The Death Penalty

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'll tell you what the difference is... if we wait 40 years, he's taking up 40 years worth of space in that prison cell...

"With swelling prison populations cutting into state budgets, lawmakers are exploring ways to ease overcrowding beyond building expensive new correctional facilities.

Though the construction of prisons continues as states struggle to provide enough beds for those behind bars, legislators increasingly are looking at other ways to free up space and save money, including expanded programs to help prevent offenders from being incarcerated again, earlier release dates for low-risk inmates and sentencing revisions."

This was last year.

Did you read my previous post? Death row inmates make up less than two tenths of one percent of the US prison population. They are not the driving force in prison overcrowding.

A man in prison has no freedom... serving a life sentence, he's basically a dead man walking.

You tell me what the difference is between a death sentence and a life sentence, other than time.

One that comes right to mind that may matter to some religious people is repentence: if you're dead, you can't be driven by remorse to atone for your crimes (however you think that happens). In many religious traditions, once you die, you can't ever redeem yourself to whatever God you believe in.

But if there is no difference, why your insistence on offing the guy?

Here's one for you: take a person who has committed a capital crime, but has been found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. As a danger to himself and others, he's confined to a high-security psychiatric hospital where he will live out the rest of his life. He is just as much a threat (if not more so) to those around him as any death row inmate, and has no more freedom than a person in a maximum security prison.

The way the law is now, his mental disorder would preclude him from being executed. At present, despite all the issues that you describe being present in him, the fact that he lacked intent when he committed his crime is enough to spare his life.

If the issues at hand were actually as you present them, why shouldn't he be killed like any other capital criminal?

 

[Poisonshady313]

Did you read my previous post? Death row inmates make up less than two tenths of one percent of the US prison population. They are not the driving force in prison overcrowding.

You haven't taken into account the people who should be on death row but aren't. Death row isn't what's overcrowding... prisons in general are.

One that comes right to mind that may matter to some religious people is repentence: if you're dead, you can't be driven by remorse to atone for your crimes (however you think that happens). In many religious traditions, once you die, you can't ever redeem yourself to whatever God you believe in.

If getting into heaven means that much to them... they probably belong to a faith system that allows them to repent any time before death... including just before death, which is why executions usually have a clergyman present.

But if there is no difference, why your insistence on offing the guy?

Because I shouldn't have to pay for him to live for the next 40 years, while he's busy not working or paying taxes.

Here's one for you: take a person who has committed a capital crime, but has been found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. As a danger to himself and others, he's confined to a high-security psychiatric hospital where he will live out the rest of his life. He is just as much a threat (if not more so) to those around him as any death row inmate, and has no more freedom than a person in a maximum security prison.

The way the law is now, his mental disorder would preclude him from being executed. At present, despite all the issues that you describe being present in him, the fact that he lacked intent when he committed his crime is enough to spare his life.

If the issues at hand were actually as you present them, why shouldn't he be killed like any other capital criminal?

You just said it: the fact that he lacked intent when he committed his crime is enough to spare his life.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You haven't taken into account the people who should be on death row but aren't. Death row isn't what's overcrowding... prisons in general are.

Are you talking about people sentenced to death who are living in the general prison population, or the people who have received non-capital sentences who you think need killing?

If getting into heaven means that much to them... they probably belong to a faith system that allows them to repent any time before death... including just before death, which is why executions usually have a clergyman present.

Some people repent when death is at hand, others need years of reflection or some chance life event... and the more opportunity you allow for this, the more likely it is to happen.

Also, keeping the guy alive provides the opportunity for other positive things:

- it provides the ability for appeal, and if successful, release. Imprisoning an innocent person for a few decades is a horrible thing, but executing an innocent person is even worse. In the real world, sometimes the wrong person gets convicted. The harm associated with a wrongful prison sentence is less than the harm associated with a wrongful execution.

- it allows the convict to do some measure of good. There are some roles that inmates sometimes perform if they're suitable: if the prison administration considers a convicted murderer to be able to perform counseling or job training duties for people who will eventuall see release, killing the murderer prevents this from happening.

- it provides a measure of support for others. A death row inmate may have a family; killing that inmate means depriving the inmate's children of a parent... admittedly a parent who they'd only see infrequently, but still a parent. It exacts an even greater cost on people who have done nothing wrong.

