Why we should enforce the death penalty
I'll update this as often as I can, with articles that give reason to support the death penalty. Feel free to post your own, as well.
First article:
Disabled Marrero Boy Beaten To Death
Thu Apr 29, 6:31 PM ET
A 6-year-old disabled Marrero boy was killed March 22, and his mother and her boyfriend are under arrest.
Doctors said Joshua Bowman, who had cerebral palsy and could not walk or talk, was beaten to death.
"The child had died from a few different causes, but mainly from a severed liver -- from blunt-force trauma," said Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Detective Doug Thornton. "Evidently, someone had delivered a blow of some type into the child's abdomen, sending the liver into the spine and nearly severing it in two."
Joshua's mother, Georzett Bowman, 26, and her boyfriend, Charles Wilson, 22, who is not Joshua's father, each were booked April 23 with first-degree murder.
Police said medical records indicated a history of apparent abuse. They said Joshua previously had been treated for broken arms, legs and ribs.
Police said Bowman is nine months pregnant with Wilson's child.:mad:
(You know....The death penalty isn't as expensive as people think...a powerful enough bullet can go through two people...)
Sidhe
For every cut and dried case there is another that is questionable, look at that child molester who's been locked up for 20 odd years because the cops coaxed allegations out of them under duress. What's more valuable? An eye for an eye or the life of an innocent man?
How much of a life is it, if twenty years are spent in jail?
<blockquote><pre>
It's spring outside, my dear wife, spring.
Outside on the plain, suddenly the smell
of fresh earth, birds singing, etc.
It's spring, my dear wife,
the plain outside sparkles...
And <a href="http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~sibel/poetry/poems/nazim_hikmet/english/letters_from_a_man_in_solitary">inside</a> the bed comes alive with bugs,
the water jug no longer freezes,
and in the morning sun floods the concrete...
-- <A href="http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~sibel/poetry/poems/nazim_hikmet/_About/About2.html">Nazim Hikmet</a>
</pre></blockquote>
If the options are "kill bad people with the risk of killing an innocent" or "don't kill people because you might kill an innocent person", it seems the obvious third option is "figure out more conclusively who is or isn't guilty".
If the options are "kill bad people with the risk of killing an innocent" or "don't kill people because you might kill an innocent person", it seems the obvious third option is "figure out more conclusively who is or isn't guilty".
Well, in theory yes, in reality, good luck.
Not only is there the potential that an innocent person could be executed, the moral logic of the death penalty eludes me. "It is wrong to kill, therfore we will kill you." In a way, by imposing the death penalty, the state and courts are saying that its OK to take a life. You do not fight the enemy by becoming him.
Putting the two people to death who killed that poor child will not bring him back to life or undo the suffering he endured. The death penalty for people like that is an easy way out. Let 'em spend the rest of their natural lives in a maximum security prison, so they have lots of time to think over what they did. Even other criminals despise people who kill children. You can be sure those two's existance behind bars will not be pretty.
I have heard it said that one can judge a society by the way it treats its criminals. I dont believe the death penalty does a ny good. The nature of criminality and the prejudices of most societies lead to any such penalty being weighed heavily against the poor. The poor are more likely to commit crimes and having committed them are less likely to be given adequate legal representation
In America youare more likely to be convicted of a murder if you are black. Having been convicted you are more likely to face the death penalty if you are black. . Black and white people are the victims of violent crime in roughly equal numbers, yet 82 per cent of people executed since 1977 have been convicted of killing white victims.
The lawyers and judges who preside over these legal proceedings and the people who write the laws which govern them are generally from a very different class and background to those who face the death penalty. As far as I am concerned its good old fashioned class war, the fact that many people of working class backgrounds have been persuaded to this method of justice is an example to me of how the moneyed classes keep their lessers in order. In Saudi Arabia they chop the hands of thieves.....its just another way that the poor are oppressed. Its the same method that's been used throughout history. Make the masses see that the criminal is an "other" disassociate the criminal from the rest of society.....Sell them a dream of what their society should look like and then tell them that the people who are standing in their way and ruining it for everyone are the criminals. Its almost medieaval. The idea of the Ideal as we should look to it, being held at bay by those who do not follow the programme.....Hence we see such a graphic and violent punishment for those who disturb the balance and in doing prevent us from reaching our goal.
In the UK there have been many prominent cases recently which have led to a worries that our jails are in fact brimming over wiht people who should not be there. There are many parents who have been committed of killing their babies and whose cases are now being reassesed because the "expert witnesses" have been proved to be unreliable. There are examples in the USA too. The "shaken baby syndrome" which convicted the british nanny louise woodward has faced scurtiny and is now considred to be less than sure.
Many of the women ( mainly women though some men) who have served jail time in the UK are now being released after trhe convictions have been deemed unsafe. Trypti Patel is one of the more famous ones over here.
Thats just an example of some of the miscarriages of justice currently in the british news. If we add to that the many many unsafe convictions for other crrimes ( irishmen convicted of political crimes they didnt do for instance ) we see that the justice system simply isnt to be trusted to the degree needed to ensure no innocent is convicted.
Frankly though, even if the person has been caught stood over the bleeding corpse of their victim , knife in hand with an evil grin spread across their murderous face....I still deem capital punishment an act of barbarism and the electric chair in particular is a disgrace to the modern world.
As an aside there are states in th USA which have convicted children who will face the death penalty when they reach maturity. I saw one case with a pair of young lads who seemingly had struck back at their abusive father and his abusive friends by killing their dad.....Both lads were convicted both now face a jail sentence until they are old enough to be put to death. ...in 24 US states people can be sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were children......so thats just you guys and China.
Not to mention of course those who have mental retardation... In 1989 the US Supreme Court ruled that it was not unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded people. Since then some 30 mentally impaired people have been executed.
I read of one case for instance of a fellow who had schizophrenia .....He was sentenced to die and before he died he was given medication which gave him a temporary measure of normality ( some kind of ati psychotic agent) so that he would fully understand his fate.......
We havent even talked about the brutality ofthe method....The electric chair which so often goes wrong is an abomination. At the very least if you are going to insist on slaughtering your murderers use a method that kills instantly and painlessly (injection ).....Or is it necessary that the condemned suffer mortal agony in order for justice to be served?
In Europe we consider Capital Punishment to be barbaric and unfair.
Originally posted by Skunks
How much of a life is it, if twenty years are spent in jail?
I would think that that would be a choice best left up to the convicted innocent.
In Europe we consider Capital Punishment to be barbaric and unfair.
In Europe, you get many things wrong.
Life in prison is never life in prison. "Life" generally means seven years, then parole.
Why should I have to support these people? Why should I have to pay for their cable, their medical treatment? I can't afford cable for myself, and I can't even afford medical insurance for myself, but I have to pay for theirs??
"I dont believe the death penalty does any good."
I guarantee you that an executed murderer will never kill again. 0% recidivism rate.
"one can judge a society by the way it treats its criminals"
It would seem that a better way to judge society would be by the way it treats the victims of its criminals....
"The nature of criminality and the prejudices of most societies lead to any such penalty being weighed heavily against the poor. The poor are more likely to commit crimes and having committed them are less likely to be given adequate legal representation"
You know what? That's not my problem. I'm poor, and I don't use that as an excuse to go out and commit crimes. And I once WAS accused of something I didn't do. I had to use a public defender. I won.
The question is not, "is the offender poor?", but "did s/he do it?" That's what matters. Using race or economic disadvantage does not absolve one of guilt. Sure, the rich may elude punishment more, but I think that's more of an axiom that the liberals have said so many times that everyone believes it without question. I don't want to risk becoming a victim of a crime, or someone in my family becoming a victim, because a defendant was given a slap on the wrist, got out early because of time served and good time, just because he was poor.
I've read a shitload of true crime (it comprises most of my rather extensive personal library), and murderers tend toward recidivism. They get let out, and just go on killing.
"The lawyers and judges who preside over these legal proceedings and the people who write the laws which govern them are generally from a very different class and background to those who face the death penalty. As far as I am concerned its good old fashioned class war, the fact that many people of working class backgrounds have been persuaded to this method of justice is an example to me of how the moneyed classes keep their lessers in order. In Saudi Arabia they chop the hands of thieves.....its just another way that the poor are oppressed. Its the same method that's been used throughout history. Make the masses see that the criminal is an "other" disassociate the criminal from the rest of society.".
Class war, my tailfeathers! It's a war between law-abiding society and criminal society. You notice how little crime they have in Saudi Arabia, don't you? That's because justice is swift and sure. There also have to be three witnesses to the act. I know someone who was in Saudi when a thief got his hand cut off in the market. He saw the whole thing. The criminal IS the "other." The criminal is a predator. If you had a henhouse, would you just let the fox kill all your chickens because it was easier for him than hunting?
"Frankly though, even if the person has been caught stood over the bleeding corpse of their victim , knife in hand with an evil grin spread across their murderous face....I still deem capital punishment an act of barbarism and the electric chair in particular is a disgrace to the modern world."
I agree. Electricity is too expensive. You can reuse a rope.
"As an aside there are states in th USA which have convicted children who will face the death penalty when they reach maturity. "
I agree with that. Murderous children often become murderous adults. Sociopathy is usually in evidence by age 15, and it cannot be cured. Some sociopaths can live in society fine, but for those who can't, why should I have to worry that one may kidnap my daughter, rape her, strangle her, and throw her body in the bushes because he was let out at age 18?
"Not to mention of course those who have mental retardation... In 1989 the US Supreme Court ruled that it was not unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded people. Since then some 30 mentally impaired people have been executed."
The question is dangerousness. If they are a continuing danger to society, then they should be eliminated rather than warehoused. Not all mentally retarded people are like Forrest Gump. I've worked with retarded children who are cunning and sneaky, and would jump you at the drop of a hat. One of those retarded children sent a psychiatric worker to the hospital in an ambulance. Why? The PA woke her up. There are varying degrees of retardation, some so slight as to be unnoticable, but the media jumps on the word, and people see Forrest Gump.
"I read of one case for instance of a fellow who had schizophrenia .....He was sentenced to die and before he died he was given medication which gave him a temporary measure of normality ( some kind of ati psychotic agent) so that he would fully understand his fate."
The public is told that mentally disturbed people aren't dangerous. That was the same drivel they fed us in training for the psychiatric ward. BULLSHIT. If you've got a schizophrenic who refuses to take his meds, odds are you're going to feel the impact of his psychosis sooner or later. The fact is, some of them ARE dangerous, and if they commit a violent crime, they should pay for it. If they refuse meds, they're refusing to control the illness, and thus have a built-in excuse for any dangerous acts they commit. In the psych ward, we had several patients who refused meds. We had to watch our backs constantly if we wanted to walk off our shift under our own power.
"We havent even talked about the brutality ofthe method....The electric chair which so often goes wrong is an abomination. At the very least if you are going to insist on slaughtering your murderers use a method that kills instantly and painlessly (injection )."
How about the brutality of a strangling? It takes five minutes to die from strangling. Hold your breath for five minutes and tell me that isn't brutal. How about the brutality of a rape and murder? How about the brutality of knowing that you'll never see a family member again? I couldn't give a rat's ass LESS if they suffer. They deserve it. No, they should not die painlessly. Odds are, their victim(s) did not die painlessly, and the victim's family and friends will live with the pain of their loss forever. We should be more concerned with the victims. It seems to me that anyone who takes the side of the murderer is by default taking the side AGAINST the victim.
"Or is it necessary that the condemned suffer mortal agony in order for justice to be served?"
IMO, YES, it IS necessary. Not only is the death penalty justice, it's society's revenge. The only problem I see with the death penalty is that it isn't used swiftly enough, and it isn't sure enough.
Society must be protected from predators, or it won't survive. Warehousing them and providing them with all the amenities that many law-abiding citizens can't afford is a slap in the face.
And how about in England, where those children lured the little boy out of the mall and killed him on the railroad tracks? That deserves the death penalty, as far as I'm concerned. If children that young are killing already, all they're going to learn is that they can get away with it. They lured an innocent child to his death. For the fun of it. I have no sympathy for them. They deserve to die. A life for a life. It may not bring the little boy back, but it may save someone else's life in the future. That's what's important, not the feelings of the poor killer.
The way I see it, people in America know the penalty for certain crimes; therefore, if you commit a crime for which the punishment is death, you're taking your chances. You KNOW what the penalty will be if you're caught, therefore, don't whine when you get it. It's not like we sprung it on you unawares. You took the chance, and you lost. Poor baby.
The high cost of the death penalty isn't the execution--it's the endless appeals. If DNA testing were mandatory, I think we'd find a lot fewer innocent people convicted; but it's NOT mandatory. And I feel that a lawful execution is no more murder than lawful confiscation is stealing.
Sidhe
[through clenched teeth]
T..R..Y..I..N..G H..A..R..D N..O..T J..O..I..N E..N..D..L..E..S..S D..E..B..A..T..E..
[/through clenched teeth]
Go DanaC go!
Go Lady Sidhe, go...
(There are two kinds of justice: Regular or Extra Crispy)
I do believe that the death penalty system needs to be revamped in this country, but that's in the name of efficiency. There need to be limitations on the appeals process ... many "death row" prisoners are dying of old age or natural causes rather than lethal injection.
Oh, and why do they have them on suicide watch ... anyone ever wonder about that one? They'd be saving the state the money.
Not only is the death penalty justice, it's society's revenge.
Therein lies the problem.
You've been reading our webpage haven't you? (crispy or extra crispy):haha:
And the suicide watch thing....I never thought of that...lol...that DOESN'T make a whole lot of sense, does it? It'd save us the price of electricity, or lethal injection dose.....
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
You've been reading our webpage haven't you? (crispy or extra crispy)
Actually, I had a tee shirt that said that, um, like 20 years ago.
It was sold through
Soldier of Fortune magazine. They probably still have it.
Originally posted by jaguar
Therein lies the problem.
And what's the problem with revenge? I feel it's a necessary part of the recovery of the victim's friends and family, to know that the guilty party paid for the victim's life with his own. Justice and revenge aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
I've found that many death-penalty opponents change their tune when someone close to them is murdered.
I had a friend whose aunt was killed while in a phone booth, by a Crip. Why? He wanted her car. Guess what? The car had a coded lock, so he couldn't use it anyway. She died for nothing (as if dying because someone wants your car is a good reason) People like the one I just mentioned need to die. They might target YOU next. Or your parents. Or your child. Or your partner.
I just don't feel sorry for them at all. If you kill someone, intentionally, in cold blood, and it's not in self-defense, or defense of other people or your property, then IMO, they can't execute you fast enough for me. I don't see the point in us having to pay for you for the rest of your life. We have our own bills to worry about, without having to pay yours, too.
Sidhe
Originally posted by wolf
Actually, I had a tee shirt that said that, um, like 20 years ago.
It was sold through Soldier of Fortune magazine. They probably still have it.
I'll have to find that tee shirt. I WANT ONE!!
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
I just don't feel sorry for them at all. If you kill someone, intentionally, in cold blood, and it's not in self-defense, or defense of other people or your property, then IMO, they can't execute you fast enough for me. I don't see the point in us having to pay for you for the rest of your life. We have our own bills to worry about, without having to pay yours, too.
How about the innocent peoplel who are executed? Feel sorry for them? A necessary evil to save us money, I suppose.
Jag
What's more valuable? An eye for an eye or the life of an innocent man?
The life of an innocent man, but if 100 murderers are released in protecting the innocent man how many more innocent people may die?
Skunks
How much of a life is it, if twenty years are spent in jail?
If the options are "kill bad people with the risk of killing an innocent" or "don't kill people because you might kill an innocent person", it seems the obvious third option is "figure out more conclusively who is or isn't guilty".
For violent crimes my sympathy quotient is pretty low. That being said, the quality of life of the violent offenders should be just enough that they can survive. I'm a fan of reducing the duration of sentences if you increase the discomfort of the conditions. Today's prisons are not feared, thus reducing their preventative effectiveness. Prison is supposed to be a punitive measure. I don't believe that a prison's job is to rehabilitate someone. Rehabilitation can only come from within.
Marichiko
Not only is there the potential that an innocent person could be executed, the moral logic of the death penalty eludes me. "It is wrong to kill, therfore we will kill you." In a way, by imposing the death penalty, the state and courts are saying that its OK to take a life. You do not fight the enemy by becoming him.
Putting the two people to death who killed that poor child will not bring him back to life or undo the suffering he endured. The death penalty for people like that is an easy way out. Let 'em spend the rest of their natural lives in a maximum security prison, so they have lots of time to think over what they did. Even other criminals despise people who kill children. You can be sure those two's existance behind bars will not be pretty.
The state does not operate on the same moral compass that its citizens do. It can't. The problems that a state has to deal with are on a much larger scale and their responsibilities are as well. Execution is not murder. Execution is an immune system, murder is predation.
DanaC
1) The lawyers and judges who preside over these legal proceedings and the people who write the laws which govern them are generally from a very different class and background to those who face the death penalty.
2) The poor are more likely to commit crimes
3) Frankly though, even if the person has been caught stood over the bleeding corpse of their victim , knife in hand with an evil grin spread across their murderous face....I still deem capital punishment an act of barbarism and the electric chair in particular is a disgrace to the modern world.
4) Not to mention of course those who have mental retardation... In 1989 the US Supreme Court ruled that it was not unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded people.
5) I read of one case for instance of a fellow who had schizophrenia .....He was sentenced to die and before he died he was given medication which gave him a temporary measure of normality ( some kind of ati psychotic agent) so that he would fully understand his fate.......
