Capital punishment

[GLW]

A slightly different perspective:

A few years ago while doing some research - most of which I've forgotten - into this, I ran across and interesting item.

Seems that due to the required legal wrangling and mandatory appeals for a capital sentence, it is actually almost an order of magnitude more expensive to execute someone instead of imprisoning them for life.

What is the point of the sentence? Is it to punish the convicted for their crime? If so, is the punishment to fit the crime? If yes, then there should be a deterrent factor in punishment for the convicted as well as for others. There can be no doubt that there is a deterrent factor for the convicted. You can't get much more deterred than dead. However, every piece of research into this has indicated that there is no deterrent factor for others.

Is the point to remove a hazard to society? If yes, then permanent imprisonment does the same thing.

Is it to rehabilitate where possible, punish, and remove a danger to society? If this is the logic, the system is doing a very poor job.

You really can't touch the concepts of capital punishment without also dealing with the concept of punishment and the basis of the criminal justice system.

Don't know about other states, but Texas has one out of 20 people currently involved in some form of prison / parole / probation. One of the biggest growth businesses in the state is PRISONS.

So, the conclusion I make on this is that what we are doing doesn't work.

[ewallace]

You really can't touch the concepts of capital punishment without also dealing with the concept of punishment and the basis of the criminal justice system.

Exactly.

[Merryprankster]

GLW,

True--it is more expensive.

[myosimka]

Clearly Amnesty International has a bias in their position since the abolition of the death penalty is in their mandate. Still,

1) They present their case pretty accurately so you can find a good bit of accurate info just keep in mind that you are only getting one side.

2) They are certainly no more biased than associations of trial lawyers discussing tort reform. At least, they don't have a financial interest. (Sorry had to bring it up. LOL)

[Merryprankster]

Myosimka, you must not ever have read my response to your post.

One was a national association of trial lawyers website, one was lectric law library, and the other was a bar association website.

Pretty good cross section.

[ZIM]

lawyers suck, almost as much as ninjas

I'll have you know: the Ninja Bar Association is WELL RESPECTED in NY!!!

Anyhow, we've gone off the subject: the most common death penalty is what? Simple question...

[myosimka]

Actually I did read your response
1) I don't think that the state bar association's agenda would be much different than the trial lawyers association on this issue because again it is composed of people with a financial interest in limiting tort reform. So not really a cross section there. And even though they win nothing from class actions and other suits, corporate attorneys don't want tort reform either or they'd be out of jobs.
2)And since you didn't know what lectric law was I thought I'd remind you of their source as quoted on that page. 'excerpted from ATLA fact sheet. ©1995, 1996 by Consumer Attorneys of
California'

So actually it was not a very good cross section. In your defense, I doubt one really exists as clearly this sunject is dominated by talk radio personalities playing off the sound byte and lawyers defending the suits validity and one of those groups is primarily concerned with coercing idiots to their viewpoint through emotional appeals as opposed to facts and logi...oh wait, that's both groups.

I again state, that while AI is opposed to the death penalty which they make quite clear, there is some good information. And yes, I see your point on this one and think it's quite valid. That's why I made the same point on your posting.

[Black Jack]

"Infringement on human rights..."

If one considers a murderer scumbag to be a human being than I think you have more problems to deal with than your panty-waist ideas on the death penalty and brotherly love.

Maybe...just maybe those that follow these thought patterns should take into consideration the victims in these crimes and not the animals that commited them.

[Merryprankster]

Fair enough. I'll pay more attention to the source next time. FWIW though, a state bar encompasses ALL lawyers.

It seems though, that the facts of the case aren't in question on the coffee issue. How one chooses to interpret them is the actual question.

My point here is that regardless of their stance, there is no incentive to misrepresent the findings of fact as they are readily available.

[guohuen]

I'd prefer if murderers were killed in shootouts with the police. I have no qualms about ridding the earth of someone that needs killing. Heck I'd ice bin laden myself. My problem is that I've only met a few prosecuters that didn't have their head so far up their fourth point of contact that they'll never see daylight again. Most of them only want to win their case, and somewhere in the course of events the guilt or innocence of the defendent becomes irrelevent.

[Black Jack]

I think the death penalty should also be for serial rapists and serial child molestors.

[ZIM]

I support pre-frontal lobotomies for all murderers, serial rapists and child-molesters..as an immediate penalty...thus circumventing alot of the arguments against the death penalty, yet still taking the 'pound of flesh' [tho in this case, it's more a gram] and effectively their 'lives' as they knew them.

They'd never concieve to harm another individual in their misbegotten lives, and we could put them out as streetcleaners and greeters at walmarts, point to them and say to our kids: "thats a bad man. Don't be like that."

Now, THATS a deterrent!

[David Jamieson]

The problem lies in the knowing or not knowing of the innocence of the person in question.

Immediate capital punishment used to be known as a "lynch mob". This hardly fits with todays social construct.

If a person dies in a hail of gunfire while in the act of robbery or homicide or taking hostages, i can only see that as even in some twisted way...reasonable. After all, they are caught smoking gun, they have attempted to harm more people and they have no regard for the life of the others, the Law enforcement officers or citizens who are attempting to stop them from commiting a crime.

However, if you arrest someone after the fact based on non 100% solid evidence (which is almost never the case outside of the smoking gun scenario) then this brings into question circumstantial factors that if a person does not have access to a good lawyer who understands and can iterate the evidence, then they are possibly a candidate for capital punishment.

Knowing that we do not know is enough to not send a person to their death.

Capital punishment is shown to be neither a deterent to crime and it doesn't do anything to clear up the justice system inadequacies as they now exist.

In Canada they banned capital punishment after the last man was hanged in 1962 CE. It has been shown that there has been no significant increase or decrease in murders according to cross referenced data from when capital punishment was allowed.

A greater deterent is the prison system, and even that needs work. Once you are sentenced to life in Canada, then you are doing Life. You may get paroled after 15 or 25 years, but even then you are still a lifer and subject to return for any infraction of the law. I don't necessarily 100% agree with this strategy either for a couple of reasons.

In summary, taking a life for a life is kind of biblical in it's paradigm. It is also based in revenge. Revenge is often driven by hate. Hate in a society affects it's value systems and morals. When these are driven by non factual emotional factors ethics are knocked out of the picture and society cannot grow to a higher plain of thinking.

So as long as we keep killing each other, is as long as we will continue to do so. This is detrimental to rasing the conciousness of everyone so that we can achiecve peace at all levels.

rant over

cheers

[ewallace]

Nothing works 100%. Had a couple of the following guys been executed right away, there might be one more police officer on the streets. Said officer was 29 years old at the time he was gunned down.

Anyone hear of the 7 escapees from Texas about 2 years ago? Here are their profiles:


- Joseph Garcia, 29, who was serving 50 years for murder.

- Michael Rodriguez, 38, who was serving a life sentence for capital murder.


- Randy Halprin, 23, serving 30 years for beating a baby.

- Patrick Murphy Jr., 39, in for 50 years for aggravated sexual assault with a deadly weapon and burglary.

- Larry Harper, 37, who had a 50-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault.

- Donald Newbury, 38, serving 99 years for aggravated robbery.

[GLW]

Texas is NOT a good state to use as an example.

Given the fact that one of the big booming industries in the state IS prisons and that 1 in 20 people are caught up in the judicial system.

We have the most number of executions here...and how did THAT deter the 7 you mention?

As a deterent...it does not work.

Simply put, it is a final solution for that single individual and a supreme act of vengance.

Call a spade a spade.