Because I shouldn't have to pay for him to live for the next 40 years, while he's busy not working or paying taxes.

He's also not out wearing down the roads, using your public library or partaking of many of the other services that your tax dollars would otherwise pay for.

You just said it: the fact that he lacked intent when he committed his crime is enough to spare his life.

So then overcrowding, cost to the taxpayers, danger to fellow inmates, or the quality of life of the convict aren't really the issue then, are they?

 

[Poisonshady313]

Are you talking about people sentenced to death who are living in the general prison population, or the people who have received non-capital sentences who you think need killing?


Some people repent when death is at hand, others need years of reflection or some chance life event... and the more opportunity you allow for this, the more likely it is to happen.

Also, keeping the guy alive provides the opportunity for other positive things:

- it provides the ability for appeal, and if successful, release. Imprisoning an innocent person for a few decades is a horrible thing, but executing an innocent person is even worse. In the real world, sometimes the wrong person gets convicted. The harm associated with a wrongful prison sentence is less than the harm associated with a wrongful execution.

- it allows the convict to do some measure of good. There are some roles that inmates sometimes perform if they're suitable: if the prison administration considers a convicted murderer to be able to perform counseling or job training duties for people who will eventuall see release, killing the murderer prevents this from happening.

- it provides a measure of support for others. A death row inmate may have a family; killing that inmate means depriving the inmate's children of a parent... admittedly a parent who they'd only see infrequently, but still a parent. It exacts an even greater cost on people who have done nothing wrong.


He's also not out wearing down the roads, using your public library or partaking of many of the other services that your tax dollars would otherwise pay for.


So then overcrowding, cost to the taxpayers, danger to fellow inmates, or the quality of life of the convict aren't really the issue then, are they?

No individual part of the matter is equal to the whole. I don't know what makes you think i'm so black/white about this.

Overcrowding is a factor. This does not mean we should be executing people who committed the crime without intent... (as being without intent makes it cease to be a capital crime)... it means we should be executing more people who are guilty of capital crimes.

As for the quality of life of the convict, that squarely has to do with people defining the death penalty as cruel. In my opinion, a death sentence is no more cruel than a life sentence... the only difference to me is where the next factor comes in... cost to the taxpayers.

I would prefer that law abiding citizens use roads and libraries than to pay for three meals a day for someone who murdered and dismembered his family.

Danger to fellow inmates/prison guards goes to show that life in prison doesn't mean a person in prison is no longer a threat... and that when murder occurs in prison, slapping on an additional life sentence is an empty gesture that serves only to waste paper and ink. It shows that within prison walls, prisoners truly can get away with murder.

Simply put, the court rejected New York State law as unconstitutional and, as a result, Lemuel Warren Smith avoided his date with the electric chair. He was later re-sentenced to an additional life term.

By declaring the death penalty statute unconstitutional, as it applies to lifers in prison, the court placed prison staff in a very uncomfortable position. Many correction officers were vociferous in their opposition to this controversial ruling. If a lifer inmate wanted to kill a guard, what penalty could he suffer? What would be the deterrent? He was already doing life and had nothing to lose. At his sentencing hearing on June 10, 1983, Lemuel Smith put his feelings on record.


"I got so much time they can't do nothing to me," he said. "Think about it. If I wanted some sex, I could rape, I could sodomize. They can't do nothing to me!"

 

[Poisonshady313]

Are you talking about people sentenced to death who are living in the general prison population, or the people who have received non-capital sentences who you think need killing?

people who have received non-capital sentences who I think need killing (because they plead guilty to lesser crimes despite what they had actually done, or because that state doesn't have a death penalty statute)

Also, keeping the guy alive provides the opportunity for other positive things:

- it provides the ability for appeal, and if successful, release. Imprisoning an innocent person for a few decades is a horrible thing, but executing an innocent person is even worse. In the real world, sometimes the wrong person gets convicted. The harm associated with a wrongful prison sentence is less than the harm associated with a wrongful execution.

And when a person exhausts his appeals, and it's clear that the court was correct in imprisoning someone for a capital crime, the next logical step is execution.

- it allows the convict to do some measure of good. There are some roles that inmates sometimes perform if they're suitable: if the prison administration considers a convicted murderer to be able to perform counseling or job training duties for people who will eventuall see release, killing the murderer prevents this from happening.