6) We havent even talked about the brutality ofthe method....The electric chair which so often goes wrong is an abomination. At the very least if you are going to insist on slaughtering your murderers use a method that kills instantly and painlessly (injection ).....Or is it necessary that the condemned suffer mortal agony in order for justice to be served?
7) In Europe we consider Capital Punishment to be barbaric and unfair.
1) I agree, but I also believe that they have to be. Without the ability to devote the time, effort, and study necessary to the study of law (and in the larger context, ethics) justice can not be fully served. Most innovation comes from the leisure classes.
2) Not true, reasearch is beginning to show that white collar crime is just as prevalent as blue (or no) collar crime. White collar crime doesn't catch the news the way rape, battery and murder do.
3) Under that set of conditions, execution would not only be just but prophylaxis.
4) Retardation is an incurable state. If that person has shown themselves to be a danger then they should be treated accordingly. If they are violent, lock them up; if they are murderous, execute them.
5) If a schizophrenic is murderous and not medically compliant then execution is warranted to protect the citizenry. If it is unethical to force medication on people then how do you tend to a murderous schizophrenic? Where do you find health-care people who are willing to risk their lives for this person? I think making him take medication to drive the message how is a bit much though.
6) Much to the chagrin of Lady Sidhe, I'm not one for revenge. Whatever method is most efficient should be used. Quick and sure.
7) This isn't Europe. That's like comparing our gun statistics with Japan.
Lady Sidhe
1) I guarantee you that an executed murderer will never kill again. 0% recidivism rate.
2) It would seem that a better way to judge society would be by the way it treats the victims of its criminals....
3) I agree. Electricity is too expensive. You can reuse a rope.
4) I couldn't give a rat's ass LESS if they suffer. They deserve it. No, they should not die painlessly.
5) Society must be protected from predators, or it won't survive. Warehousing them and providing them with all the amenities that many law-abiding citizens can't afford is a slap in the face.
6) The way I see it, people in America know the penalty for certain crimes; therefore, if you commit a crime for which the punishment is death, you're taking your chances.
7) Not only is the death penalty justice, it's society's revenge.
1) I agree. You have to decide what you are trying to achieve with the execution. Deterrence or prevention?
2) Again, I agree. Just treatment of the criminal will result in just treatment of the victim.
3) Justice for the criminal means avoiding unnecessary or excessive punishment. If the ultimate punishment has been decided then do it as quickly as possible.
4) See my #3
5) Agree. Also there is the thought that one of the reasons many people can't afford the amenities is that they are paying to provide the amenities for the prisoners.
6) Short of insanity or almost complete seclusion, committing a crime in today's times is done with full knowledge of the consequences and full consent of the will and thusly deserving of the full measure of the consequences.
7) Society isn't supposed to be in the revenge business.
Wolf
Oh, and why do they have them on suicide watch ... anyone ever wonder about that one?
Attempted Suicide is a crime. Also, if it becomes known that you can circumvent justice by taking your own life then the process becomes tainted.
Happy Monkey
How about the innocent peoplel who are executed? Feel sorry for them? A necessary evil to save us money, I suppose.
I would feel sorry for them, but to expect 100% efficiency from anything the size of the state is to be deluded. And to believe that the state should not punish people at all because it might punish someone who is innocent is also wrong.
As far as I'm concerned revenge and justice are mutally exclusive. When you start straying into revenge you've lost the point of justice, being just. When you cross that line I think you loose any moral authority, you're no better.
Lock the fuckers up and make them break rocks for the next 20 years, they don't have the opportunity to reoffends and if they are innocent, they can still get out. Make prisons factories, reduce the cost to the taxpayer, it seems to me that prisons need to be both more human and less generous.
Here in the Heartland, three young me have turned themselves in to police. They are suspected of having gang raped a young girl in an abandoned drug house in KC, then driving to St. Joseph, breaking into a house and killing, execution style, the young couple who lived there.
It seems they thought the occupants of the St. Joseph home were drug dealers whom they were either seeking to rip off or from whom to extract revenge. Unfortunately, the young couple were not the drug dealers the trio sought; they were instead merely a young couple who had moved into the apparent drug dealer's former residence.
So...if guilty, *why* should these three psychopaths not die, exactly? I mean, assuming they are indeed guilty (it is unclear yet whether they have confessed, but they turned themselves in despite the police having broadcast only that they were looking for the responsible parties. No names were named, no specifics on age, race, gender or number of suspects...they just knew the heat was on, and they turned themselves in via a prominent community activist).
If the people involved were *my* family members, innocent victims of stupid, blind, degenerate criminality, I not only would want them executed, but I would campaign to be allowed to pull the switch/push the button/pull the trigger/whatever it took to make it happen.
And I'm a peace-loving Pagan sort of guy, too. I am, however, enough of a realist to know that you do not leave a cancer untreated, and such criminals are indeed cancers on society. They need to be excised.
The only sure fire guarantee that murderers won't kill again is the death penalty. I'm okay with that, most especially in cases where confessions or DNA evidence makes for conclusive evidence.
Originally posted by jaguar
Make prisons factories, reduce the cost to the taxpayer, it seems to me that prisons need to be both more human and less generous.
We've already got problems keeping our factory workers employed without moving to China...how exactly is turning our prison population into slave labor going to help that? And if we did so, wouldn't that be an incentive to get more people locked up so that the cost of production would be further reduced for manufacturing concerns?
Those in favor of the death penalty here seem to be conveniently ignoring the fact that innocent people get executed when you have a death penalty. If new evidence comes to light that would exonerate the innocent, there is no appeal from the death penalty once it has been implemented. If they are in prison for life, you can always release them.
Life in prison means just that. Life. Gone are the days of getting out in 7 years.
Yes, you need to protect society. If someone commits murder, remove them from society for the rest of their lives. Put them in prison.
I have no problem with having the prisoners work to earn their keep. Manual labor, skilled labor, makes no difference to me.
**Hands Yelof a guinness and a Camberwell carrot**
I've found that many death-penalty opponents change their tune when someone close to them is murdered.
.....except in Europe where many of the families of murder and rape victims dont change their tune. They usually start wanting life to mean life. We are just as prey to violent crime we fear the murderer and the rapist just as you do, European parents face the demons that lie in wait for their children just as much as american parents.
I don't want to risk becoming a victim of a crime, or someone in my family becoming a victim, because a defendant was given a slap on the wrist, got out early because of time served
No indeed. Nobody wishes to invite risk into their lives. Personally I dont want to risk getting falsely accused and convicted or any of my loved ones getting falsely accused and convicted in a legal system which allows for my and any other citizen's death. Nor frankly would I be thrilled at the idea of a loved one of mine losing control or becoming psychotic and finding themselves on deathrow for a moment of madness......In fact....given that any one of us could find ourselves related to someone who has committed a terrible crime, i dont much like the idea that if such a thing were to happen the state wold have the right to kill my loved one, no matter what they have done.
As a citizen I expect to see those who have committed serious crimes brought to book and placed somewhere secure until such a time as they are no longer a risk to society. If that means they never get out then thats unfortunate. ....
I do not wish to live in a society where anybody, be it the criminal with murderous intent or the High Court , has the right to kill me.
The murderer steps beyond society's bounds when he kills another ....and that is not to be tolerated. But he and I are the same animal. I walked my road and it brought me to the place I now sit. S/he has walked a different road and I cannot say with utter conviction I would have walked that road and not ended it at the place they find themself.
So....in a way my stance against capital punishment is not just a poltical one....On a purely selfish level I feel safer ( for me and my loved ones) in a society that doesnt have the right to take my life for any reason.
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
Attempted Suicide is a crime. Also, if it becomes known that you can circumvent justice by taking your own life then the process becomes tainted.
How does the process become tainted? The condemned dying by their own hand saves the state money.
Incarceration costs between $50 - 100/day, not counting the costs related to a capital case including appeals filings, attorneys' and experts' fees, court time, etc.
The only thing the state and victims lose out on is witnessing the execution of sentence.
Incidentally, attempting suicide is not a crime, although it is sometimes a shame.
(mental health law is civil, not criminal law ... you aren't arrested by police and you don't go to jail for a suicide attempt, but you can be examined against your will and committed to a hospital. How does that differ from incarceration? You retain the right to refuse treatment, among other rights.)
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
I would feel sorry for them, but to expect 100% efficiency from anything the size of the state is to be deluded. And to believe that the state should not punish people at all because it might punish someone who is innocent is also wrong.
Punish? Correct. Kill? I don't think so. If there is a chance someone is innocent, they should not be executed. While someone is alive, there is always the chance that they could be exonerated. Once they're dead, it's too late.
This links in with the idea of revenge as being compatible with justice, or "treating the victims well". If the wishes of the victims are given high priority in law enforcement/trial/sentencing, the system is easily corruptible. Victims are less capable of being impartial, and are likely to latch on to whoever is first tried for the crime, and resist any evidence to the contrary. I have seen several death penalty cases being overturned, where the victims are interviewed, and they are angry that old wounds are being reopened. Revenge, being exceedingly emotional, can be satisfied as long as
somebody pays.
I see in may debates "you'd feel different if
your child were murdered". That may be correct, and that is the reason that certain jurors are excluded from certain trials. One of the fundamental concepts of the modern Western judicial system is that justice, not revenge, is to be served.
**Hands Happy Monkey some peanuts** Couldnt agree more. If someone close to me is murdered I am the LAST person whose views should be taken into account when punishing the offender.
In Europe, you get many things wrong.
Very true ! *smiles* I certainly wouldnt hold Europe up as the "right" way forward for anyone except Europeans....I do however think its interesting that we who share so much of our cultural expectations/norms and basic assumptions should differ so drastically on this issue and at such a continental level
Oh....and yeah I think we are right on this one :king: :king:
Death is a perfect solution that can only be implemented in an imperfect justice system. We know, we ADMIT, that the justice system is imperfect. It's run and implemented and overseen and reported on by people, and people are imperfect. You can argue whether the penalty is fair but you have to take into account the imperfections of the system. If we are to err on the side of caution anywhere in the system, this is where.
Skunk...I just read that poem. I hadnt followed the link before. Damn thats beautiful.
It is easy in all this debate to forget the humanity of the killer. They didnt cease to think and feel. I find it strange that an atheist like me can feel a stranger on deathrow to be as much my brother in life as anyone else.....and yet I have heard so many who walk with Jesus find comedy in the death of a human.....seek as much pain as they can inflict on that human. .....not seeking to inflict pain and death upon another human being is what makes me different from the killer....if I am party to inflicting it upon the killer I am little better than he.
Class war, my tailfeathers! It's a war between law-abiding society and criminal society.
*Chuckles* I suspect if I even attempt to argue that one out I would either get a) shot by one of the gunowning members of the Cellar or b) so frustrated that I steal one of your guns and shoot myself.
Since we were all talking and thinking about this issue I went off to see if I could find anything interesting about it online. ....And I found this, which I thought was an interesting angle on it.
Royal Institute of Philosophy article: Capital Punishment and Realism DNA evidence has recently been used to absolve some death row inmates. It is a fact that there have been innocent people waiting to die by the government's hands. How are we to be sure it won't happen again? There probably are innocent people right now on death row.
The only way to be sure not to execute an innocent person is to not execute anyone at all.
Life in prision, w/ no parole may not sound like enough punishment for some people, but at least it can be cancled if the person is found innocent later.
UT, I think that's a great point. There are two different issues here. There is the question of the death penalty as an idea, as a morally defensible tool of justice, and then there is the question of our ability to use it in a way that is morally defensible.
I am in support of the death penalty as morally allowable in an ideal setting, but I have no confidence in our system being able to use it in an accurate, and thereby morally defensible way.
-sm
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
How about the innocent peoplel who are executed? Feel sorry for them? A necessary evil to save us money, I suppose.
The odds of an innocent person actually being executed are low. Why? Because they're more likely to spend the rest of their lives in prison, due to endless appeals. Besides, the odds of the death penalty being sought nowadays is getting lower and lower. You practically have to rape and kill a busload of teenage nuns in front of a cop and ten other witnesses, then say "I DID IT!" before they'll call for the death penalty. And all this comes from the social work crowd who blame everyone and everything for the criminal's behavior EXCEPT the criminal himself.
"Lock the fuckers up and make them break rocks for the next 20 years, they don't have the opportunity to reoffends and if they are innocent, they can still get out. Make prisons factories, reduce the cost to the taxpayer, it seems to me that prisons need to be both more human and less generous."
We can't do that. Breaking rocks is cruel and unusual punishment, and the second one is exploitation.
"Those in favor of the death penalty here seem to be conveniently ignoring the fact that innocent people get executed when you have a death penalty. If new evidence comes to light that would exonerate the innocent, there is no appeal from the death penalty once it has been implemented. If they are in prison for life, you can always release them."
See my answer to #1
"Life in prison means just that. Life. Gone are the days of getting out in 7 years."
Wrong. A "life" sentence is seven years, give or take, before the individual comes up for parole. What you're thinking of is "life without possibility of parole," which is rarely handed down.
For all of you who think the death penalty is cruel, or abhorrent, or just wrong, imagine an experiment: we'll build a little community and give you a house there. Then we'll release all the poor little death row inmates and give THEM houses there, and YOU can watch over them for us and make sure that they not only remain only in that community, but that they don't commit further crimes. It'd be your job, and you'd get paid for it. The catch is, you have to bring your kids and partner along, too. Of course, if someone gets killed, you can't complain....
And another question: if there were no doubt that the offender was guilty, and that he wasn't a bit sorry--if you heard it from his own mouth, how many of you who oppose the death penalty would then say, "ok, fry him."?
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
The odds of an innocent person actually being executed are low. Why? Because they're more likely to spend the rest of their lives in prison, due to endless appeals.
That's silly. If you hadn't referred back to it later, I would have written it off as a joke.
For that "argument" to have any meaning, the following would have to be true:
1) Most people who appeal all the way are innocent.
2) Most innocent people can and do appeal all the way.
3) The appeal process takes long enough for most people in it to die of old age.
The likelyhood of a full appeal process is only partially based on guilt - an innocent person is less likely to give up. Primarily, it is based on whether the first trials were handled correctly, how much and what sort of public attention the trial received, and how much money is available for the appeal. All of these are weighted against the poor and minorities.
LS: having watched from the sidelines on a number of debates you have participated in, I'm going to make the observation that you have a tendency to mingle facts and opinions and extrapolate sweeping generalizations from single or a small handful of anecdotes.
There is a place in any debate for feelings, opinions, beliefs and facts provided they are not disguised as one another.
No disrespect intended, just an observation.
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
We can't do that. Breaking rocks is cruel and unusual punishment, and the second one is exploitation.
Sidhe
Are these your own actual personal beliefs?
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
The likelyhood of a full appeal process is only partially based on guilt - an innocent person is less likely to give up.
Upon what information are you basing this?
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
The odds of an innocent person actually being executed are low. Why? Because they're more likely to spend the rest of their lives in prison, due to endless appeals. Besides, the odds of the death penalty being sought nowadays is getting lower and lower. You practically have to rape and kill a busload of teenage nuns in front of a cop and ten other witnesses, then say "I DID IT!" before they'll call for the death penalty. And all this comes from the social work crowd who blame everyone and everything for the criminal's behavior EXCEPT the criminal himself.
"Lock the fuckers up and make them break rocks for the next 20 years, they don't have the opportunity to reoffends and if they are innocent, they can still get out. Make prisons factories, reduce the cost to the taxpayer, it seems to me that prisons need to be both more human and less generous."
We can't do that. Breaking rocks is cruel and unusual punishment, and the second one is exploitation.
"Life in prison means just that. Life. Gone are the days of getting out in 7 years."
Wrong. A "life" sentence is seven years, give or take, before the individual comes up for parole. What you're thinking of is "life without possibility of parole," which is rarely handed down.
Sidhe
In 2000, the Govenor of Illinois put a moratorium on all executions due to alarming revelations about the number of prisoners on death row in Illinois who were later found to be innocent.
Imposing the death sentence costs the tax payers thousands if not millions of dollars because of the lengthy appeals process involved which has to be done by law. You note this lengthy appeals process yourself when speaking of an innocent man, above. The cost of life imprisonment is probably about equivalent of all the costs of the long appeals process.
There is also the suffering of the victim's families to be taken into account. No matter what is done to the murderer, the family's loved one is still dead. When the death sentence is imposed, the families often have to go through 20 years of legal and court maneuvering before they get some kind of closure. LWP gives the families closure and the comfort that the murderer is being punished and will never again be free to comit further atrocities.
Life without parole is becoming a very common sentence. In Oregon the number of such sentences has risen 47%, and the sentence means just what it says - those guys are in for life.
Making prisoners work is not exploitation. Prisoners are commonly assigned productive work in our prison systems today.
Just because I am against the death penalty does not mean I feel sorry for sociopathic killers and want them released back into the population. Killers should be locked up for good.
I don't know where you get the idea that murders get to have their own cable TV. There may or may not be a single TV available in some prison common areas. Such TV's are shared by 100 - 200 inmates and may be watched for limited periods only - often this priviledge is taken away by the guards for discipinary reasons.
marichko, you have a lot more energy than I do. Good post.
And another question: if there were no doubt that the offender was guilty, and that he wasn't a bit sorry--if you heard it from his own mouth, how many of you who oppose the death penalty would then say, "ok, fry him."?
I can conceive of no circumstance whereupon I would say "ok fry him".
Originally posted by glatt
Are these your own actual personal beliefs?
Nope.
And the "fry him" was an expression, meaning, is there ANY situation in which the anti-death penalty group would think that the death penalty was warranted?
"LS: having watched from the sidelines on a number of debates you have participated in, I'm going to make the observation that you have a tendency to mingle facts and opinions and extrapolate sweeping generalizations from single or a small handful of anecdotes."
