Shame on US capital punishment

[Booko]

However, even that is something that is an American slogan (and I use that term loosely), that is still not the problem. The problem is that they're putting the wrong people behind bars.

Yeah, if you steal $10 from the local convenience store you get 10 years. If you rip off the life savings of thousands, you get slapped on the wrist (Enron, anyone?).

Kinda teaches potential criminals that if you're going to steal, steal big, doesn't it?

 

[Reverend Rick]

I find it amazing that people who have a problem with capital punishment have no problem at all with abortion.

 

[Mister_T]

Yeah, if you steal $10 from the local convenience store you get 10 years. If you rip off the life savings of thousands, you get slapped on the wrist (Enron, anyone?).

Kinda teaches potential criminals that if you're going to steal, steal big, doesn't it?

Tell me about it.

Or how about the 18 year old who goes to jail for 5-10 years for having sex with a 17 year old? Does that 18 year old really belong in jail? Seems like a waste of government resources to me.

On the other side of the coin, they let people out of jail that they shouldn't. Like in that article I posted earlier. Seems screwy to me.

 

[mr.guy]

The penal system is repsonsible for not containing a threat to society. If people (like the six year old boy in that article) are harmed or killed due to their irresponsibilty, then they need to pay for it.

By what barometer?

I would be scared if the legal system started to make claims that it could absolutely insure who would and wouldn't commit crimes.

Personally, i forgive people all the time for their lacking omniscience.

I've never heard of Americans being quoted as saying that "they're not enough people behind bars."

Really? Abroad, americans are renown for "arresting" problems away.

However, even that is something that is an American slogan (and I use that term loosely), that is still not the problem. The problem is that they're putting the wrong people behind bars.

Similarly, wouldn't executing the wrong people be big worry?

 

[mr.guy]

I find it amazing that people who have a problem with capital punishment have no problem at all with abortion.

I find it amazing that people with little perspective equate the two. Please demonstrate how the abortion and capital punishment closely resemble each other in principle and intended goals.

I mean, obviously anyone who's flirted with the concept of pro-choice is well aware that babies deserve to be killed, no?

 

[Mister_T]

Personally, i forgive people all the time for their lacking omniscience.

It's hard for people to be forgiving when someone rapes and murders their child. I'm going to assume that you've never experienced such a thing.

Really? Abroad, americans are renown for "arresting" problems away.

I was surprised at the amount of things Americans are supposedly renown for when I was overseas. It made me shake my head with dissapointment.

Similarly, wouldn't executing the wrong people be big worry?

That is definitely a concern. But with the current technology of DNA testing and forensics, such a thing rarely happens.

Besides, people are talking like the U.S. executes people every weekend or something. Capital punishment isn't carried out very often.

 

[Fragmentia]

Sorry for more questions, but i'm afraid you've granted me far too much credit regarding my knowledge of the american penal system. How long, on average, does an inmate sit on death row?

Typically, the United States will admit, more than a decade.
Some, well over 20 years.
(I'm unable to provide a URL reference here, but google allows you to find state by state lists of inmates, careful and thorough navigation of such sites can uncover actual numbers)
The stats are difficult to locate, so I can't tell you about the longest wait in history, but what I can tell you, (since Texas has a law which demands that all the offender information of any death row inmate be public information) is that in Texas, the inmate that has been waiting on their execution the longest is named Ronald Chambers. The date of offense was April 11th, 1975, and he was incarcerated and sentenced on January 8th, 1976. At 21 years of age. He is now 52.
Texas also has the second-to-highest death row population, next to Florida, of course.

Number of Inmates on Death Row in the United States as of January 1st 2007?
3,350

If you manage to find yourself a bar graph of death row population by year, you will notice it goes up dramatically as time passes.


Effective, I don't know about. What I can remark upon is the fact that after approximately 15 years, a death row inmate will typically give up their appeals and request the next available execution date. They are sometimes not even given this option. And yes, at the end of it, they ARE dead.
This sounds like more of a life sentence than "sentenced to life in prison", don't you think?

 

[Booko]

Tell me about it.

Or how about the 18 year old who goes to jail for 5-10 years for having sex with a 17 year old? Does that 18 year old really belong in jail? Seems like a waste of government resources to me.

Considering that's in my home state, you can imagine how much that gets talked about here. That and, for some odd reason :sarcastic one must wonder if the kid was a suburban white boy he wouldn't have ended up in prison in the first place. (Remember all the shenanigans going on in Rockdale County? None of those kids were sent to the pokey for years for giving someone a consentual bj. sheesh

And yeah, I'm amazed our State Legislature couldn't be bothered to take up this case for the whole 5 seconds it would've taken to free this kid and put someone actually dangerous in his place.

On the other side of the coin, they let people out of jail that they shouldn't. Like in that article I posted earlier. Seems screwy to me.

I would never expect the legal system to be perfect, since it's still run by humans, but sheesh, it does seem to be pretty broken in some obvious ways.