Prisons have counselors. That is, counselors that aren't inmates.

- it provides a measure of support for others. A death row inmate may have a family; killing that inmate means depriving the inmate's children of a parent... admittedly a parent who they'd only see infrequently, but still a parent. It exacts an even greater cost on people who have done nothing wrong.

The person being executed did that to his own family.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I would prefer that law abiding citizens use roads and libraries than to pay for three meals a day for someone who murdered and dismembered his family.

Yes, but you do realize that a person, any person, who would otherwise be a demand on your municipal services who isn't there represents a tax savings (or at the very least, a freeing of your tax money to be spent on other things of value), right?

My point is that the net cost of an inmate isn't just the direct cost of his incarceration, but there's also a savings caused by all the services he would be otherwise using but isn't.

Danger to fellow inmates/prison guards goes to show that life in prison doesn't mean a person in prison is no longer a threat... and that when murder occurs in prison, slapping on an additional life sentence is an empty gesture that serves only to waste paper and ink. It shows that within prison walls, prisoners truly can get away with murder.

If your argument actually reflects the reality of the situation, one would expect to see that in places without the death penalty, people serving life sentences without parole would be much more likely than other inmates to commit offenses while in prison.

I await data to back up your claim. If you're right, it should be a simple matter for you to support it.

Simply put, the court rejected New York State law as unconstitutional and, as a result, Lemuel Warren Smith avoided his date with the electric chair. He was later re-sentenced to an additional life term.

By declaring the death penalty statute unconstitutional, as it applies to lifers in prison, the court placed prison staff in a very uncomfortable position. Many correction officers were vociferous in their opposition to this controversial ruling. If a lifer inmate wanted to kill a guard, what penalty could he suffer? What would be the deterrent? He was already doing life and had nothing to lose. At his sentencing hearing on June 10, 1983, Lemuel Smith put his feelings on record.


"I got so much time they can't do nothing to me," he said. "Think about it. If I wanted some sex, I could rape, I could sodomize. They can't do nothing to me!"

There are other means of control of prisoners besides sentencing.

For instance, a few years ago, a story made the local paper describing how it was an "outrage" that prison staff were giving the inmates pizza delivered from a local pizza place one night a week... however, the staff later explained that this was actually a means to control prisoners: if an inmate misbehaved, he wouldn't get pizza. A few bucks per inmate once a week helped prevent incidents between prisoners and kept the prison and guards much safer than they would have been otherwise.

This idea can be used in all sorts of ways: life in prison without parole, but with privileges (whatever they are) is more appealing than life in prison without them. You can still exercise control, even when you've maxed out the person's sentence.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

people who have received non-capital sentences who I think need killing (because they plead guilty to lesser crimes despite what they had actually done, or because that state doesn't have a death penalty statute)

Ah. So it's people that either the prosecutors or the people of the state saw fit not to kill, but you think they should die anyway. Right.

If we're playing that game, how about we exclude all the people I think shouldn't be in prison at all from the prison population stats, and pretend like there's no overcrowding problem at all?

And when a person exhausts his appeals, and it's clear that the court was correct in imprisoning someone for a capital crime, the next logical step is execution.

Even after a long passage of time, sometimes the court can be found wrong. Case in point: Steven Truscott. He was sentenced to death by hanging in 1959, but Canada abolished the death penalty in 1960. His conviction wasn't overturned until 2007.

Prisons have counselors. That is, counselors that aren't inmates.

Prisoners do fill roles in the prison that do do good.

The person being executed did that to his own family.

Only if the death penalty is the only option open to the judge and jury. In the US justice system, it never is.

 

[Poisonshady313]

Only if the death penalty is the only option open to the judge and jury. In the US justice system, it never is.

WILLIAM EARL LYND
May 6, 2008

Lynd was executed for murdering his ex-girlfriend almost 20 years ago.

Two days before Christmas 1988, Lynd shot his live-in girlfriend in the face during an argument at their home. The woman regained consciousness, followed Lynd outside, and he shot her again. Lynd then put the woman in the trunk of a car and drove away.

At trial, prosecutors argued the woman was still alive when Lynd put her in the trunk. According to testimony, Lynd heard a thumping sound, got out, opened the trunk and shot her a third time, killing her. Lynd later buried the body in a shallow grave.