I've done many papers on the death penalty schoolwise, so I've looked up both pro- and con- opinions. Yes, my opinion itself is that I favor the death penalty. Knowing the arguments against it, I tend to look for information that can contradict those arguments. As far as the anecdotes go, I was just giving examples that I know of personally.
And, no offense taken. I do tend to get opinionated when it comes to something I believe in.
The truth is, the death penalty is used so little that information concerning its deterrent effect is not able to be ascertained. The pros will say that there's a 0% recidivism rate, and the cons will say "innocent people...." All we know for sure is that it costs a hell of a lot of money to keep a death row inmate in prison for the entire time that his appeals are running. I resent the fact that law-abiding and innocent people have to lock their doors and bar their windows and can't walk the streets after dark. I resent the fact that children are being abused to death, raped, and/or murdered, and the person who did it gets cable, medical, dental, clothing, food, and a roof over his head for the rest of his life.
The victim, most people forget, IS innocent. No maybe about it. The victim's family and friends are innocent. What about them? If a criminal is found guilty, and I think DNA should be mandatory, then eliminate him. Society is more important than one who preys on society.
I sincerely believe that there are those who are such a danger to society that they deserve to be eliminated. I resent having to pay their bills. What's the point of warehousing them if we're not going to use them? Give them a choice: Death or the Lab. Either way they pay society back, rather than just getting a free ride.
Sidhe
Then you shouldn't use them to support your argument.
You are in effect saying that the system can't change because of the way the system is.
If we are talking about changing one part of the system, then we can certainly assume that other parts of the system can change as well.
Originally posted by glatt
Then you shouldn't use them to support your argument.
You are in effect saying that the system can't change because of the way the system is.
I don't use them to support my argument...maybe I should start indicating when sarcasm is being used. The liberals use that as a support for their arguments, and I was being sarcastic by quoting them....
The system can't be changed because even after conviction, the system sides with the criminal. The victims are lost in the shuffle, and basically have no rights, whereas the criminal can sue the state because he's not allowed to sacrifice animals to Satan (sarcastic reference to prisoners who claim to be Satanists, and that their right to freedom of religion is being violated because they're not allowed to sacrifice animals). Yes, that has happened. More than once.
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
The liberals use that as a support for their arguments, and I was being sarcastic by quoting them....
Do you
really want to open the door to broad generalizations?
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
Upon what information are you basing this?
Good catch. I guess what I meant to say was that that was the maximum effect, if any, that guilt or innocence could have on how far the process went.
I think that it is valid, though. A certain number of people on death row do not want to appeal, and I suspect that a majority of them are guilty.
Serial Killer Receives Life Sentence While 3,500 Others Face Execution
In a plea agreement reached with Washington state prosecutors, Gary Ridgway, a Seattle-area man who admitted to 48 murders since 1982, will serve a sentence of life in prison without parole. Prosecutors spared Ridgway from execution in exchange for his cooperation in leading police to the remains of still-missing victims. (Associated Press, November 5, 2003) The state's plea agreement raises questions of proportionality in sentencing when compared with the other inmates on the state's death row. The arbitrary and unpredictable application of capital punishment once led the U.S. Supreme Court to hold that the death penalty was unconstitutional in 1972. In Furman v. Georgia, one of the concurring Justices described receiving the death penalty as random as being "struck by lightning"--the facts of the crime carried little weight in predicting who would receive capital punishment.
THIS is part of the problem with the death penalty.
I have a suggestion that would make the debate moot: tax only the anti-death penalty folks for the upkeep of death row prisoners. That way, us pro-deat penalty folks will have one less thing to bitch about. Create death-row prisons, which will only house death-row inmates--only instead of death row, it will be life imprisonment, for however long that turns out to be, and if they end up getting paroled, they will be sent to the aforementioned little town.
Sidhe
Originally posted by DanaC
Skunk...I just read that poem. I hadnt followed the link before. Damn thats beautiful.
The bio I linked to isn't the greatest, or isn't the story I've heard; I was reminded of it because he was imprisoned for a significant chunk of his life after a mostly-faked trial on sort of bullshit charges.
LS:
Judging from your general stance on the issue and the example you quoted, your rationale presently seems to be "because one guy isn't going to be executed while a bunch of others will, we should just execute them all."
That seems a little silly. I think someone else pointed it out earlier, but using one flaw of the system as your reason for fixing a different flaw of the system doesn't make much sense. The toilet's running, so we should remodel the bathroom?
In Europe we consider Capital Punishment to be barbaric and unfair. [/QUOTE]
No in Europe only some people think Capital Punishment to be barbaric and unfair.
If it went to a public referendum in the UK it would be voted back in no question.
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
And what's the problem with revenge? I feel it's a necessary part of the recovery of the victim's friends and family, to know that the guilty party paid for the victim's life with his own. Justice and revenge aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
I've found that many death-penalty opponents change their tune when someone close to them is murdered.
I had a friend whose aunt was killed while in a phone booth, by a Crip. Why? He wanted her car. Guess what? The car had a coded lock, so he couldn't use it anyway. She died for nothing (as if dying because someone wants your car is a good reason) People like the one I just mentioned need to die. They might target YOU next. Or your parents. Or your child. Or your partner.
I just don't feel sorry for them at all. If you kill someone, intentionally, in cold blood, and it's not in self-defense, or defense of other people or your property, then IMO, they can't execute you fast enough for me. I don't see the point in us having to pay for you for the rest of your life. We have our own bills to worry about, without having to pay yours, too.
Sidhe
[COLOR=indigo]Amen.
They arrested Travis, Shawna and Ron, and Travis confessed to the whole thing, as long as Shawna got off (she was there, and under Oregon law, if you're there and don't report it, you get indicated just like you did it. Which is a good thing.). So, since Travis copped a plea, they decided not to fry him.
He is comfortable in his new home. He got life without possibility of parole. So the good people of Oregon have to pay to make sure he has cable, and has a great set of weights and activities to keep him occupied. This is a convicted, confessed murderer. He never has to work another day in his life, and he gets 3 squares, a cot, cable, exercise equipment, a sexual partner (voluntary), free medical and letters from stupid people who believe his bullshit and "feel sorry" for him.
I say fry his ass, and if they need someone to pull the switch, and they are willing to pay my airfare, I'll be happy to oblige. In addition, even if he DID get the chair, it would not be close to matching up to the suffering and torture he put Steven through. I say we put hundreds of little cuts all over HIS body, and rub salt water and lemon juice into them, and then cut HIS leg off at the knee and let him bleed to death, taunting and humiliating him until he blacked out from blood loss.
THAT is justice. Do unto that fucker as he did to the victim.
[/COLOR]
Originally posted by OnyxCougar
[COLOR=indigo]Amen.
They arrested Travis, Shawna and Ron, and Travis confessed to the whole thing, as long as Shawna got off (she was there, and under Oregon law, if you're there and don't report it, you get indicated just like you did it. Which is a good thing.). So, since Travis copped a plea, they decided not to fry him.
He is comfortable in his new home. He got life without possibility of parole. So the good people of Oregon have to pay to make sure he has cable, and has a great set of weights and activities to keep him occupied. This is a convicted, confessed murderer. He never has to work another day in his life, and he gets 3 squares, a cot, cable, exercise equipment, a sexual partner (voluntary), free medical and letters from stupid people who believe his bullshit and "feel sorry" for him.
I say fry his ass, and if they need someone to pull the switch, and they are willing to pay my airfare, I'll be happy to oblige. In addition, even if he DID get the chair, it would not be close to matching up to the suffering and torture he put Steven through. I say we put hundreds of little cuts all over HIS body, and rub salt water and lemon juice into them, and then cut HIS leg off at the knee and let him bleed to death, taunting and humiliating him until he blacked out from blood loss.
THAT is justice. Do unto that fucker as he did to the victim.
[/COLOR]
That just warms my heart, Onyx....I knew I could count on you. ;)
Sidhe
Oh, Bruce, btw...we have one more here in La., in addition to regular and extra crispy....Cajun injector.
Hahahahahahahahahah!
For those who don't get lethal injection joke...
Sidhe
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
Good catch. I guess what I meant to say was that that was the maximum effect, if any, that guilt or innocence could have on how far the process went.
I think that it is valid, though. A certain number of people on death row do not want to appeal, and I suspect that a majority of them are guilty.
While that may be a reasonable assertion is it possible that there has been a study to that effect?
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Life in prison is never life in prison. "Life" generally means seven years, then parole.
Depends on the state or jurisdiction.
I guarantee you that an executed murderer will never kill again. 0% recidivism rate.
Guarantee that no mistakes will be made in administering the death penalty.
It would seem that a better way to judge society would be by the way it treats the victims of its criminals....
Would you say that we treat them badly, and if so, could you provide some examples/evidence?
You know what? That's not my problem. I'm poor, and I don't use that as an excuse to go out and commit crimes. And I once WAS accused of something I didn't do. I had to use a public defender. I won.
Do you think the poor deserve adequate representation at trial?
Good for you in your situation...it doesn't always work like that though.
Sure, the rich may elude punishment more, but I think that's more of an axiom that the liberals have said so many times that everyone believes it without question.
Broad generalization...back it up.
I don't want to risk becoming a victim of a crime, or someone in my family becoming a victim, because a defendant was given a slap on the wrist, got out early because of time served and good time, just because he was poor.
Are you saying that you think they let people out early or let people off light because they are poor?
I've read a shitload of true crime (it comprises most of my rather extensive personal library), and murderers tend toward recidivism. They get let out, and just go on killing.
Sad, isn't it? Too bad our society is so reactive and less proactive...maybe we wouldn't have such high recidivism rates.
Class war, my tailfeathers! It's a war between law-abiding society and criminal society. You notice how little crime they have in Saudi Arabia, don't you? That's because justice is swift and sure.
Apples and oranges: Saudi Arabia is a completely different society from the US.
I agree with that. Murderous children often become murderous adults. Sociopathy is usually in evidence by age 15, and it cannot be cured. Some sociopaths can live in society fine, but for those who can't, why should I have to worry that one may kidnap my daughter, rape her, strangle her, and throw her body in the bushes because he was let out at age 18?
So, if a sociopath cannot live in society, they should be killed, even if they've never killed? Not to mention, the brain is still developing at age 15.
The question is dangerousness. If they are a continuing danger to society, then they should be eliminated rather than warehoused. Not all mentally retarded people are like Forrest Gump. I've worked with retarded children who are cunning and sneaky, and would jump you at the drop of a hat. One of those retarded children sent a psychiatric worker to the hospital in an ambulance. Why? The PA woke her up. There are varying degrees of retardation, some so slight as to be unnoticable, but the media jumps on the word, and people see Forrest Gump.
This is essentially eugenics. Why are some of those retarded kids cunning and sneaky and unruly? Ummm, gee, could it be because their brain is fucked up?
The public is told that mentally disturbed people aren't dangerous. That was the same drivel they fed us in training for the psychiatric ward. BULLSHIT. If you've got a schizophrenic who refuses to take his meds, odds are you're going to feel the impact of his psychosis sooner or later. The fact is, some of them ARE dangerous, and if they commit a violent crime, they should pay for it. If they refuse meds, they're refusing to control the illness, and thus have a built-in excuse for any dangerous acts they commit. In the psych ward, we had several patients who refused meds. We had to watch our backs constantly if we wanted to walk off our shift under our own power.
If a person is a danger without being on meds, and those meds will not produce life-threatening side effects, then I think they should be forced to take them. Or they should be committed to an institution.
Not only is the death penalty justice, it's society's revenge. The only problem I see with the death penalty is that it isn't used swiftly enough, and it isn't sure enough.
The term "revenge", to me, hints of a lack of impartiality...it seems to be based on emotion, not logic.
When you fuck up and break the law, society deems that one should be punished (and hopefully) rehabilitated. It's not about revenge...it's more like penance.
Society must be protected from predators, or it won't survive. Warehousing them and providing them with all the amenities that many law-abiding citizens can't afford is a slap in the face.
Again, you're making a broad generalization...not all prisoners live in luxury. Most of them don't, actually.
As I see it, we rely too much on the law to protect us. We must be more proactive in stopping crime before it starts. This is easier said than done though...I think it would take a massive overhaul of society to accomplish this.
And how about in England, where those children lured the little boy out of the mall and killed him on the railroad tracks? That deserves the death penalty, as far as I'm concerned. If children that young are killing already, all they're going to learn is that they can get away with it. They lured an innocent child to his death. For the fun of it. I have no sympathy for them. They deserve to die. A life for a life. It may not bring the little boy back, but it may save someone else's life in the future. That's what's important, not the feelings of the poor killer.
Link, please?
The way I see it, people in America know the penalty for certain crimes; therefore, if you commit a crime for which the punishment is death, you're taking your chances. You KNOW what the penalty will be if you're caught, therefore, don't whine when you get it. It's not like we sprung it on you unawares. You took the chance, and you lost. Poor baby.
And do you really think the death penalty has been that strong of a deterrent?
The high cost of the death penalty isn't the execution--it's the endless appeals. If DNA testing were mandatory, I think we'd find a lot fewer innocent people convicted; but it's NOT mandatory. And I feel that a lawful execution is no more murder than lawful confiscation is stealing.
DNA testing, if relevant to the case, should be mandatory. But until that happens, a person condemned to death should have every possible legal avenue open to them. Better safe than sorry, right?
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Life in prison is never life in prison. "Life" generally means seven years, then parole.
Why should I have to support these people? Why should I have to pay for their cable, their medical treatment? I can't afford cable for myself, and I can't even afford medical insurance for myself, but I have to pay for theirs??
Sidhe
There is life without parole, which the most heinous crimes do get as penalties.
As far as the $20-30K we spend on each prisoner. Talk to your Congressman. Tell them to decriminalize non violent drug offenses and make room for the violent felons.
"Guarantee that no mistakes will be made in administering the death penalty."
Not possible, until and perhaps if, DNA testing becomes mandatory in death penalty cases, which I think it should be.
"Would you say that we treat them badly, and if so, could you provide some examples/evidence?"
Yes, I do think we treat them badly. Just look at the way the court system titles trials: "The STATE vs. the murderer," not "THE VICTIMS' FAMILIES vs. the murderer." Look at how the victims of rape are dragged through the mud by defense attorneys; look at how dead victims are dragged through the mud--all in an attempt to prove that the victim brought it on themselves. The rights of the victims/victims' families are practically nonexistent, because everyone is so worried about the rights of the accused, and after conviction, the rights of the criminals, that the people who have been destroyed are further destroyed in the process.
"Do you think the poor deserve adequate representation at trial?"
Yes, I do. However, I don't think that someone should get a slap on the wrist because of race or economic status. What should matter is not race or economics, but GUILT.
"Are you saying that you think they let people out early or let people off light because they are poor?"
I think that people are more vocal when a poor person is convicted, yes. It's one more way to exacerbate the resentment between the classes. When a poor person is convicted, the first thing that people jump on is "he wouldn't have been convicted if he were rich." Not necessarily true.
"Sad, isn't it? Too bad our society is so reactive and less proactive...maybe we wouldn't have such high recidivism rates."
And what would you suggest to be proactive? How can one be proactive with a sociopath? Sociopathy cannot be cured. Period.
"Apples and oranges: Saudi Arabia is a completely different society from the US."
I was referring to the "Swift and sure"
"So, if a sociopath cannot live in society, they should be killed, even if they've never killed? Not to mention, the brain is still developing at age 15."
I didn't say that. I said that people who murder in cold blood should be eliminated so that they can no longer prey on society. They serve no purpose, and we should not have to pay for their upkeep. And sociopathy is evident by age 15 through a group of behaviors. This isn't something that was pulled out of someone's ass...this information is the result of study of these individuals. Sociopaths cannot be cured.
"This is essentially eugenics. Why are some of those retarded kids cunning and sneaky and unruly? Ummm, gee, could it be because their brain is fucked up?"
No. It's not because their brains are fucked up. I.Q. and cunning don't necessarily go together. Ask Troubleshooter about some of these kids; I'm sure Wolf has had to deal with her share. Retardation is not always as debilitating as people think. Severe retardation is one thing. Mild retardation does not prevent violence, sneakiness, or cunning.
"If a person is a danger without being on meds, and those meds will not produce life-threatening side effects, then I think they should be forced to take them. Or they should be committed to an institution."
You can't force them. It's a violation of their rights. Most of them ARE in an institution. That doesn't change their dangerousness. They can escape, or they're let out because they seem to be doing better (ie, they take meds long enough to even out, then quit once they're released.)
"The term "revenge", to me, hints of a lack of impartiality...it seems to be based on emotion, not logic."
Hell yes. If someone I loved was a victim, I'd pull the switch myself. The law says "if you do this, this will happen." That's the logic part.
"When you fuck up and break the law, society deems that one should be punished (and hopefully) rehabilitated. It's not about revenge...it's more like penance."
Penance my butt...they don't get punished, and they don't get rehabilitated. They just learn how to be better criminals.
"Again, you're making a broad generalization...not all prisoners live in luxury. Most of them don't, actually."
They have more amenities than I do. I can't get health care if I get sick. If my eyes go, I can't go to the eye doctor. I don't have cable. Any of the downsides are not my problem. They got themselves into it. They knew the penalty if they got caught.
"As I see it, we rely too much on the law to protect us. We must be more proactive in stopping crime before it starts. This is easier said than done though...I think it would take a massive overhaul of society to accomplish this."