But then, I've mused lately that there seems to be a great falling off of common sense in many areas of gov't of late. (sippy cup terrorists? honestly!)

It all reminds me of Heinlein's definition of "committee":

"A life form with six or more legs and no brain."

Sounds rather like much of our gov't these days.

 

[Booko]

Really? Abroad, americans are renown for "arresting" problems away.

Hm, I thought we were better known for declaring "war" on problems, as if that would provide a solution. (War on Drugs, anyone?)

Similarly, wouldn't executing the wrong people be big worry?

I'd think that would be the bigger worry.

 

[Fragmentia]

I mean, obviously anyone who's flirted with the concept of pro-choice is well aware that babies deserve to be killed, no?

Unfortunately, Mr Guy, I think you missed the point entirely.
The hypocrisy being objected to was that they are NOT equivalent concepts, and yet both entail the end of a life against one's will.
Given, babies don't get to defend their human rights, nor did they do anything to provoke being killed off. So they are evidently very different issues.
I think what was being demonstrated was that one who is opposed to the death penalty is generally supportive of the "right to life", hence, is not expected to "flirt with the concept of pro-choice".
Not that I think the original statement was valid, nor backed up at all, but the two dilemmas were not equated. It is the difference between them that makes it difficult to discern an activist's intent when opposed to one but not the other.

 

[Booko]

It's hard for people to be forgiving when someone rapes and murders their child. I'm going to assume that you've never experienced such a thing.

It may be hard for the victim, but are we talking about justice or retribution here?

Obviously society should protect itself, but I don't see capital punishment as a requirement to do so. Lifetime incarceration serves the same purpose.

I was surprised at the amount of things Americans are supposedly renown for when I was overseas. It made me shake my head with dissapointment.

I've had people ask me how many guns I owned (none), how many horses I had (zip), and assume that my house was palatial (when their home was larger than mine).

That is definitely a concern. But with the current technology of DNA testing and forensics, such a thing rarely happens.

Mr. T, this assumes there is forensic evidence that would allow for DNA testing. There are still people convicted where no DNA evidence is available.

Besides, people are talking like the U.S. executes people every weekend or something. Capital punishment isn't carried out very often.

And in some states, it never happens and never has.

I find it amusing to be criticized for living in a country that practices capital punishment in SOME places, by those living in countries that used to practice capital punishment EVERYWHERE.

I grew up in Michigan, and quite possibly will retire there, and capital punishment has never been the law there.

Which European country can say that about their history, even in just one county?

Don't brag so loudly about how you don't have capital punishment, folks. The U.S. has it not in some places because *we learned it from YOU when our continent was being settled*

It took YOU millenia to figure it out. We're only a couple of centuries old. We'll figure it out eventually as well.

In the meantime, you'd be better off to encourage us to give it up as a pointless exercise in curelty rather than crowing self-righteously now that you figured it out.

It's a tradition we got from you, after all.

Oh...except for the states that (thanks to Jefferson) broke with the European tradition and never had it in the first place...

 

[Mister_T]

It may be hard for the victim, but are we talking about justice or retribution here?

Obviously society should protect itself, but I don't see capital punishment as a requirement to do so. Lifetime incarceration serves the same purpose.

I sympathize with the victim's families. It seems that people don't take the emotions they might feel into consideration as I was pointing out to Mr. Guy. Also, how many slips do we let get by before people finally have enough? Many people consider the lives of children more valuable than the lives of child molesters.

I've had people ask me how many guns I owned (none), how many horses I had (zip), and assume that my house was palatial (when their home was larger than mine).

For me it was "What movie stars do you see on a daily basis," "How many bedrooms is your mansion," "You mean you don't like President Bush and support the war," and my favorite "Wow...you Americans are crazy (as they watch back to back episodes of Jerry Springer)"

Mr. T, this assumes there is forensic evidence that would allow for DNA testing. There are still people convicted where no DNA evidence is available.

Nor did I say that it was always used. But DNA testing has cut the number of wrongly convicted down dramtically....making wrong convictions even more rare.

And in some states, it never happens and never has.

I find it amusing to be criticized for living in a country that practices capital punishment in SOME places, by those living in countries that used to practice capital punishment EVERYWHERE.

I grew up in Michigan, and quite possibly will retire there, and capital punishment has never been the law there.

Which European country can say that about their history, even in just one county?

Don't brag so loudly about how you don't have capital punishment, folks. The U.S. has it not in some places because *we learned it from YOU when our continent was being settled*

It took YOU millenia to figure it out. We're only a couple of centuries old. We'll figure it out eventually as well.

In the meantime, you'd be better off to encourage us to give it up as a pointless exercise in curelty rather than crowing self-righteously now that you figured it out.

It's a tradition we got from you, after all.

Oh...except for the states that (thanks to Jefferson) broke with the European tradition and never had it in the first place...

Well stated :clap

 

[kadzbiz]

Of the many millions of people who have turned out to cheer at public hangings, how many do you suppose were victims, the brothers or sisters, the parents, or children of a victim?