He then drove to Ohio, where he shot a 42-year old woman who told police about the shooting before she died. Lynd was arrested a week later, confessed and helped police find the woman’s buried body.


Because of his actions, two women are dead, and now a sister lost a brother. I don't blame the state of Georgia. I blame William Earl Lynd.

 

[Poisonshady313]

MICHAEL WAYNE RICHARD
September 25, 2007

Richard was executed for killing a Harris County woman in 1986.

Two months after he had been paroled from prison, Michael Richard approached the vitim's son in front of the their home and asked if a yellow van parked outside the home was for sale.

The man said the vehicle belonged to his brother who was out of town and suggested that Richard come back another time. Richard left. When the victim's son and daughter left a few minutes later, Richard returned and entered the house. He took two television sets and put them in the yellow van, sexually assaulted the victim and shot her in the head with a .25 caliber automatic pistol.

Richard traded the two televisions for cocaine.

Richard admitted he was involved in the murder and offered to help find the murder weapon. Police found the weapon and testing revealed it to be the gun that fired the fatal shot.


Are you truly bothered by the fact that this guy was put to death?
You would prefer this guy work as a job counselor in prison?

 

[Poisonshady313]

CLIFFORD ALLAN KIMMEL
September 20, 2007
Kimmel was executed for his part in a triple slaying.

Two of his victims were injected with cleaning fluid before they were fatally stabbed.

Kimmel and accomplice Derrick Murphy went to the apartment of a acquaintance, a 22-year-old exotic dancer, and asked to use the phone. The pair had lurked outside her apartment for about five hours. Murphy entered the apartment and pointed a gun at the woman and her two guests.

After tying up the victims’ hands with rope, Murphy took the woman into the bathroom and demanded to know where she kept her money. When she resisted, Kimmel injected her in the arm with a syringe containing cleaning fluid. Murphy then smothered her with a pillow until she stopped thrashing, and then he cut her neck.

Kimmel then injected the male guest with cleaning fluid. When he attempted to run for the front door, Kimmel and Murphy tackled him and Kimmel stabbed him in the chest. Murphy took the knife from Kimmel, cut the man’s throat, and stabbed him multiple times while Kimmel held his legs. Murphy then stabbed the female guest.

Kimmel and Murphy then returned to the bathroom where the woman was still alive on the floor gasping for air, and carried her from the bathroom into the bedroom. According to Kimmel, she pleaded with him, “Help me, Clifford, I’m dying. Why are you doing this?” Kimmel only responded, “I don’t know what to tell you, because I don’t know why.”

Murphy then sat on the woman’s chest and stabbed her in the chest and throat. Murphy and Kimmel took several items and fled. They later used the woman’s credit card at gasoline stations and a hotel, where the duo had a party the next night.

The two men were arrested about six weeks later after detectives tracked purchases made with the credit card.

When Kimmel was arrested on a parole revocation warrant, he initially he denied any role in the murders, but two days later admitted to participating in the killings. Kimmel pled guilty to the murders shortly before trial.

Accomplice Murphy received a life sentence for his role in the slayings.

Priors: Kimmel had run afoul of the law more than once as a juvenile, arrested for burglary, shoplifting and indecency with a child. Authorities arrested him for another burglary as an adult, and he was put on probation. But motions to revoke his probation were filed after Kimmel failed a drug test, was arrested for criminal trespassing and suspected in a burglary.

After serving less than two years of a six-year sentence for violating terms of his probation, Kimmel was released on parole in November 1998. The murders occurred about five months later.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Because of his actions, two women are dead, and now a sister lost a brother. I don't blame the state of Georgia. I blame William Earl Lynd.

And you would have even more innocent people lose a loved one?

Are you truly bothered by the fact that this guy was put to death?

Yes, I am.

You would prefer this guy work as a job counselor in prison?

I would prefer to leave it up to qualified prison staff to assess whether he could be of use in the prison without presenting an undue risk. If they were satisfied of this and he had skills that were needed, I wouldn't have a problem with it, no.

 

[Poisonshady313]

DARYL KEITH HOLTON
September 12, 2007

Holton, 45, was executed for the killing his three sons and their half-sister with an assault rifle.

Holton was the first inmate executed in the electric chair in Tennessee since 1960.

Holton, a Gulf War Veteran, he lined up his 4 children at his uncle's auto repair garage and shot them with an SKS assault rifle, two at a time.