That's what the law is THERE for. People will be people, and some people will be predators. We kill rabid dogs. Why do we hesitate to do the same to rabid humans? At least the rabid dog has an excuse for his behavior....
quote:And how about in England, where those children lured the little boy out of the mall and killed him on the railroad tracks? That deserves the death penalty, as far as I'm concerned. If children that young are killing already, all they're going to learn is that they can get away with it. They lured an innocent child to his death. For the fun of it. I have no sympathy for them. They deserve to die. A life for a life. It may not bring the little boy back, but it may save someone else's life in the future. That's what's important, not the feelings of the poor killer.
"Link, please?"
These are just two of the many articles on the Bulger Murder:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bulger/article/0%2C2763%2C195276%2C00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,3942406-103494,00.html
Here's one if you want more articles:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=Bulger+murder&x=21&y=14&recipe=all&scope=all&tab=www
"And do you really think the death penalty has been that strong of a deterrent?"
If used swiftly and surely on those who are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, YES. But we don't use it swiftly and surely. You're more likely to rot in jail than you are to get fried.
Here's another website, this one on murderous children. Notice the ages, and notice their attitudes.
http://www.petercoad.co.uk/033.htm
Sidhe
"Tell them to decriminalize non violent drug offenses and make room for the violent felons."
I SO agree with that!
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
The question is dangerousness. If they are a continuing danger to society, then they should be eliminated rather than warehoused. Not all mentally retarded people are like Forrest Gump. I've worked with retarded children who are cunning and sneaky, and would jump you at the drop of a hat. One of those retarded children sent a psychiatric worker to the hospital in an ambulance. Why? The PA woke her up. There are varying degrees of retardation, some so slight as to be unnoticable, but the media jumps on the word, and people see Forrest Gump.
"I read of one case for instance of a fellow who had schizophrenia .....He was sentenced to die and before he died he was given medication which gave him a temporary measure of normality ( some kind of ati psychotic agent) so that he would fully understand his fate."
The public is told that mentally disturbed people aren't dangerous. That was the same drivel they fed us in training for the psychiatric ward. BULLSHIT. If you've got a schizophrenic who refuses to take his meds, odds are you're going to feel the impact of his psychosis sooner or later. The fact is, some of them ARE dangerous, and if they commit a violent crime, they should pay for it. If they refuse meds, they're refusing to control the illness, and thus have a built-in excuse for any dangerous acts they commit. In the psych ward, we had several patients who refused meds. We had to watch our backs constantly if we wanted to walk off our shift under our own power.
I couldn't give a rat's ass LESS if they suffer. They deserve it. No, they should not die painlessly. Odds are, their victim(s) did not die painlessly, and the victim's family and friends will live with the pain of their loss forever. We should be more concerned with the victims. It seems to me that anyone who takes the side of the murderer is by default taking the side AGAINST the victim.
"Or is it necessary that the condemned suffer mortal agony in order for justice to be served?"
IMO, YES, it IS necessary. Not only is the death penalty justice, it's society's revenge. The only problem I see with the death penalty is that it isn't used swiftly enough, and it isn't sure enough...
And I feel that a lawful execution is no more murder than lawful confiscation is stealing.
Sidhe
OK, I'll buy your arguments. I have just declared myself winner in the next presidential election. My first action as president will be to order everyone on death row to be executed at once. I will also order that their deaths be as long drawn out and brutal as possible. Naturally, the families of the victims will get front row seats, so they can enjoy every scream, every moan, every spasm of agony. They will also be given their very own video-tape of the event to take home, so they can relive the experience again and again. These are good, moral people and they need their revenge, so they can continue to be noble, upstanding members of society.
The next item on my agenda will be to make our streets safe for our citizens. Those retards are potential killers. Everybody with an IQ less than 80 gets the death sentence. Same for the mentally ill - they are out of their minds, after all. God knows what they might do. Anybody with a mental disorder, please get in line with the retards. Let's see, in the US, one out of three of every young black males between the ages of 18 and 32 is currently incarerated. Now this has nothing to do with poverty or lack of a good lawyer since in your experience you were poor and unjustly accused and got off. Since poverty has no bearing on crime in our culture, then neither does racism. After all, look at all those orientals who don't commit crime. In the case of young black males, its probably a case of bad genetics. Let's get rid of them! Young black men, please line up behind the crazies. And while I'm at it, I think I'll rid the country of the disabled - bunch of useless eaters sitting around watching cable at the tax payer's expense. Everyone in a wheel chair, line up behind those black gang members, thank you. One of my advisors has just informed me that homosexual males may have a proclivity for episodes of senseless rage. That's good enough for me. All you people with limp wrists and attending acting school, get over there behind those yucky handicapped people. That should do for a start. Oh! Wait! Almost forgot those Godless pagans with their satanic rituals. They're the worst! Witches, please go stand behind the guys in tights. There.
I will then direct that the execution of hese people be done publicly and I will pass a law making it mandatory for the public to attend. Anyone who tries to close their eyes will be executed along with the rest. I want the American people to be satisfed that this is a just country and I want them to go to bed at night content that the evil doers suffered a suitable end. This should go a long way to induce in the populance a peaceful, contented out look. We will then live in Nirvana, at last.
"All deeds are led by mind, created by mind.
If one acts and speaks with a corrupt mind,
suffering follows
As the wheel follows the hoof of an oxen pulling a cart.
If one speaks and acts with a serene mind,
happiness follows,
As surely as one's shadow.
'He abused me, mistreated me, defeated me, robbed me.'
Holding on to these thoughts keeps hatred alive.
'He abused me, mistreated me, defeated me, robbed me.'
Letting go of these thoughts destroys hatred for all time.
Hatred does not win over hatred
Only by love is hate defeated.
This is the law which is true for all time."
- The Buddha
*applauds marichko*
Outstanding. In fact I think you won me over too. I am behind you all the way !
And how about in England, where those children lured the little boy out of the mall and killed him on the railroad tracks?
This cae I remember very clearly. This was one of the occassions when I realised just how beastly ( and I mean that in it's literal sense) my own countrymen/women could be.
I watched it play out across my screen and inthe papers. First we saw again and again the footage the little toddler being taken off by the boys.....Then the trial.....the trail which has since been heavily criticised by the European High Court for being unfair.....why was it unfair? Because they tried and treated two children in the same manner as they would have tried an adult.
Murderers those boys might have been but they were also children. Not young men, children.
I have never in all my life felt quite so disgusted with my fellows than when I watched them hurl abuse and bottles and bricks at the Van carrying the two boys. Hurling themselves bodily at the doors and screaming ( many many of them) vengeance and death.....Grown men and women . Parents who have children of their own. ...So appalled were they at the murder of one child by two others, they sought to demonise the two boys to the point they were no longer children themselves.
What would they have done if the two boys had been thrown to them? Would they have kicked them to the ground and stamped on them? Would they have torn them limb from limb like the engared mob they appeared to be? I dont know. I do know the two children getting into the van and then getting out at the other end were terrified. One of them wasnt really sure why he'd followed his friend......but he was starting to feel quite sure he had just destroyed his life....if any of us had been able to step into that child's head for just a moment I shudder to think at the maelstrom we'd have found. .. Reading the descriptions of him crying into his mothers side whilst she held him after a particularly hard session of questioning left me in no doubt that this was a child. A killer yes, but a child also and a young one ( mentally) at that.
The good and decent parents who screamed for their blood and hurled glass bottles at their police van showed us al very clearly how much theyhated these murderous children. Why? I dont know . Perhaps they felt so shocked to find that children were capable of such things that sought to eradicate that posibilty from their mind. The children cannnot really be children they have lost their innocence....they are no longer protected by our knowledge of the world being so much greater than theirs....
I know, I know...They killed a little boy. A beautiful curly headed toddler who had done nothing but trust the two older boys who took him off to play......I know, they understood that what they did was wrong.....that whatthey had done was kill. These boys knew that killing was wrong. These boys knew that what they were doing was wrong at the time. .....But children dont really think like adults do. None of us can truly recall how our minds worked as children because we can only ever look back with the benefit of our fully developed cortex .....Children coceptualise in a different way....They may have known that they were killing and they may have known that killing is wrong and that death is final.....But I dont think they understood tjhose concepts in the same way an adult does. Children are too selfish to view it in the way we might. Even the best most generous and kind child is more selfish than their adult self ( Imo) ....They may have understood what they did in literal terms. But I dont think they related their actions to the consequences or extrapolated out the consequences beyond the immediate in the way most adults do.
I think ....the intensity of the reaction to a crime is proportionate to how much it disturbs our sense of the world as predictable. When children kill children ....it reintroduces us to our animal self and to a world which cannot be contained within law.
No in Europe only some people think Capital Punishment to be barbaric and unfair.
If it went to a public referendum in the UK it would be voted back in no question.
I dont think it would .. but I think it would be very close. The reason I said Europe and not the UK is that my country is often a little out of step with the continent. What I meant was that it is enshrined in European law as being an unacceptable solution to crime and the vast majority of European citizens agree....(.or did before the enlargement I dont really know how that may have affected the mix.)
On a personal level, in my own life I am acquainted with only two people who would vote for a return of capital punishment in this country.....two....out of everyone know, out of all the people I have worked and had the debate with ...and out of my large extended family, my friends and colleagues and neighbours....Two of them would say Hang em high. One of those is my Dad and frankly he has some kooky ideas to start with ( he witnessed a massacre in India when he was a child, I think it gave him a slightly skewed perspective on the world) and the other is My ex's new girlfriend *grins* she's a righty....he's a socialist....I am off to get popcorn for that :P
And sociopathy is evident by age 15 through a group of behaviors. This isn't something that was pulled out of someone's ass...this information is the result of study of these individuals. Sociopaths cannot be cured.
Something similar used to be said of Homosexuality . Usually it was said just before the offender was sent off to do two or three years of hardlabour.
Indidentally....not all sociopaths are murderers. Are they all capable of murder? Well yes I guess...but by that token we really should start locking up men in case they rape.
Not all mentally retarded people are like Forrest Gump. I've worked with retarded children who are cunning and sneaky, and would jump you at the drop of a hat. One of those retarded children sent a psychiatric worker to the hospital in an ambulance. Why? The PA woke her up. There are varying degrees of retardation, some so slight as to be unnoticable, but the media jumps on the word, and people see Forrest Gump
Given that ( in the UK) Mentaly ill patients are 6 times more likely to be murdered than the general populace I think we are focussing on the wrong people.
Originally posted by glatt
Those in favor of the death penalty here seem to be conveniently ignoring the fact that innocent people get executed when you have a death penalty.
Do more innocent people get killed *with* a death penalty than do people *without* a death penalty? Aren't the victims of recidivist murderers innocent?
If we put to death those who have committed premeditated murder, they will never kill an innocent person again.
Anyone have any statistics on convicted murderers who killed again?
Originally posted by glatt
Life in prison means just that. Life. Gone are the days of getting out in 7 years.
I'm just wondering how an innocent person sentenced to a life of prison rape, beatings and confinement is a less cruel thing...
"Hatred does not win over hatred
Only by love is hate defeated.
This is the law which is true for all time."
(Marichiko, you are a genius.)
Eye for an eye? Come on people, this is REACTION not RESPONSE. How can retaliation breed progress? It is as emotional and irrational in origin as any violent crime.
Would you agree that disorder should be treated with its logical antidote: order? If you have a messy desk do you replace it with more mess or do you tidy it up? Social disorder is no different.
You can fight fire with fire but you'll all end up burning. Treating crime with crime is incredibly futile, and capital punishment? Please tell me how this really benefits anyone. The only bearable argument is that the executed individual will not commit another crime. But this is treating the symptom, not the CAUSE! If you have spots, you can squeeze them, and you will never get a spot in that exact place again. But change your diet, drink water, and you wont get spots in the first place! Can we please start looking a little bit further than our basest human instinct: this ability (so-called intelligence) is what distinguishes us from animals. If you are advocating revenge (an emotional, irrational reaction) you cannot condemn these crimes in the same breath, because you are the same.
Hyperbole and metaphor aside, the satisfaction of revenge is fleeting and, because it is irrational, cannot restore true emotional relief (e.g. in victims' families). Ask anyone who has lost a close one to crime - they will tell you that the brief 'pleasure' of revenge cannot compensate for such a loss. The fact that many then dedicate their lives to making sure the same does not happen to others (by setting up support groups/awareness campaigns etc.) is testament to the transient productiveness of retribution, and the lasting power of criminal research, psycho-sociological study and reintegration.
And if all you can muster up for a response is 'soft on crime', 'letting them get away with it' and 'how would you feel if it was your sister' then you are incapable of objectivity and shouldn't be trying to talk rationally about something so important. Of course I do not advocate in any way the heinous crimes that warrant a death row sentence. Of course it fills me with anguish and many accounts of such crimes make me feel physically ill. And, of course, there is nothing I would value more than for every human to enjoy the basic right to live without fear.
I suggest we work with criminals (no, not sitting comfortably on some psychologists couch) to establish the root of the crime and eliminate the cause, not its product. We don't need to execute to prevent re-offence - this is what prison is for. If non-violent or 'petty' crimes did not warrant a jail sentence (e.g. community service) - this would free up cells and resolve the financial dilemma. I did not want to condemn the death penalty without giving consideration to an alternative.
Hatred does not win over hatred.
I wish the world agreed.
*phew. goes for a :joint:
The moral argument for the death penalty has nothing to do with revenge, or with deterrence, or hatred against the perpetrator of the crime. It is an issue of justice. Bear in mind that we are working in ideals here, not in realities.
The prime motivation in atonement justice is the reparation for the wrong done. If you steal something, your just punishment is directly in correlation to the value of the item stolen. If you cause a living thing unnecessary pain, your just punishment is directly in correlation to the social value placed on the living thing (we don’t punish for killing rodents, we do punish for setting the neighbor’s cat on fire). This is the principle behind the punishment fitting the crime.
So what value do we place on a human life? When that life it taken with malice, with forethought, with intent, and with purposeful action, what manner of reparation is appropriate? It must be recompensed with something of equal value – a human life.
As with most crimes, it is not only the victim who receives reparation, but society as well. A violation of an individual’s rights is also a violation against the social well-being. In the case of murder, the victim cannot receive reparation of any kind, but that does not alter the just demand that it be paid. It is therefore received solely by society, in the form of the state.
To argue against the ideal (again, not in practice but in theory) death penalty on moral grounds, you must either argue that justice makes no demand for equal reparation, or you must argue that a life lived out to it’s natural end in prison is equivocal with a life ended prematurely – that the value of any life is only in proportion to it’s freedom. To do the first is difficult, to do the second sets up a principle that, carried to its logical end, makes the con argument even more difficult.
-sm
quote:And sociopathy is evident by age 15 through a group of behaviors. This isn't something that was pulled out of someone's ass...this information is the result of study of these individuals. Sociopaths cannot be cured.
"Something similar used to be said of Homosexuality . Usually it was said just before the offender was sent off to do two or three years of hardlabour.
Indidentally....not all sociopaths are murderers. Are they all capable of murder? Well yes I guess...but by that token we really should start locking up men in case they rape.'"
I have already said that not all sociopaths are criminals. Some turn out to be politicians and lawyers. You'd be amazed how far you can get without a conscience to hinder you. I'm not advocating locking people up OR killing them UNTIL they commit crimes.
"Given that ( in the UK) Mentaly ill patients are 6 times more likely to be murdered than the general populace I think we are focussing on the wrong people."
Work with some retarded juveniles in a "last chance before jail" facility like I did. Work with some mentally ill people who've murdered their children, and/or murdered more than one person, like I did, and THEN give me an opinion.
"And if all you can muster up for a response is 'soft on crime', 'letting them get away with it' and 'how would you feel if it was your sister' then you are incapable of objectivity and shouldn't be trying to talk rationally about something so important. "
But that's exactly what part of it is about.
"I suggest we work with criminals (no, not sitting comfortably on some psychologists couch) to establish the root of the crime and eliminate the cause, not its product."
And how do you suggest we do that? Do you really think they're going to give us an accurate answer that isn't slanted towards them? This is part of the problem--being so worried about whether their mother gave them a dirty look when they were three and thus ruined them for life. What about taking people to task for their actions? What about holding THEM responsible for what they've done, instead of someone or something else? Plenty of people are poor. They aren't criminals. Plenty of people were abused as kids. They don't murder. People who murder have something missing. It's not the parents' fault, and it's not society's fault. It's all them. They make a choice. They should have to pay for that choice.
And tell me, how old were YOU when you realized the difference between right and wrong? Did it take you until after you were a teenager to figure that out? I doubt it. Those kids who killed that little boy were what, ten and eleven? By then you know the difference. What they did was premeditated murder of a helpless, trusting child. If you can do that as a kid, what are you capable of as an adult?
Incidentally, smoothmoniker, BRAVO!
Sidhe
Work with some retarded juveniles in a "last chance before jail" facility like I did. Work with some mentally ill people who've murdered their children, and/or murdered more than one person, like I did, and THEN give me an opinion.
If that's your main experience of mentally challenged people then I think I see why you feel the way you do. But thats because you were delaing with mentally ill criminals rather then the mentally ill who are 6 times more likely to be murdered than I am.
Its a little like saying, Work with some french criminals in jail and some french juvenile delinquents before you give me an opinion on the French.
Catwoman! Good post. The :joint: is well deserved.
Originally posted by smoothmoniker
The moral argument for the death penalty has nothing to do with revenge, or with deterrence, or hatred against the perpetrator of the crime. It is an issue of justice. Bear in mind that we are working in ideals here, not in realities.