I didn't say they were. Don't turn my statement around.

The only problem I have with the death penalty is that there are numerous examples of people who have been proven innocent later after receiving the death sentence .....what kind of death did their did their victims get? .....

Yes, I've got no problem with CP if the offender is recalcitrant, observed committing the offence (ie. no dispute to guilt), and/or they made full admissions. And keep it simple. One bullet doesn't cost much.

If you are a serial killer, a serial rapist, or a child molester I think the state has the responsibility to end your threat to society, permanently.

Absolutely.

Doesn't a lifetime behind bars without the possibility of parole solve this problem?

No, it costs the community a great deal of money that could be used to assist the victims of crime.

Some of us are, and still don't believe in it. Especially in the obvious lopsided way in which it's applied. I could see my way, maybe, to capital punishment for something as major as, say, the Oklahoma City bombing. Not much else. I think it unlikely I will ever be allowed to sit on a jury panel in a capital case.

Sorry to hear you are in the victim associated group. I don't know your situation of course, but when I see things like a guy in his 30's pull an 8 yo girl into a toilet of a mall, rape her and mutilate her to death, then casually walk out of that toilet and hang around to watch the cops attend to the matter, I have no negative feelings at all to him being put to death.

 

[Yerda]

I didn't say they were. Don't turn my statement around.

Eh?

Anyway, it should be clear that many (by many I mean the incredibly vast majority) supporters (believers) of capital punishment have never been the victim, the brother or sister of a victim, the father or mother of a victim, the son or daughter of a victim (and so on) who suffered a horrendous barbaric act of a recalcitrant offender.

 

[kadzbiz]

Eh?

Anyway, it should be clear that many (by many I mean the incredibly vast majority) supporters (believers) of capital punishment have never been the victim, the brother or sister of a victim, the father or mother of a victim, the son or daughter of a victim (and so on) who suffered a horrendous barbaric act of a recalcitrant offender.

Jaiket, I'm talking about people who are not for CP, not for those that are. I'm not a victim as per my description, but I'm a supporter. And Booko made an opposite post, but I commented to that too.

 

[McBell]

Typically, the United States will admit, more than a decade.
Some, well over 20 years.
(I'm unable to provide a URL reference here, but google allows you to find state by state lists of inmates, careful and thorough navigation of such sites can uncover actual numbers)
The stats are difficult to locate, so I can't tell you about the longest wait in history, but what I can tell you, (since Texas has a law which demands that all the offender information of any death row inmate be public information) is that in Texas, the inmate that has been waiting on their execution the longest is named Ronald Chambers. The date of offense was April 11th, 1975, and he was incarcerated and sentenced on January 8th, 1976. At 21 years of age. He is now 52.
Texas also has the second-to-highest death row population, next to Florida, of course.

Number of Inmates on Death Row in the United States as of January 1st 2007?
3,350

If you manage to find yourself a bar graph of death row population by year, you will notice it goes up dramatically as time passes.


Effective, I don't know about. What I can remark upon is the fact that after approximately 15 years, a death row inmate will typically give up their appeals and request the next available execution date. They are sometimes not even given this option. And yes, at the end of it, they ARE dead.
This sounds like more of a life sentence than "sentenced to life in prison", don't you think?

Death row inmates in the U.S. typically spend over a decade awaiting execution. Some prisoners have been on death row for well over 20 years.

 

[kadzbiz]

Death row inmates in the U.S. typically spend over a decade awaiting execution. Some prisoners have been on death row for well over 20 years.

Well this is just insane and blows away my point of wasting money housing prisoners.

 

[Fragmentia]

Thanks for the reference, Mestemia. I don't think I've been around here long enough to put up links.
Your support is appreciated.

 

[rojse]

I have a question for those that support capital punishment. Imagine if we could rehabilitate a capital offender so that the offender would not be able to commit their crime again, through mental conditioning or sexual suppressants or however we manage to solve their problem. Would this be a moral thing to do? Would those that agree to capital punishment put an end to their support? Why or why not?

 

[kadzbiz]

I have a question for those that support capital punishment. Imagine if we could rehabilitate a capital offender so that the offender would not be able to commit their crime again, through mental conditioning or sexual suppressants or however we manage to solve their problem. Would this be a moral thing to do? Would those that agree to capital punishment put an end to their support? Why or why not?

Good question Rojse, but why should we give such a person another chance to enter society? You want to spend all this time, money and effort on such a person when there are much more other deserving people in the world who are more in need of medical services who don't even get the chance to have their lives improved.

If there was a way to isolate these offenders on an island somewhere without the opportunity to re-enter regular society and not cost any community money, then maybe, maybe I would allow them to live amongst themselves and perhaps redeem their souls there and answer to God if you believe in Him, otherwise if you don't, well, then we just don't want these sorts of people in the world we occupy. They have no value to anyone, unless you talked about using them in some studyable fashion, which is then probably not moral, but having said that, do we care? Maybe that can be part of their punishment? This can get really deep.

Simply answer - no.