It was the first time in several months Holton had seen his children, aged 12, 10, 6 and 4. He told them they were going Christmas shopping, instead stopping at the garage.

After the murders, Holton walked into the Shelbyville Police Department and announced what he had done. Responding officers found the bodies of the four small children, along with pipe bombs that Holton said were intended for his wife and her home.

There goes your "depriving inmates children of a parent" excuse.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There goes your "depriving inmates children of a parent" excuse.

How does the fact that one person murdered his family imply that the well-being of innocent members of criminals' families shouldn't be taken into account when they do exist?

 

[Poisonshady313]

How does the fact that one person murdered his family imply that the well-being of innocent members of criminals' families shouldn't be taken into account when they do exist?

It should be taken into account by the criminal.

When someone goes out to murder people, he ruins his own life... he deprives his own family of himself.

A person having a family should not be an excuse for someone to avoid accepting the consequences of his actions.

 

[Poisonshady313]

TONY ROACH
September 5, 2007

Roach, a South Carolina drifter, was executed for strangling, robbing and raping a woman a few months after he had been paroled from prison.

According to a confession given by Roach 10 days after the murder, Roach broke into the Amarillo apartment of the victim through a window and hid in the bathroom. When she walked past the bathroom door, he came out, put his hand over her mouth and told her he would not harm her. She said, “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me,” and told him that she had a husband and a daughter.

Roach then pushed her into the living room, where she started kicking and scratching. He strangled her using his arm and a belt. After she was dead, Roach said, he raped her. From the residence, he took some rings, a knife, beer, and money, then started a fire with hair spray and a cigarette lighter and left.

She was 37. Her friends called her Kitten.

Roach was picked up by police about 120 miles to the north in Guymon, Okla., for stealing some cigarettes and reselling them. During questioning, he volunteered to officers they should ask him about the murder of a woman in Amarillo.

He also made a statement to police that he wanted to be executed.

Also: Authorities determined that three days before the woman's death, Roach robbed and beat a 71-year-old one-legged man in Amarillo. The man died of a heart attack after the beating.

Roach had an extensive record for burglary and theft as a teenager and had five stints in juvenile lockups, records showed. He pleaded guilty to the theft and robbery charges that got him the six-year prison term in South Carolina.


I don't feel the least bit sorry for Roach or any of his relatives who now live without him in their lives.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

A person having a family should not be an excuse for someone to avoid accepting the consequences of his actions.

Except that in a reasonable society, death by judicial execution is not a consequence of any action, IMO.

I don't feel the least bit sorry for Roach or any of his relatives who now live without him in their lives.

I can understand why you wouldn't feel sorry for Roach, but I fail to see why you wouldn't have compassion for innocent people mixed up in the horrible set of events.

Edit: BTW - not to distract you from your cutting-and-pasting from wherever you're getting these case studies ( [mod hat on] which, BTW, should be properly attributed unless you wrote them yourself - if you didn't, please go back and put in a link to your source [mod hat off]), but there are still a few questions I asked that you haven't responded to, and a few requests for data to back up your claims that you haven't addressed. Let me know if you want a list.

 

[Poisonshady313]

Except that in a reasonable society, death by judicial execution is not a consequence of any action, IMO.

It's a consequence of the guy committing murder.

I can understand why you wouldn't feel sorry for Roach, but I fail to see why you wouldn't have compassion for innocent people mixed up in the horrible set of events.

Ok... so I do feel a little sorry for them... but I don't blame the state of Texas. I blame Tony Roach.

 

[Poisonshady313]

Edit: BTW - not to distract you from your cutting-and-pasting from wherever you're getting these case studies ( [mod hat on] which, BTW, should be properly attributed unless you wrote them yourself - if you didn't, please go back and put in a link to your source [mod hat off]), but there are still a few questions I asked that you haven't responded to, and a few requests for data to back up your claims that you haven't addressed. Let me know if you want a list.

Dead Man Eating Weblog

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Ok... so I do feel a little sorry for them... but I don't blame the state of Texas. I blame Tony Roach.

The blame is shared, IMO. Tony Roach's execution would not have happened if he had not committed his crime AND if the State of Texas had not chosen to pursue the death penalty. The State had a choice, and therefore bears responsibility for that choice.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Dead Man Eating Weblog

Thanks!