The prime motivation in atonement justice is the reparation for the wrong done. If you steal something, your just punishment is directly in correlation to the value of the item stolen. If you cause a living thing unnecessary pain, your just punishment is directly in correlation to the social value placed on the living thing (we don’t punish for killing rodents, we do punish for setting the neighbor’s cat on fire). This is the principle behind the punishment fitting the crime.
So what value do we place on a human life? When that life it taken with malice, with forethought, with intent, and with purposeful action, what manner of reparation is appropriate? It must be recompensed with something of equal value – a human life.
As with most crimes, it is not only the victim who receives reparation, but society as well. A violation of an individual’s rights is also a violation against the social well-being. In the case of murder, the victim cannot receive reparation of any kind, but that does not alter the just demand that it be paid. It is therefore received solely by society, in the form of the state.
To argue against the ideal (again, not in practice but in theory) death penalty on moral grounds, you must either argue that justice makes no demand for equal reparation, or you must argue that a life lived out to it’s natural end in prison is equivocal with a life ended prematurely – that the value of any life is only in proportion to it’s freedom. To do the first is difficult, to do the second sets up a principle that, carried to its logical end, makes the con argument even more difficult.
-sm
Well argued. It raises an issue I have with so many other topics. Too many people are willing to lower the standards because it's easier than to strive towards the ideal. The ideal is almost unachievable, but the results are much more rewarding.
Originally posted by smoothmoniker
The moral argument for the death penalty has nothing to do with revenge, or with deterrence, or hatred against the perpetrator of the crime. It is an issue of justice. Bear in mind that we are working in ideals here, not in realities... So what value do we place on a human life? When that life it taken with malice, with forethought, with intent, and with purposeful action, what manner of reparation is appropriate? It must be recompensed with something of equal value – a human life.
-sm
I think I am going to throw up.
1. The point was made by someone earlier that justice and revenge are not mutually exclusive. Retribution, punishment - call it what you will - its function is the same. It is reflective of an attitude of like-for-like; you hit me and I'll hit you. This is not constructive. It is cyclical and perpetual and does not achieve resolution.
2. 'We are working in ideals not reality.' So what's the point of this debate? I'm sure it's pretty real for the victims.
3. Does the value of a human life vary according to the individual? Why is it right to take the life of another person, because (*screaming child) 'he did it first' (*screaming child)?? Could YOU push the button on the electric chair? Someone's got to do it. Should they die too? It's PERPETUAL it is NEVERENDING you cannot overcome hate and fear with hate and fear. Why is that so difficult to comprehend?
Originally posted by DanaC
If that's your main experience of mentally challenged people then I think I see why you feel the way you do. But thats because you were delaing with mentally ill criminals rather then the mentally ill who are 6 times more likely to be murdered than I am.
Its a little like saying, Work with some french criminals in jail and some french juvenile delinquents before you give me an opinion on the French.
Not true at all. What I'm trying to get across is the fact that mental retardation has levels of severity. A profoundly mentally retarded person is one thing; a person with minor retardation is something completely different. Yet people jump on the word "retarded," and think "profound mental retardation."
People are also led to believe that mentally ill individuals aren't dangerous, which is a bunch of baloney. Fully half of the patients I worked with in a state hospital were there for murder. One woman put her infant in the oven; one smothered her baby. Others were guilty of handgun murders. The adult facility was not a criminal facility. It was a plain old state hospital. When a mentally ill person refuses meds, you can't make them take them. OR, they'll take the meds and get discharged, then stop. These people have murdered once, or more than once. Being mentally ill does not make the murders any less real. It does not mitigate their dangerousness, especially if they're homicidal. It's not always possible to keep a mentally ill person in a hospital indefinately, and others deserve to be protected from them.
Sidhe
Originally posted by smoothmoniker
So what value do we place on a human life? When that life it taken with malice, with forethought, with intent, and with purposeful action, what manner of reparation is appropriate? It must be recompensed with something of equal value – a human life.
That is not possible. When a human life is taken, nobody gets it. The victim cannot be given reparation.
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Fully half of the patients I worked with in a state hospital were there for murder.
Well, it's primarily the dangerous ones who are forced into the hospital. That's hardly surprising.
"That is not possible. When a human life is taken, nobody gets it. The victim cannot be given reparation."
Perhaps. But we guarantee that that person will never again take another life. That's good enough for me.
People who murder don't just take the life of the victim. They ruin the lives of everyone who loved them as well. Think of the misery a serial killer creates in this context.
If you don't want to execute them, put them in a laboratory. It shouldn't be a choice. They should have to pay society back, one way or another.
Sidhe
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
Well, it's primarily the dangerous ones who are forced into the hospital. That's hardly surprising.
And they're likewise the ones who escape, or are discharged. What's your point?
Sidhe
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
That is not possible. When a human life is taken, nobody gets it. The victim cannot be given reparation.
How about society getting reparation for its loss of a, ostensibly, productive member?
When someone's life is taken, society doesn't get it any more than the victim.
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
When someone's life is taken, society doesn't get it any more than the victim.
Why do you say that?
What if the victim was a doctor, a priest, an engineer, a teacher, a philosopher, or a taxpayer?
Originally posted by smoothmoniker
The prime motivation in atonement justice is the reparation for the wrong done. If you steal something, your just punishment is directly in correlation to the value of the item stolen. If you cause a living thing unnecessary pain, your just punishment is directly in correlation to the social value placed on the living thing (we don’t punish for killing rodents, we do punish for setting the neighbor’s cat on fire). This is the principle behind the punishment fitting the crime.
You make an interesting argument, but it all just boils down to "an eye for an eye." I don't beleive in that concept.
Let me ask you about this: We had a situation in my area a few years ago where a woman was contemplating suicide. She was going to jump off a bridge. This was a pretty major bridge. They closed the bridge for several hours while they talked to the woman. Pretty much everyone agreed that she chose the bridge as a location for getting the most attention. She delayed something like 50,000 people by a couple of hours. If you add up all the time she "took" from these people it comes out to like 12 years. Should she be sent to jail for 12 years?
Originally posted by glatt
You make an interesting argument, but it all just boils down to "an eye for an eye." I don't beleive in that concept.
Let me ask you about this: We had a situation in my area a few years ago where a woman was contemplating suicide. She was going to jump off a bridge. This was a pretty major bridge. They closed the bridge for several hours while they talked to the woman. Pretty much everyone agreed that she chose the bridge as a location for getting the most attention. She delayed something like 50,000 people by a couple of hours. If you add up all the time she "took" from these people it comes out to like 12 years. Should she be sent to jail for 12 years?
Yes
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
Why do you say that?
What if the victim was a doctor, a priest, an engineer, a teacher, a philosopher, or a taxpayer?
No, I'm saying that if a murderer's life is taken, nobody receives it. Neither the victim, nor society gains a life by taking another.
Originally posted by marichiko
I don't know where you get the idea that murders get to have their own cable TV. There may or may not be a single TV available in some prison common areas. Such TV's are shared by 100 - 200 inmates and may be watched for limited periods only - often this priviledge is taken away by the guards for discipinary reasons.
[COLOR=indigo]I don't think they get their OWN cable tv. The fact they get TV at ALL pisses me off.[/COLOR]
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
No, I'm saying that if a murderer's life is taken, nobody receives it. Neither the victim, nor society gains a life by taking another.
Ah, gotcha.
So you're saying that instead of making a murderer pay the price for his actions we get to pay the price for his further existance.
I don't consider economics to be relevant when discussing whether to kill someone.
Originally posted by Catwoman
I think I am going to throw up.
try not to hit the shoes
2. 'We are working in ideals not reality.' So what's the point of this debate? I'm sure it's pretty real for the victims.
It's essential. Before we look at how we use the death penalty in real life, we have to answer the question of whether it is morally allowable. If it is, then the debate should focus on accuracy and equity. If it is not, then no argument based on deterrence, revenge, ‘closure’ or future crimes has any weight.
I'd rather look at first issues first, then deal with how they are instantiated in real life.
-sm
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
I don't consider economics to be relevant when discussing whether to kill someone.
For most people economics is a proxy for time and effort. When you have to work for a living, the cost of supporting a convicted parasite on society is a legitimate issue.
quote:Originally posted by glatt
"You make an interesting argument, but it all just boils down to "an eye for an eye." I don't beleive in that concept.
Let me ask you about this: We had a situation in my area a few years ago where a woman was contemplating suicide. She was going to jump off a bridge. This was a pretty major bridge. They closed the bridge for several hours while they talked to the woman. Pretty much everyone agreed that she chose the bridge as a location for getting the most attention. She delayed something like 50,000 people by a couple of hours. If you add up all the time she "took" from these people it comes out to like 12 years. Should she be sent to jail for 12 years? "
She didn't KILL anyone. That makes all the difference in the world. Wanting to kill YOURSELF, as opposed to wanting to kill someone else (or a lot of someone elses) is not a crime against society, IMO. She wasn't preying on anyone else. You're trying to compare two entirely different types of people.
If it was such a big problem for everyone, hell, they should've let her jump. Then traffic could've gone on it's way, and no time would've been wasted.
Sidhe
Originally posted by Catwoman
"Hatred does not win over hatred
Only by love is hate defeated.
This is the law which is true for all time." ~ Buddha
[color=red]Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you[/color]
~ Jesus, Matthew 5:43-44
Ask anyone who has lost a close one to crime - they will tell you that the brief 'pleasure' of revenge cannot compensate for such a loss.
[color=indigo]No, killing Travis cannot compensate for Steven's death, but you know what? It's a good start.
He is PROUD of what he did. He isn't sorry he killed Steven.
And for every (--I can't call him a person, or even animal, because they rarely kill their own--) shitbag that is like him, killing simply is not enough punishment. No confinement too long, no pain too great for them to suffer. Fry them. [/color]
I can't call him a person, or even animal
I think that's what I have difficulty with. He is a person. he has done awful things and I can understand a desire to punish someone who has done awful things.....but they never do stop being people.
Didn't Jesus also tell people to sell their belongings and buy a sword? I seem to recall him saying "render unto Caeser what is Caeser's" as well---I read that to say that one should obey the laws of wherever one happens to be. Then there was something about, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword," or something to that effect.
The bible has too many contradictions to use it as backup for an argument. I'm not worried about the moral aspect of the death penalty. I'm worried about the lawful aspect of it.
The simple fact is, you'd have to live under a rock these days, to not know the penalty for murder. THEREFORE, if you decide to take the chance, you know what you're getting yourself into. You make the choice. No one twists your arm; no one makes the choice for you. Therefore, in the interests of protecting society, if you're caught, we (theoretically) eliminate the threat you pose to society.
I don't see the problem. It's not like we spring it on people. THEY KNOW. THEY choose to murder. I have better uses for my hard-earned money than paying for them for the rest of their lives.
Course, we could send them all to Europe, and let you guys rehabilitate them....
Sidhe
[COLOR=indigo]Then we have different definitions of "person".[/COLOR]
Originally posted by DanaC
...but they never do stop being people.
On that we agree, which, to my mind, makes it even worse.
People know better.
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Course, we could send them all to Europe, and let you guys rehabilitate them....
Sidhe
I like.
Then we have different definitions of "person".
A member of the species Homo Sapiens
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
The bible has too many contradictions to use it as backup for an argument. I'm not worried about the moral aspect of the death penalty. I'm worried about the lawful aspect of it.
[color=indigo] I only bring it up because Buddha was brought up.[/color]
The simple fact is, you'd have to live under a rock these days, to not know the penalty for murder. THEREFORE, if you decide to take the chance, you know what you're getting yourself into. You make the choice. No one twists your arm; no one makes the choice for you. Therefore, in the interests of protecting society, if you're caught, we (theoretically) eliminate the threat you pose to society.
I don't see the problem. It's not like we spring it on people. THEY KNOW. THEY choose to murder. I have better uses for my hard-earned money than paying for them for the rest of their lives.
[color=indigo]You're preaching to the choir here. [/color]
I was preaching to whomever you quoted *grins*.
Sidhe
Originally posted by DanaC
A member of the species Homo Sapiens
[COLOR=indigo]I have more definitive qualifications. "A member of the Homo Sapiens species" is an animal. I reject that people are nothing but animals.[/COLOR]
Originally posted by DanaC
A member of the species Homo Sapiens
Like a friend of mine says, there's a difference between a human being and a person.
Any Homo Sapiens can be defined as a human being...but not everyone is a person.
And doesn't Homo Sapiens mean "thinking man"? This would imply that complex reasoning ability is the major difference between homo sapiens and other creatures, which means that because homo sapiens CAN reason in such a complex manner, that they should be held to a higher standard of conduct, and should be made to be responsible for that conduct.
Sidhe
Are we having fun yet? ;)
And doesn't Homo Sapiens mean "thinking man"? This would imply that thought is the major difference between homo sapiens and other creatures, which means that because homo sapiens can reason, that they should be held to a higher standard of conduct, and should be made to be responsible for that conduct.
I would agree entirely
He is a person. he has done awful things and I can understand a desire to punish someone who has done awful things.....but they never do stop being people.
Kumbaya brother. **Group hug**:rolleyes:
Originally posted by DanaC
I would agree entirely
What would you have the law do? Just keep warehousing them until most of our taxes go to their upkeep? What if one escapes? Then what?
I have a proposition for all these people who hold candlelight vigils before an execution: We'll let him go, but it will be into YOUR custody. You have to take him into your house, with your wife/husband and children. You're responsible for his behavior from now on. If he kills again, not only will we fry HIM, but we'll hold you as an abbettor to his crimes.
We can't kill 'em, we can't experiment on 'em, and they're an utterly useless waste of taxes...taxes that could be spent on schools, roads, or other things that benefit society.
What would you have us do?
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
I have a proposition for all these people who hold candlelight vigils before an execution: We'll let him go, but it will be into YOUR custody. You have to take him into your house, with your wife/husband and children. You're responsible for his behavior from now on. If he kills again, not only will we fry HIM, but we'll hold you as an abbettor to his crimes.
Sidhe
Oh, oh, I have one. How about if one innocent person is executed, then you'll agree to be executed too, to make it all better! Life for a life thing, you know?
And something that seem to have been forgotten in this struggle for murderers' rights to humane treatment: the victims and their families are people too.
The mother who lost her child on those railroad tracks in England, or to a rapist/murderer is a person who will never stop hurting. Children who lose their mothers/fathers/siblings are people who will never stop hurting. Husbands and wives who lose their partners are people who will never stop hurting.
Screw the murderer. He gave up his rights to humane treatment when he abandoned humane behavior.
Like I said before: we put down rabid animals because they pose a danger. We should put down murderers the same way.
Sidhe
Originally posted by jinx
Oh, oh, I have one. How about if one innocent person is executed, then you'll agree to be executed too, to make it all better! Life for a life thing, you know?
Oh, I am SO sick of this "innocent person being executed" argument. Anti-death penalty folks always fall back on that argument, much the same as they've accused us of falling back on the "an executed murderer will never kill again" argument.
What with the appeals process, DNA testing, and the like, PROVEN murderers rarely get executed.
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
What with the appeals process, DNA testing, and the like, PROVEN murderers rarely get executed.
Isn't that something you want to change?
The execution of innocents isn't something to "fall back on". It is the most immediate and practical problem with the death penalty. Arguing the fundamental morality of the death penalty can be interesting, but it is moot while innocents are on death row.
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Oh, I am SO sick of this "innocent person being executed" argument. Anti-death penalty folks always fall back on that argument, much the same as they've accused us of falling back on the "an executed murderer will never kill again" argument.
Ah, so us anti-dp folks ALWAYS do this, but when it comes to the pro-dp folks, it's just an accusation...interesting.
I enjoy debating a topic such as this, but when you blur the boundaries between opinion and fact then smear the opposition on top of it without provocation, a debate ceases being a debate. It becomes a shit-throwing festival.
Oh, I am SO sick of this "innocent person being executed" argument.
Unless, of course, its you. I mean, seriously, if it IS you then won't you be glad we are here - fighting for your right? Or would you
still just want us to wish away the anomolies in the interest of vanquishing the grey area between the end points. Do you
really want to become one with the moss just to prove your point?
Originally posted by sycamore
Ah, so us anti-dp folks ALWAYS do this, but when it comes to the pro-dp folks, it's just an accusation...interesting.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. What I'm saying is that the antis' basic argument is that an innocent person might be executed; the pros' basic argument is that an executed murderer will never kill again. Where's the shit-throwing?
Sidhe
Originally posted by Beestie
Unless, of course, its you. I mean, seriously, if it IS you then won't you be glad we are here - fighting for your right? Or would you still just want us to wish away the anomolies in the interest of vanquishing the grey area between the end points. Do you really want to become one with the moss just to prove your point?
My life is so unbelievably boring that if ever I were accused of murder, I think I'd die of a heart attack before I got to trial.
Seriously...if OJ can't get convicted when there is ungodly amounts of DNA evidence to prove his guilt, then I think little carless ol' me won't have a problem. What are they gonna say I did? WALKED to the crime scene, killed someone just for shits and giggles, then walked home? I'm WAAAY too lazy to put forth that much effort, and I've got a busload of people who will testify to that ;) (right, TS?) If that doesn't work, I'll just say they're attacking me because I'm a Native American female. I'm sure somebody'll jump on the race and gender bandwagon. They always do.
Besides, one has a choice between a jury trial and a bench trial. You think I'd be stupid enough to put my fate in the hands of 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty?
Sidhe
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
Isn't that something you want to change?
The execution of innocents isn't something to "fall back on". It is the most immediate and practical problem with the death penalty. Arguing the fundamental morality of the death penalty can be interesting, but it is moot while innocents are on death row.
Of course I'd like to see it changed. I don't want innocent people to die any more than you do. But if we KNOW someone is guilty, I say FRY 'EM.
