to find him guilty if no defense is given!

http://schr.org/reports/docs/texas.pdf

 

Once they've been proven guilty, fry those sonsa bitches.

 

Well said! Economic arguments for capital punishment are untenable.

 

I think people are kept on death row for way to long sometimes. People shouldn't be on death row untill the point they're about to die from old age, there should be something like a 10 year limit on how long you can be on there before the execution in case anything new in the case comes up.

 

I understand that right now it is more economic to keep a murderer in jail for his lifetime than to give him the death penalty, but that is a problem that should be changed. It shouldn't be an excuse to continue to keep the system the way it is.

I am a major advocate of reform of the entire system...We need it pretty damn bad. There are too many people going to jail that shouldn't, and too many people getting away with murder...

 

The good ol USA leads the world in the execution of children (child as defined by those under the age of 18). The only other countries that execute minors are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and Yemen.

 

hi there

im not for any murder be it innocent or guilty..

i believe the system of any country with class divide
will create crime of various levels...

but we never look to changing the way humans live , to helping the world to be a shared place. so crime is allowed to continue.therefor
the governments then believe its their right to create a system
to deal with the humans who create crime...who have to create crime
with all they see in this world..sorry but all humans have a reason for all they do guilty or not treat the problem end crime ...

if we gave the people all over the world a better
way of living ,a good life,long and full
crime may only be a word remembered from a system
that allows governements like blairs and bush
to promote actions of crime by letting half the world
starve half the world run from war and the other half
watch,...this is crime and maybe we should
look to a new system ..
open your minds crime is born from the terrible structure of class.

and a healthy mind and body
gives a healthy living standard...no need for crime.

those who feel other wise ,try looking at the way we live
and look past the crime look to where it first let the seed
grow.....

from the lack of real caring ,the lack of a life of love
the lack of understanding

thank you
love n peace from saff

no we should not fry someone just because
they had problems and found a outlet ,ie crime
treat this and see a difference
help those who need it
ie
homeless people, illness of the mind. better schooling
better wages..better work enviroments..better health care
improve living standards world wide for once .give us life.....

this is all we need to do
but we have to many fat cats who believe this
world needs jails,places to lock away our humans
who need more help than most...

but hay humans who kill, who rape who steal........

find the root of these problems solve the crime rates...

and stop killing in wars too.......

it all the same murder.......

 

I would accept gen. pop. as a compromise for these serial killers and habitual child molesters. Or just announce the time, date, and location, and set them free. Wash their hands of them, so to speak.
I did not read one comment on the idea I propose of only carrying out capital punishment for two first degree murder convictions.
I feel this would virtually eliminate the 'innocent' executed problem.
I do not agree with punishment, and feel jail is not meant to punish, it is meant to keep these people away from you and me as long as possible.
Rehabilitation is also not the purpose of jails, in my view.
But I hear many speak about punishing the offenders, which I do not agree with. Help those who are reasonably able to be helped, and as for the ones I point out above, I feel they are beyond reasonable help. So, humanely, and cheaply end their miserable excuse for a life, and I will sleep better.