If people are so concerned with the idea that innocent people may be executed, then why don't they start a fund to do DNA testing on these people (or whatever they think will clear them)? DO something about it, and then we can execute the ones who AREN'T innocent.
Besides, unless you have an eyewitness to the murder, there's NEVER going to be a 100% certainty. You can't ask for 100%, because we don't have the technology to facilitate that...yet.
Like those kids in England. They're guilty. Everyone knows they're guilty. Charles Manson is guilty, and everyone knows it (for those who say that he never actually killed someone, the law says that if you hire a killer, or otherwise cause a person to be killed, that you are guilty of murder as well). If we know the individual(s) is/are guilty, where's the problem?
Sidhe
Here's a little info I found:
This year, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA), introduced the "Innocence Protection Act" (H.R. 912 and S. 486), a bill that would provide new safeguards in capital cases. 234 Representatives, and 25 Senators have cosponsored the House and Senate Bills respectively.
For more info on this, here's a website:
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/legislation/IPA?OpenDocument
Here are some stats on race, as of Jan 01, 2002:
Race--Number--Percent
White-- 1,701 -- 46.71%
Black -- 1,562 -- 42.77%
Hispanic-- 312 -- 8.54%
Native American -- 45 -- 1.23%
Asian -- 32 -- 0.88%
The average time between sentencing and execution is 9 & 1/2 years.
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
The public is told that mentally disturbed people aren't dangerous. That was the same drivel they fed us in training for the psychiatric ward. BULLSHIT. If you've got a schizophrenic who refuses to take his meds, odds are you're going to feel the impact of his psychosis sooner or later. The fact is, some of them ARE dangerous, and if they commit a violent crime, they should pay for it. If they refuse meds, they're refusing to control the illness, and thus have a built-in excuse for any dangerous acts they commit. In the psych ward, we had several patients who refused meds. We had to watch our backs constantly if we wanted to walk off our shift under our own power.
Andrea Yates anyone? Wasn't it told that she was a paranoid schizophrenic when she was a teenager or something?
Wolf said:
(There are two kinds of justice: Regular or Extra Crispy)
Precisely.
LS:
If we know the individual(s) is/are guilty, where's the problem?
Hell, I don't see any. Let the executions begin. :mad:
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
I resent the fact that law-abiding and innocent people have to lock their doors and bar their windows and can't walk the streets after dark. I resent the fact that children are being abused to death, raped, and/or murdered, and the person who did it gets cable, medical, dental, clothing, food, and a roof over his head for the rest of his life.
AND would get a transplant sooner than I would! :mad: :mad:
The victim, most people forget, IS innocent. No maybe about it. The victim's family and friends are innocent. What about them? If a criminal is found guilty, and I think DNA should be mandatory, then eliminate him. Society is more important than one who preys on society.
I sincerely believe that there are those who are such a danger to society that they deserve to be eliminated. I resent having to pay their bills. What's the point of warehousing them if we're not going to use them? Give them a choice: Death or the Lab. Either way they pay society back, rather than just getting a free ride.
Sidhe
Can't really disagree with any of that. I'm just the revengeful type. God forbid someone did harm to Syc, his family or my family, and was 100% guilty (meaning there was NO room for error, misjudgments, etc.). :rar: :rar: :rar:
If you were savagely murdered, I would not want that person to receive the death penalty.
Originally posted by OnyxCougar
In addition, even if he DID get the chair, it would not be close to matching up to the suffering and torture he put Steven through. I say we put hundreds of little cuts all over HIS body, and rub salt water and lemon juice into them, and then cut HIS leg off at the knee and let him bleed to death, taunting and humiliating him until he blacked out from blood loss.
Hell fucking yes.
THAT is justice. Do unto that fucker as he did to the victim.
:mad: :mad: :mad:
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
I was preaching to whomever you quoted *grins*.
Sidhe
I quoted the Buddha, not Jesus. Making arguments about the contradictions found in the Bible when responding to the words of a Buddhist teaching is the equivalent of arguing about the declension of Latin nouns while taking a class in Swahili.
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
This is part of the problem--being so worried about whether their mother gave them a dirty look when they were three and thus ruined them for life. What about taking people to task for their actions? What about holding THEM responsible for what they've done, instead of someone or something else? Plenty of people are poor. They aren't criminals. Plenty of people were abused as kids. They don't murder. People who murder have something missing. It's not the parents' fault, and it's not society's fault. It's all them. They make a choice. They should have to pay for that choice.
Well, yes, they
should be held accountable, but in many situations, it *is* on the parents to be responsible enough to bring up their children in a safe, stable home, and therefore reduce the *risk* of those children turning to a life of crime.
Originally posted by Catwoman
1. The point was made by someone earlier that justice and revenge are not mutually exclusive. Retribution, punishment - call it what you will - its function is the same. It is reflective of an attitude of like-for-like; you hit me and I'll hit you. This is not constructive. It is cyclical and perpetual and does not achieve resolution.
So what then? Just make that person deny their true feelings for the sake of people who don't agree? IMO, feeling revengeful, etc. is part of being human...notice I didn't say that EVERY human has to feel this way, nor will they always act on that feeling, so why not let them have their "moment"? For some, that is quite theraputic (as opposed to keeping al that emotion bottled up inside).
3. Does the value of a human life vary according to the individual? Why is it right to take the life of another person, because (*screaming child) 'he did it first' (*screaming child)?? Could YOU push the button on the electric chair?
If someone killed my family, loved ones..damn right I could.
Someone's got to do it. Should they die too? It's PERPETUAL it is NEVERENDING you cannot overcome hate and fear with hate and fear. Why is that so difficult to comprehend?
Why is it so difficult to comprehend that some people are going to feel that way..period? Just because
YOU wouldn't DARE feel that way, don't say that others don't have the right to do so.
"Your right doesn't make me wrong." (told to me by a very wise man)
Originally posted by jinx
Oh, oh, I have one. How about if one innocent person is executed, then you'll agree to be executed too, to make it all better! Life for a life thing, you know?
Ok folks: I think that what Lady Sidhe is trying to say is that those who are
100% GUILTY...for instance, the horrible "person" that OnyxCougar mentioned that murdered Steven...he wasn't even sorry that he did what he did (if I have the story correct). So, it would be "wrong" to feel that that criminal should die a painful and horrible death??? WHY??? Not everyone who feels this way is destined to a life of horrible pain and suffering (just like not every woman who gets an abortion is so full of remorse and anguish). I say Let The Victim's Family/Friends Feel How They Want To Feel..my God, how
RUDE would it be for someone to go up to a victim's loved one and say, "You are being irrational for feeling the way you do! Stop it now!" I'd be goddamned if someone came up in my face talking such mess! :angry::angry:
Originally posted by sycamore
If you were savagely murdered, I would not want that person to receive the death penalty.
And that's fine and dandy: I notice that no one is telling
YOU how to feel about
THAT, but when it comes to feeling the opposite, then people want to say to
NOT feel revenge, hate, etc. Why should feeling the way you do be any different from how I would feel if (God forbid)
YOU were murdered??? I don't get it. :confused:
This isn't a religious issue for me, and it's only a moral issue in that I believe that to place the value of the life of the murderer over the life of the victim or potential victims is immoral.
And to tell the truth, I don't see the death penalty as murder at all, and I'll tell you why.
I see "murder" as being perpertrated on an innocent person, for a reason such as: being hired to kill them, wanting their possessions, trying to eliminate a witness, etc.
Now, the death penalty is out there for the world to see. It says, "if you do THIS, we will--ostensibly-- execute you if you are found guilty." Big, flashing neon sign.
Therefore, if I decide to murder someone, and it isn't in self-defense, defense of another, or defense of property, I know the possible consequence. So when you look at it like that, it's a type of passive suicide.
It's like, you know that jumping off a building will kill you, but you're taking the chance that there's gonna be a trampoline there to catch you. You know the consequence. We're not obliged to place a trampoline beneath every window. If you're stupid enough, or uncaring enough, to jump out of that window, don't bitch because you go splat.
I agree with LadySyc in that wanting revenge and feeling hatred towards these predators is just how some people are, and they have the right to feel that way. I don't see murderers as worthy of sharing the title of "person" with me, because there should be standards one must meet to be considered a person. Being human doesn't make you a person, any more than being a feline makes a housecat a tiger. I'm offended to have them in the same category as me.
I feel that by not acting in a manner agreed to by the rest of society, murderers have thus separated themselves from society, and, once convicted, should have the rights given to a member of that society revoked. Why is it ok for a farmer to kill coyotes who prey on his stock, but it's not ok for the state to kill the less-than-animal creatures that prey on society? Why is it ok to put down a rabid animal that is a danger, but not put down a predatory human being that is a danger?
If someone killed a member of my family, you bet I'd pull the switch, drop the floor, inject the drugs, pull the trigger, whatever. Like LadySyc, I'm vengeful by nature. I'd want to look into their eyes when I did it, too. Why should they live when my loved one is dead? It may not bring them back, but it would be a start on the healing process for me.
And you know what? I'd sleep like a baby afterward.
Sidhe
Originally posted by smoothmoniker
The moral argument for the death penalty has nothing to do with revenge, or with deterrence, or hatred against the perpetrator of the crime. It is an issue of justice. Bear in mind that we are working in ideals here, not in realities.
The prime motivation in atonement justice is the reparation for the wrong done...
So what value do we place on a human life? When that life it taken with malice, with forethought, with intent, and with purposeful action, what manner of reparation is appropriate? It must be recompensed with something of equal value – a human life.-sm
The death penalty takes life with malice (note the anger displayed by some of its proponents), with forethought, with intent, and with purposeful action. No individual or entity can retain a stance of integrity by saying one thing and doing another. "Human life is sacred, killing is wrong. We will now kill you." The dissonance inherent in this action is staggering, as well as the hypocrisy. Governments and countries must stand by the same moral values as an individual. The results of governments doing otherwise can be seen in Buchenwald, the killing fields of Cambodia, etc., etc.
Originally posted by smoothmoniker
As with most crimes, it is not only the victim who receives reparation, but society as well. A violation of an individual’s rights is also a violation against the social well-being. In the case of murder, the victim cannot receive reparation of any kind, but that does not alter the just demand that it be paid. It is therefore received solely by society, in the form of the state.
Society harms itself by condoning acts of violence. If a government of a people sanctions violence, the individuals under that government will recieve the message, subconsciously at least, that violence is an acceptable response. The US alone among Western nations imposes the death penalty and also has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the Western World. I cannot help but wonder if our violent society is influenced by our violent government.
Originally posted by smoothmoniker
To argue against the ideal (again, not in practice but in theory) death penalty on moral grounds, you must either argue that justice makes no demand for equal reparation, or you must argue that a life lived out to it’s natural end in prison is equivocal with a life ended prematurely – that the value of any life is only in proportion to it’s freedom. To do the first is difficult, to do the second sets up a principle that, carried to its logical end, makes the con argument even more difficult.
-sm
To make the first argument is not difficult at all. Atonement justice begins with a false premise: the belief that all wrongs can be atoned for. The hard truth is that many crimes can never be made up for to the victim. Their is no atonement to be made to the child who looses her virginity at 14 through a brutal gang rape. Their is no atonement to be made to the boy who grew up battered on a daily basis by his drunken father. There is no atonement that can be made to the dead or the loved ones left behind.
Justice should serve as a deterrent to further criminal acts and as a vehicle to insure that the individual is held responsible for his actions and pays their consequences. In some cases it is possible to achieve deterrance through rehabilitation programs. In the case of a sociopathic murder, there is no possibility of rehabilitation that we have been able to find. Such individuals should be locked up permanently. Work can be found for them that will defray the cost of their up-keep. Since I do not accept the premise of atonement justice, I feel no need to argue about the value of a life in proportion to its freedom. On a personal level, I will say, that given the choice between death and life in prison, I would choose death, without hesitation.
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Neither of which have any bearing on any of this, really, even though I was also replying to the bible quote. This isn't a religious issue for me, and it's only a moral issue in that I believe that to place the value of the life of the murderer over the life of the victim or potential victims is immoral.
Therefore, if I decide to murder someone, and it isn't in self-defense, defense of another, or defense of property, I know the possible consequence. So when you look at it like that, it's a type of passive suicide.
Sidhe
In my philosophy there is no such thing as "ONLY a moral issue." I did not insert that quote to argue any special religous belief, but rather to argue moral belief. The laws of a society must be based on moral values, otherwise they are meaningless. As members of society, we have the obligation to act as morally as we are capable of doing. The life of an individual is built upon morality, just as the structure of a civilization depends upon morality. We codify our moral beliefs into a system of laws and punishments.
Originally posted by marichiko
The death penalty takes life with malice (note the anger displayed by some of its proponents), with forethought, with intent, and with purposeful action. No individual or entity can retain a stance of integrity by saying one thing and doing another. "Human life is sacred, killing is wrong. We will now kill you." The dissonance inherent in this action is staggering, as well as the hypocrisy. Governments and countries must stand by the same moral values as an individual. The results of governments doing otherwise can be seen in Buchenwald, the killing fields of Cambodia, etc., etc.
Show me this malice. Sure there are certain people who would dance a jig over the grave of the killer of a loved one, but that doesn't mean that there is malice in the act of execution.
"Human life is sacred, killing is wrong. <important part you left out>And to prevent you from taking more lives</important part you left out>, we will now kill you."
The State should strive to the same ethics as the individual, but the state has responsibilities that we do not and must sometimes add corrallaries to those ethics to cover those situations. Otherwise it could not function in a way resembling it's goals.
Originally posted by marichiko
Society harms itself by condoning acts of violence. If a government of a people sanctions violence, the individuals under that government will recieve the message, subconsciously at least, that violence is an acceptable response. The US alone among Western nations imposes the death penalty and also has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the Western World. I cannot help but wonder if our violent society is influenced by our violent government.
I think that the lack of deterrent effect is due to the disparity between the ideal of capital punishment and its lack of proper implementation.
"The State should strive to the same ethics as the individual, but the state has responsibilities that we do not and must sometimes add corrallaries to those ethics to cover those situations. Otherwise it could not function in a way resembling it's goals."
Exactly, the State bears a heavy burden of responsibility to those it governs. All the more reason that its actions be ethical without resorting to the cop-out of situational ethics.
"I think that the lack of deterrent effect is due to the disparity between the ideal of capital punishment and its lack of proper implementation."
Then why do nations that do not embrace this "ideal" still have a lower murder rate per capita than we do?
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. What I'm saying is that the antis' basic argument is that an innocent person might be executed; the pros' basic argument is that an executed murderer will never kill again.
They are basic arguments, but I don't think they're
the basic arguments.
Where's the shit-throwing?
I could have sworn I made this clear...
Originally posted by sycamore at 2:42pm EDT
I enjoy debating a topic such as this, but when you blur the boundaries between opinion and fact then smear the opposition on top of it without provocation, a debate ceases being a debate. It becomes a shit-throwing festival.
Oh yeah...that's because I DID make it clear!
We've been through this before...you're a shitty debater. If you want to get off the emotional soapbox and chill with the finger-pointing, let me know. Until then, I'm going to discuss this issue with the more civilized folks here.
I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. Sorry if that's how you feel.
Besides, the death penalty DOES have an emotional aspect for me, as I'm pretty sure it has for everyone who's ever had to deal with the aftermath of a murder. Just because something is emotional doesn't make it wrong. If you consider being emotional, as well as making the point of what I believe to be the basic arguments between the pros and the cons, shit-throwing, I can't change that.
Everyone who has taken part in this debate (or almost everyone, anyway, with the exception of a few) have done so not only with what each believes as the facts but also with their emotions. Emotions always come up in debates like this. I don't expect anyone to act like a computer when it comes to people's lives. Perhaps some people can truly do that. I can't. It doesn't make me wrong.
My intentions, and your perception of my intentions, are apparantly not on the same wavelength.
So, in your all-knowing opinion, what ARE the basic arguments?
Sidhe
This is a pretty interesting debate, so of course, I'd like to throw a big left turn into it...
Question for the antis...if you are being attacked, is it alright for you to kill in self-defense? I mean, what if the assailant is insane and not responsible for their actions, or perhaps they were motivated by extreme need or hunger or something else that society was ultimately responsible for?
When *is* killing for protection, either personal or societal, justified?
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. Sorry if that's how you feel.
Sure, the rich may elude punishment more, but I think that's more of an axiom that the liberals have said so many times that everyone believes it without question.
Penance my butt...they don't get punished, and they don't get rehabilitated. They just learn how to be better criminals.
Oh, I am SO sick of this "innocent person being executed" argument. Anti-death penalty folks always fall back on that argument, much the same as they've accused us of falling back on the "an executed murderer will never kill again" argument.
In other words, you're a goddamned liar.
Besides, the death penalty DOES have an emotional aspect for me, as I'm pretty sure it has for everyone who's ever had to deal with the aftermath of a murder. Just because something is emotional doesn't make it wrong. If you consider being emotional as well as making the point of what I believe to be the basic arguments between the pros and the cons shit-throwing, oh well.
See above...you make broad generalizations and are insulting. We're having a civil discussion about the death penalty...give me a fucking break.
Everyone who has taken part in this debate (or almost everyone, anyway, with the exception of a few) have done so not only with what each believes as the facts as well as their emotions. Emotions always come up in debates like this. I don't expect anyone to act like a computer when it comes to people's lives. Perhaps some people can truly do that. I can't. It doesn't make me wrong.
Actually, it seems to me that most of the people that have been posting in this thread have been pretty mellow and civil.
There is nothing wrong with emotion per se...too much can make people sound or act irrational though.
So, in your all-knowing opinion, what ARE the basic arguments?
Among the basic arguments for the death penalty:
--"An eye for an eye"
--0% recidivism rate
--Closure for the family
--Saves the state/federal government money
Among the basic arguments against the death penalty:
--It is cruel and unusual punishment
--Having to live to remember those crimes is punishment enough for the murderer
--Killing the murderer doesn't bring back the victim
When in immediate danger, and the assailant is not under your control.
Originally posted by Elspode
Question for the antis...if you are being attacked, is it alright for you to kill in self-defense?
Hopefully, you would be able to flee or subdue your attacker, but worst-case scenario, absolutely.
I mean, what if the assailant is insane and not responsible for their actions, or perhaps they were motivated by extreme need or hunger or something else that society was ultimately responsible for?
I can't worry about the other person in that situation...if I am being attacked and my life in danger, it will suck to be that other person, no matter what their situation is.
When *is* killing for protection, either personal or societal, justified?
If there is an imminent threat to the community or a person...e.g. if you have killed 30 people and you have hostages and a sniper has a clean shot...sucks to be you.
I'm with syc.
The problem with emotion and this issue is emotion has no place in deciding justice.
Lady Sidhe: “What about taking people to task for their actions? ... Plenty of people are poor. They aren't criminals. Plenty of people were abused as kids. They don't murder. People who murder have something missing. It's not the parents' fault, and it's not society's fault. It's all them. They make a choice. They should have to pay for that choice.”
The question of choice.
This is Nature vs Nurture. Is an individual consciously responsible for his actions; ruled by instinct? Or are these actions ultimately a product of environmental socialisation? One could argue that nurture does not come into it, not least because nurture can only ultimately arise from nature, and, like you say, people respond differently to a similar (never the same) social situation, hence not everyone who is poor/psychopathic/asymmetrical resorts to murder. Are we all born the same? Your argument predisposes that we are not; that a murderer is an anomaly – they have ‘something missing’ – and murder is executed (forgive the pun) with intent and rationality (nevertheless based on irrational emotional experience, e.g. abuse etc.). Your argument for capital punishment can only hold strength if you believe that WE ARE BORN DIFFERENT. That a person has a predisposition to murder, be it genetic or sociopathic, and there is NO CURE. If this is the case, how can you advocate punishment? It would serve no purpose, achieve no reparation and could not function as a deterrent. It is an incredible paradox.
"I suggest we work with criminals ... to establish the root of the crime and eliminate the cause, not its product."
Lady Sidhe: "And how do you suggest we do that?”
So little is known about the cause, or at least the dominant set of characteristics inherent in a murderer. We must use the symptoms (criminals) to establish the root (cause) of the phenomena, like any scientific experiment. Cause and effect: nothing just happens – life, while unpredictable, is not arbitrary – there is always a cause, always a reason. Ergo treating insanity (murder) with a punishment that assumes sanity (i.e. that the individual exerts choice) is ineffectual.
The ultimate objective is to eradicate the phenomenon of murder. Utopian maybe, but surely the purpose - the end result - is for murder (and other violent crime) to cease to exist. The only way this can be achieved is through ongoing scientific research to determine WHY murder exists. Once we know the cause, we can treat it, respond (not react) to it and finally obliterate it.
Logistically, I would retain perpetrators in a secure environment whereby detailed physiological and psychological study could take place. Life would mean life: that would also be the deterrent/punishment.
And tell me, how old were YOU when you realized the difference between right and wrong? Did it take you until after you were a teenager to figure that out? I doubt it.
This depends on whether my morals are inherent, or educated (see above). To answer that question with authority would be incredibly arrogant.
Happy Monkey: When a human life is taken, nobody gets it
Quite. You cannot refund or replace a life, therefore it should not be treated akin to material crime. Like for like only works with quanitifiable objects - life is not a possession, therefore the issue of reparation is a non-entity.
Happy Monkey: I don't consider economics to be relevant when discussing whether to kill someone.
Economics have become an issue because people have attempted to quantify life (see above). As this is impossible, the influence given to the means of financing the death or life of a criminal is deplorable.
Lady Sidhe: Course, we could send them all to Europe, and let you guys rehabilitate them....
Good ole' USA: you are innovators, instigators, creators. You create the problems: we (and our Middle Eastern/African/Asian compatriates) deal with the consequences.
(*PS. I refer more to Western values in general than America itself.)
Lady Sidhe: But if we KNOW someone is guilty, I say FRY 'EM.
Fry 'em. Fry them? I just cannot comprehend this brutal animality. It is vulgar, reprehensible and reduces everything you have said to the same level as these vile individuals you would so relish seeing 'fried'. You are as guilty and sadistical as them:
If someone killed a member of my family, you bet I'd pull the switch, drop the floor, inject the drugs, pull the trigger, whatever. Like LadySyc, I'm vengeful by nature. I'd want to look into their eyes when I did it, too. Why should they live when my loved one is dead? It may not bring them back, but it would be a start on the healing process for me.
And you know what? I'd sleep like a baby afterward.
Sidhe
Remorse and forgiveness - terrible burdens, eh?
Ladysycamore: So what then? Just make that person deny their true feelings for the sake of people who don't agree?
I would never advocate denial as therapeutic or antidotal. By all means experience these emotions, just don't act on them.
Why is it so difficult to comprehend that some people are going to feel that way..period? Just because YOU wouldn't DARE feel that way, don't say that others don't have the right to do so.
"Your right doesn't make me wrong." (told to me by a very wise man)
Of course- no doubt I would feel just as much hatred, anger and desire for revenge as the next person, but emotions should not necessarily be translated into action. They are subjective and not a reflection of fact, or reality, and thus can only perpetuate the cycle of crime.
Lady Sidhe: I'm not pointing fingers at anyone
But you're quite happy to point guns?
:worried:
Originally posted by marichiko
"The State should strive to the same ethics as the individual, but the state has responsibilities that we do not and must sometimes add corrallaries to those ethics to cover those situations. Otherwise it could not function in a way resembling it's goals."
Exactly, the State bears a heavy burden of responsibility to those it governs. All the more reason that its actions be ethical without resorting to the cop-out of situational ethics.
You selectively edited out the part that was most important.
"The State should strive to the same ethics as the individual,
but the state has responsibilities that we do not...
Some ethics, by definition, have to be situational. Polar logic isn't always applicable.
Originally posted by marichiko
"I think that the lack of deterrent effect is due to the disparity between the ideal of capital punishment and its lack of proper implementation."
Then why do nations that do not embrace this "ideal" still have a lower murder rate per capita than we do?
My point was that it's possible that it doesn't have the desired deterrent effect because people know the liklihood that they will actully be executed is so slim as to be effectively zero and that their lives inside are better than their lives outside.
Originally posted by jaguar
I'm with syc.
The problem with emotion and this issue is emotion has no place in deciding justice.
But the people that actually make the decision to issue the death penalty to a guilty murderer are not the emotional ones. It's the victim's family/loved ones left behind, so what's the harm if they wish the murderer dead?
Originally posted by Catwoman
But you're quite happy to point guns?
That's my job.
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
My point was that it's possible that it doesn't have the desired deterrent effect because people know the liklihood that they will actully be executed is so slim as to be effectively zero and that their lives inside are better than their lives outside.
How do you figure their lives will be better inside? Convicted murderers are not sent to "country club" prisons, by a long shot.:confused:
Originally posted by Episode
This is a pretty interesting debate, so of course, I'd like to throw a big left turn into it...
Question for the antis...if you are being attacked, is it alright for you to kill in self-defense? I mean, what if the assailant is insane and not responsible for their actions, or perhaps they were motivated by extreme need or hunger or something else that society was ultimately responsible for?
When *is* killing for protection, either personal or societal, justified?
I would kill in self defense if forced to. In fact, I once actually made a plan to kill someone. This man had been stalking me for three years. He once pushed me out of a moving car. Another time he came after me in a parking lot at 2:00am with a length of re-barb. I got a restraining order on this individual and changed my phone number. Somehow, he got my new phone number and left threatening messages on my phone. He cruised my house on a daily basis. He stole my cat and actually held it hostage. The last straw was when he began to leave messages on my phone that he was going to kill my mother and my best friend. I had a friend who was a tough ass biker chick and I had my Dad’s military officer’s gun – a semi-automatic colt 45. My biker chick friend told me that the next time this creep came to my door that I should sit down in my living room with the gun and shout taunting remarks at him which would cause him to become enraged and break the door down (he’d done this once before). I was to wait until he was inside the room and then shoot him. My friend said that if I hit him and he kept coming, to shoot him again. We rehearsed the whole thing, and I was mentally prepared to do it. Colorado has a “make my day” law, and I would have been acting in self defense. Thank God, I never had to do this. The police picked up the guy on a warrant he had from out of state and I never saw him again.
I still do not believe in the death penalty, however. Had this monster killed my mother or best friend, frying him would not have brought them back. His death in the first scenario would have saved their lives. Life without parole would have prevented him from harming anyone else in the second.
[i]
And do you know why I'll be the last liberal standing? Because I'll have a motherfucking gun! [/B]
We’ll be the last TWO liberals standing (see above).
LadySidhe:If someone killed a member of my family, you bet I'd pull the switch, drop the floor, inject the drugs, pull the trigger, whatever. Like LadySyc, I'm vengeful by nature. I'd want to look into their eyes when I did it, too. Why should they live when my loved one is dead? It may not bring them back, but it would be a start on the healing process for me.
And you know what? I'd sleep like a baby afterward.
Catwoman:
Remorse and forgiveness - terrible burdens, eh?
That may or may not come later. And why does it matter so much how the victims family reacts? They are not the ones that will issue the decision of whether or not the murderer gets the death penalty or not.
And I would sleep like a baby afterwards as well.
Ladysycamore: So what then? Just make that person deny their true feelings for the sake of people who don't agree?
Catwoman:
I would never advocate denial as therapeutic or antidotal. By all means experience these emotions, just don't act on them.
Never said that anyone SHOULD act on them. But, I wouldn't blame anyone for feeling that way. In other words, I would WANT to kill the person who has harmed my loved one, but more than likely, I would not act on that.
Lady Sidhe: But if we KNOW someone is guilty, I say FRY 'EM.
Catwoman:
Fry 'em. Fry them? I just cannot comprehend this brutal animality.
Then don't. That's how Lady Sidhe feels. Why should she change that just because you do not agree?
Catwoman:
It is vulgar, reprehensible and reduces everything you have said to the same level as these vile individuals you would so relish seeing 'fried'. You are as guilty and sadistical as them:
You forgot to say, "IMO" after your assessment. Ever think that you can be just as sadistical as the next person for allowing a criminal to live? I'm sure someone out there thinks that of people who are not pro-DP.
If all this is based on one's morals, then it doesn't (or maybe even shouldn't) hold water in this conversation (seeing as though morality isn't a fixed concept). One man's yin is another man's yang, etc.
.
LadySycamore: Why is it so difficult to comprehend that some people are going to feel that way..period? Just because YOU wouldn't DARE feel that way, don't say that others don't have the right to do so.
"Your right doesn't make me wrong." (told to me by a very wise man)
Catwoman:
Of course- no doubt I would feel just as much hatred, anger and desire for revenge as the next person, but emotions should not necessarily be translated into action. They are subjective and not a reflection of fact, or reality, and thus can only perpetuate the cycle of crime.
IMO, you are taking this a bit to the extreme. Just because someone would feel that way, doesn't mean that they would actually do it. And futhermore, you wouldn't be able to stop them from doing so anyway, so why even get all upset about it?
If Lady Sidhe feels the need to shoot the murderer, I say oh well, what am I going to do about it? The BEST I could probably do is try to talk her out of it, and not call her names as you have done (guilty, irrational, sadistic...how is that helping?) :confused:
Originally posted by ladysycamore
But the people that actually make the decision to issue the death penalty to a guilty murderer are not the emotional ones.
Not necessarily...you've been on a jury before.
Originally posted by sycamore
Among the basic arguments for the death penalty:
--"An eye for an eye"
--0% recidivism rate
--Closure for the family
--Saves the state/federal government money
Among the basic arguments against the death penalty:
--It is cruel and unusual punishment
--Having to live to remember those crimes is punishment enough for the murderer
--Killing the murderer doesn't bring back the victim
--"An eye for an eye"
Dated, as well as not alwas appropriate.
--0% recidivism rate
Logically true. Problematic in being sure of guilt, but sound essentially.
--Closure for the family
I'm not interested in closure for the family. I'm interested in protecting society. I'm not the guy you come calling on when you need to feel better about something.
--Saves the government money
If implemented properly it will in the long run.
--It is cruel and unusual punishment
[b]Punishment has to be cruel and unusual or it won't work. For punishment to work it has to stand out in the memory as TRAUMATIC results for poor decision-making.
--Having to live to remember those crimes is punishment enough for the murderer
You're kidding right?
--Killing the murderer doesn't bring back the victim
No, it doesn't, but that isn't the only goal of justice.Originally posted by ladysycamore
That may or may not come later. And why does it matter so much how the victims family reacts? They are not the ones that will issue the decision of whether or not the murderer gets the death penalty or not.
They can have influence though.
And I would sleep like a baby afterwards as well.
I doubt it...I suspect that you'd have a guilty conscience later.
Then don't. That's how Lady Sidhe feels. Why should she change that just because you do not agree?
No one is expecting her to change.
Originally posted by ladysycamore
But the people that actually make the decision to issue the death penalty to a guilty murderer are not the emotional ones.
Ah, but they are if it's a jury.
How many lawyers do you think actually expect a jury to use their heads instead of their hearts in making a decision? Don't forget what the jury pool is made up of.
You forgot to say, "IMO" after your assessment. Ever think that you can be just as sadistical as the next person for allowing a criminal to live? I'm sure someone out there thinks that of people who are not pro-DP.
There is something of a difference between wishing the murderer dead and wishing the murderer to experience the maximum available pain and mortal terror and/or relishing the details of that pain and terror and/or finding it appropriate material for casual humour. Wishing the murderer dead may be a responsible and reasonable answer to the problem...delighting in their suffering is sadism, taking pleasure in the manner of their death is sadism.
I am sure there are those out there who think us antis are reprehensible and irresponsible but I think we are stretching the definition of sadism if they believe us to be sadistic on those grounds. If we said we wished that murderers could stay alive so we could watch them rape and slaughter virgins maybe.....but suggesting another solution beyond execution is not sadism and if theres someone out there who thinks that then they need to invest in a dictionary
Originally posted by marichiko
How do you figure their lives will be better inside? Convicted murderers are not sent to "country club" prisons, by a long shot.
I live in an area that is severly depressed. I've had interactions with people who have told me that they'd rather be in prison than have to worry about keeping food on the table.
Also, a friend of mine is a detective with the local PD and has had the same conversation with people.
Some people have lives that really are that bad.
I live in an area that is severly depressed. I've had interactions with people who have told me that they'd rather be in prison than have to worry about keeping food on the table.
In that case perhaps you chaps should invest in some sort of social security and then the lawabiding people who live in freedom wont be so desperate as to wish themselves in a place where they are likely to experience their first rape within the first 15 minutes of incarceration or where they have to share a tiny cell with no amenities and every single act from their toiletting to their sleep being dictated and observed by people who have power overthem.
I have no idea where people get the idea that prisons are a pleasant or even habitable place to exist in. If the prisons in America are anything like the prisons over here then the inmates are barely skirting a reasonable existence. Given some of the stories I have heard I am inclined to think they are probably marginally worse.
As to the fact they get three square meals a day...the meals in some prisons in the UK simply dont bear thinking about. They look ok on paper but much ofthe food is unfit for human consumption and cases of food poisoning abound.
I do think when people are so desperate as to wish they were in prison they maybe have in mind a prison more akin to a holding jail rather than the large industrial sized penitential facilities which they would actually find themselves in if they committed serious crimes
Imagine sharing a small, cramped and colourless space with four or five guys all of whom are pretty fucked up and desperate people......often spending 22 or 23 hours with them in the cell sharing a toilet with no privacy no release from the relentless boredom. Imagine never being able to make a choice for yourself again. Not the choice to sleepwhen you want or be awake when you want. Not the choice to read what you want or watch the tv channel of your choice. No choice in what you eat , no choice in what you wear no choice in any aspect of your life.
Before I am blown off my feet by the shouting, I know......they are criminals they made their choice and they now have to lie in the prison cot they made for themselves...I dont deny it. Nor do I think this is the best time to start a debate on the merits of prison and whether or not the concept of punishment is useful.....I just think that we would do well to recognise how harsh life in prison actually is.
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
Dated, as well as not alwas appropriate.
Agreed. Plus, as I see it, because you used your brain to think about committing the crime, your brain should be removed...not your hand, foot, etc. I don't see much support for that.
I'm not interested in closure for the family. I'm interested in protecting society. I'm not the guy you come calling on when you need to feel better about something.
I think we have to take the victim and their family into account, at least to a small degree. After all, they're part of the society we're attempting to protect. And if you lock a person up and "throw away the key," society is still protected.
If implemented properly it will in the long run.
I don't think the cost would be such a big deal in the long run if we cleared some of the prison population out (e.g. nonviolent drug felons). In addition, if we put the prisoners to work, then the money is not being wasted.
Punishment has to be cruel and unusual or it won't work. For punishment to work it has to stand out in the memory as TRAUMATIC results for poor decision-making.
How do you propose reconciling this with the 8th Amendment?
You're kidding right?
Absolutely not. You are sent to live in an 8' x 8' cell, where you may or may not have a TV, where you will have to spend anywhere from 12-23 hours a day. You face the possibility of being killed or raped or infected by other prisoners...and this will go on for the next 30-50 years.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like hell to me. A death sentence almost seems kinder.
Originally posted by DanaC
... in a place where they are likely to experience their first rape within the first 15 minutes of incarceration or where they have to share a tiny cell with no amenities and every single act from their toiletting to their sleep being dictated and observed by people who have power overthem.
I have no idea where people get the idea that prisons are a pleasant or even habitable place to exist in. If the prisons in America are anything like the prisons over here then the inmates are barely skirting a reasonable existence. Given some of the stories I have heard I am inclined to think they are probably marginally worse.
As to the fact they get three square meals a day...the meals in some prisons in the UK simply dont bear thinking about. They look ok on paper but much ofthe food is unfit for human consumption and cases of food poisoning abound.
Imagine sharing a small, cramped and colourless space with four or five guys all of whom are pretty fucked up and desperate people......often spending 22 or 23 hours with them in the cell sharing a toilet with no privacy no release from the relentless boredom. Imagine never being able to make a choice for yourself again. Not the choice to sleepwhen you want or be awake when you want. Not the choice to read what you want or watch the tv channel of your choice. No choice in what you eat , no choice in what you wear no choice in any aspect of your life.
.....I just think that we would do well to recognise how harsh life in prison actually is.
Remember when I said I was accused of something I didn't do? Well, I spent a single night, two days, in our parish prison. It sucked, but you know what?
You don't share a small, cramped cell. There were eight of us in a single cell about half the size of the house I live in now. There were two rooms, each of which had two bunk beds each; There were two shower/bathrooms, and a central common area with a tv. There was also a phone in the cell. You could order books if you wanted. You could go to church or classes. The lights went out at ten pm, and came on at seven am. Sure, the food sucked, but mostly because it was cold. No one ever threatened me.
This wasn't a jail; this was a permanent facility. I'm not saying they're all like this, but it can't be the ONLY one that is.
Sidhe
Welll.....without having the evidence in front of me to examine and without knowing much about the prison system of America I am going to take a wild stab in the dark and suggest that maybe rapists and murderers who have actually been convicted and sentenced and incarcerated in the State Penitentiary probably dont get the same luxurious conditions you describe. I am guessing that was a small local prison used mainly for lower grade crimes and people who are being held for a few days.
As I said, I think people who have come to the conclusion that prison is an easy option might have in mind one of the smaller holding jails rather than the large scale prisons in which your average rapist or murderer might find themselves.
Edited to say
I do beg your pardon. I assumed by the term Parish Prison that you were referring to a small institution.....I went seeking more information and have fund that "Parish Prisons" are seemingly just as likely to treat their prisoners in an appalling fashion as the larger prisons are.
Found this in an ACLU site
The ACLU, since 1969, and its National Prison Project (ACLU-NPP), since 1979, has had the Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) in litigation over cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment of inmates in its care. This has amounted to "unquestioned and serious deprivations of basic human needs" and/or "the minimal civilized measures of life’s necessities," as defined by the US Supreme Court. In pursuing a minimal level of care at OPP, the ACLU has tried to prevent a tragedy such as the death of arrestee JoAnn Johnson, a brittle diabetic, on April 6, 1999.
Link to full paper
The section I found most disturbing was this
After interviewing over 100 women in OPP regarding medical care and conditions of confinement, the ACLU-NPP on December 8, 1998, filed a motion for emergency relief and enforcement of agreed entry on medical care provisions governing women’s OB/GYN and prenatal care ......... The ACLU found evidence of the following violations, which taken together "threaten the lives of women prisoners and their fetuses:"· Chronic and acute gynecological conditions such as ovarian cysts and vaginal discharge go untreated; Deputies tell pregnant women that they cannot go to the hospital to deliver their babies until 1)their water breaks; 2)they suffer heavy bleeding; or 3)the baby’s head emerges.
"There is something of a difference between wishing the murderer dead and wishing the murderer to experience the maximum available pain and mortal terror and/or relishing the details of that pain and terror and/or finding it appropriate material for casual humour. Wishing the murderer dead may be a responsible and reasonable answer to the problem...delighting in their suffering is sadism, taking pleasure in the manner of their death is sadism."
Maybe. But after all the crime accounts I've read of the murderers "relishing the details of the pain and terror" of their victims (ie, serial murders who visit crime scenes to relive the murder, and/or who kill their victims over a period of time, murderers who torture before they kill), I'm really not that concerned with whether or not the punishment they recieve is "cruel and unusual." What they did to the victim was cruel and unusual, so why should they be spared the same? Why do they deserve better treatment than they gave the victim? I agree with TS in that punishment should be such that it is never forgotten, and serves as a deterrent. At the very least, we should strive for "like for like."
If they're a serial rapist, give 'em to a guy named Bubba who hasn't seen a woman in twenty years.
If they cut off a body part, do the same to them.
..and so on...
If wanting the penalty to fit the crime is sadism, then yes, I'm the biggest sadist you'll ever meet.
(Incidentally, "sadism" actually refers to one who receives sexual pleasure from intentionally inflicting (generally unnecessary) pain to another person. I wouldn't say that fits me.)
Sidhe
(Incidentally, "sadism" actually refers to one who receives sexual pleasure from intentionally inflicting (generally unnecessary) pain to another person. I wouldn't say that fits me.)
Oh go on....admit it...you get moist.
Catwoman:
Fry 'em. Fry them? I just cannot comprehend this brutal animality.
Here is where most people make a serious error in thinking, that if adjusted could possibly cause a major paradigm shift.
Only humans are this cruel, this often, and to this degree. "Inhumane" is a null-word as it is currently used. To use "animality" in the same context is equally incorrect.
Catwoman:
You are as guilty and sadistical as them
That may be a bit much.
She may be vindictive, sadistic, and unforgiving, but what woman isn't? :D
LadySycamore
If all this is based on one's morals, then it doesn't (or maybe even shouldn't) hold water in this conversation (seeing as though morality isn't a fixed concept). One man's yin is another man's yang, etc.
One essential part of this discussion is to come to terms with what morality and ethics can be agreed upon.
Catwoman:
Of course- no doubt I would feel just as much hatred, anger and desire for revenge as the next person, but emotions should not necessarily be translated into action. They are subjective and not a reflection of fact, or reality, and thus can only perpetuate the cycle of crime.
Emotion is a very real response to a stimulus. Regardless of of the subjectivity of that emotion, it is real. Fear, for instance is a salient responce to danger. Anger is a response to fear or danger.
Edit: fixed a coding error
Originally posted by sycamore
Agreed. Plus, as I see it, because you used your brain to think about committing the crime, your brain should be removed...not your hand, foot, etc.
I'm sensing sarcasm here...
Originally posted by sycamore
I think we have to take the victim and their family into account, at least to a small degree. After all, they're part of the society we're attempting to protect. And if you lock a person up and "throw away the key," society is still protected.
I agree that victims are a part of the formula, but for me, personally, it's not as much a part as for others because ultimately I believe that reason is more important than emotion.
Originally posted by sycamore
I don't think the cost would be such a big deal in the long run if we cleared some of the prison population out (e.g. nonviolent drug felons). In addition, if we put the prisoners to work, then the money is not being wasted.
Agreed, but the inmate work program is a whole new, giant can of worms entirely.
Originally posted by sycamore
How do you propose reconciling this with the 8th Amendment?
I think that the founding fathers had a different view of what would be considered cruel and unusual. They lived in a harder time and probably had much more first hand knowledge of the effects of punishment.
Not quite so warm and fuzzy, as it were.
Originally posted by sycamore
Absolutely not. You are sent to live in an 8' x 8' cell, where you may or may not have a TV, where you will have to spend anywhere from 12-23 hours a day. You face the possibility of being killed or raped or infected by other prisoners...and this will go on for the next 30-50 years.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like hell to me. A death sentence almost seems kinder.
I think that we should all table this aspect of the conversation until we can get some people that are actually in, or have been in, this position
Edit: typos (I hate doing this at work sometimes)
" quote:The ACLU, since 1969, and its National Prison Project (ACLU-NPP), since 1979, has had the Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) in litigation over cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment of inmates in its care. This has amounted to "unquestioned and serious deprivations of basic human needs" and/or "the minimal civilized measures of life’s necessities," as defined by the US Supreme Court. In pursuing a minimal level of care at OPP, the ACLU has tried to prevent a tragedy such as the death of arrestee JoAnn Johnson, a brittle diabetic, on April 6, 1999.
The section I found most disturbing was this
quote:After interviewing over 100 women in OPP regarding medical care and conditions of confinement, the ACLU-NPP on December 8, 1998, filed a motion for emergency relief and enforcement of agreed entry on medical care provisions governing women’s OB/GYN and prenatal care ......... The ACLU found evidence of the following violations, which taken together "threaten the lives of women prisoners and their fetuses:"· Chronic and acute gynecological conditions such as ovarian cysts and vaginal discharge go untreated; Deputies tell pregnant women that they cannot go to the hospital to deliver their babies until 1)their water breaks; 2)they suffer heavy bleeding; or 3)the baby’s head emerges. "
Well, as far as having babies and such, I can't comment on that with any authority. However, I DO know that they tend to take the children away after birth, and either place them with a foster family or with someone in the prisoner's family. I know this because a friend of mine knows a girl who's a crack/meth addict, who spends most of her time in prison for drug use. This girl has had ten children, only two of which have lived, all born addicted, or dead in the womb from the drugs.
I do know that if you wanted a doctor, they didn't make you wait an inordinate amount of time.
The ACLU, from what I've seen, tends to melodramatize situations. I'm not saying that what you quoted is not true, just that it's not a constant, everyday, everyWHERE, ongoing thing. They make it sound as if EVERY prison in EVERY state ALWAYS does this. They don't.
One of the women I was in prison with was a murderer. The other was a crack whore. I didn't talk to the others. However, I don't think the murderer should've been in there. She killed an uncle who'd sexually abused her from a very young age up until the day she killed him. IMO that's self-defense. She'd reported him, and no one would believe her or help her, so she helped herself. However, she told me this: "I killed someone, and no matter what he did to me, I guess I deserve to be here because I did a killing." I've never forgotten that, because, like the people who put her there, she was casting herself in the wrong, when I really don't think she was.
Having been in a physically (not sexually) abusive relationship in the past, I know how hard it can be to "just leave." People act like it's the simplest thing in the world, and for many, many reasons, it's not. I won't go into it because that would be a whole different thread; but I will say that sometimes walking away isn't an option. When it comes down to your life or the abuser's, sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to escape.
She was a nice person. I felt sorry that she was there.
Sidhe
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
I'm sensing sarcasm here...
No sarcasm meant. I first wrote about that
concept two years ago.
Slaying Suspect, 12, Ruled Juvenile
Carrollton, Ga.--A 12-year-old boy accused of strangling an 8-year-old neighbor cannot be charged as an adult in the girl's death and would face a maximum two years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said Wednesday.
District Attorney Pete Skandalakis said he had no choice but to try the boy as a juvenile. Under Georgia law, a defendant must be at least 13 to be tried as an adult, he said.
"I do not feel two years is sufficient as punishment in this case," Skandalakis said.
He said the victim's family was "heartbroken" that the boy could not receive a more severe penalty.
The boy, whose name is not being released by police, was ordered Wednesday to remain in a youth detention center. A Juvenile Court judge said that there was probable cause the boy committed a delinquent act.
The boy is accused of strangling Amy Yates on Monday evening when she disappeared while riding her bike to a friend's home. The boy also lived in the trailer park.
Yates' body was found hours later fully clothed in a nearby gully filled with tall weeds.
TWO YEARS for murder. Oh yeah. THAT'S justice. Somebody actually gonna tell me that a 12-year-old boy doesn't know that murder is wrong? There's this bridge for sale...
Sidhe
LadySycamore
If all this is based on one's morals, then it doesn't (or maybe even shouldn't) hold water in this conversation (seeing as though morality isn't a fixed concept). One man's yin is another man's yang, etc.
Troubleshooter:
One essential part of this discussion is to come to terms with what morality and ethics can be agreed upon.
But that's the thing: in many instances, it can't be agreed upon. For instance, someone may say, "Killing is wrong...period..all kinds of killing". Someone else will say, "No, killing in self defense and the death penalty is not wrong". Another might say, "Self defense is ok, but abortion and the DP is wrong", and so forth. I would imagine that these opinions would be based (in some part) on each person's moral fiber (or ethics).
re: "Slaying Suspect, 12, Ruled Juvenile" posted by Lady Sidhe
I'd like to see someone go up to the victim's family and tell them that they are "wrong" for wanting a more tougher penalty. :(
Originally posted by ladysycamore
[i]But that's the thing: in many instances, it can't be agreed upon. For instance, someone may say, "Killing is wrong...period..all kinds of killing". Someone else will say, "No, killing in self defense and the death penalty is not wrong". Another might say, "Self defense is ok, but abortion and the DP is wrong", and so forth. I would imagine that these opinions would be based (in some part) on each person's moral fiber (or ethics).
There are differing levels of agreement. One level is personal, where you keep your ethics, another is the one that controls your ability to interact with others who have different ethics. There has to be some fudge factor there otherwise humanity would have eliminated itself a long time ago.
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
I think that the lack of deterrent effect is due to the disparity between the ideal of capital punishment and its lack of proper implementation.
[COLOR=indigo]I agree. I think that if there was a way to implement a system that was omniscient, and could immediately punish people in a predetermined way, then there would be less crimes.
IOW, if the penalty for murder is death, and you commit a murder, you die. Right then. No trial, no jury, no wait.
If you rape someone, your penis gets chopped off (if male) or tits
chopped off (if female).
Betcha murder rates and rapes would plummet. And fast, too.
Of course, that is never going to happen, and it's not feasible and never fool proof, but I said all that to agree that if we, as a SOCIETY, did what we said we were gonna do, there would be less crime.
As a parent, I'm told to be consistant (same punishment every time for the same infraction), and to back up every thing I threaten (don't say "I'm gonna break your legs if you don't sit down".).
So if that is what makes effective parenting, why isn't that also applied to our justice system.
Isn't that what the justice system is supposed to be? A set of punishments for breaking the rules? [/COLOR]
I have an idea....Me, Onyx, and Ladysyc can get together and go to the prisons and perform the executions, free of charge. That'll cut down on the cost of paying an executioner. Just buy us a nice dinner afterwards....:D
Sidhe
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
I think that we should all table this aspect of the conversation until we can get some people that are actually in, or have been in, this position
Edit: typos (I hate doing this at work sometimes)
Sure. I can tell you all about jail. Can't comment on the pen' - never been there. I did spend 3 weeks in jail for the crime of driving without insurance. I was guilty as charged and paid the debt I owed society.
The jail I was incarcerated in was over-crowded to the max. 180 women were housed in a unit meant to hold 100. Old timers were the ones who got to have one of the highly coveted cells which contained two bunk beds and a toilet. The rest of us slept on pallets on the floor or in bunks in the common area. Pillows were prized possesions. There weren't enough to go around and many women just had to use their arm as a pillow. We were allowed one thin blanket and that could only be used if we were laying on our pallet or in our bunk. We were not allowed sweators. We were cotton short sleeved prison uniforms with no underware and this was mid-winter. Everyone was always cold. There were two toilets and two showers for us all. There was no seperation of women there on mis-demeanor charges versus women there on felonies. I had the dubious pleasure of spending 2 hours in a holding cell with a woman accused of murdering her own child. After 5 minutes conversation with her, there was not a doubt in my mind that she was guilty. She had an empty blank stare out of two eyes that were portals to some black hole in hell. There were no classes or any sort of rehabilitation offered. If you sent a "kite" (formal written request) to the guards, you were allowed to attend a Christian religous meeting for one hour every other week. We were given nothing to do to pass the time other than 3 decks of cards and two games of scrabble. Women would hide the scrabble boards and fights would break out over them. The food was inedible. I lost 15 pounds in 3 weeks. Some months after my release it was discovered that the company contracted to provide meals for the prisoners had been ripping the county off to the tune of $100,000's per year by shorting on portions. Prisoners who had the money supplemented their meals with ramen noodles bought from the prison commissary. If you didn't have money, you went hungry. That simple. There was not enough tables to sit at when the meager food trays did arrive. Space at tables was jealously guarded. If someone who was not a member of the group attempted to sit at the groups' table, there would be retaliation. Many prisoners ate standing up with their trays balanced on bunks. The medical care for prisoners was a joke. A woman went into an epileptic seizure while I was there and nothing was done for her. Then she had a second and nothing was done. Then a third. No medical help. A woman who was obviously schizophrenic was thrown in with the general prison population. Nothing was done for her. The area where we were housed was quite literally like some huge open warehouse with tall ceilings and exposed pipes. The noise was incredible and went on non-stop from 4:00am when we were supposed to eat breakfast to midnight when there was the final "lock down." Lock downs were frequent. During a lock down women lucky enough to have cells were supposed to remain in them. The rest of us had to lay on our pallets on the floor without getting up for one, two, three hours - however long the guards felt like having the lock down in effect. Women who were housed in a cell got to have a glimpse of the sunlight thru the tiny window in each cell. The rest of us never saw the sun. It was 24 hours florescent lighting. Day and night ceased to have any reality. Prisoners who had been there long enough got the much coveted privilege of working - such as that was. A trustee got to sweep and mop the floors, clean the bathrooms, etc. It was something to do and the ones who couldn't envied the ones cleaning the guards' restrooms. There WAS a cable TV bolted over-head in one area. The guards controlled what station it was on and how long it was on for.
It is hard for me to imagine ANYONE who's life is that desperate that they would wish to live under those conditions. And this was punishment for being too poor to buy car insurance and getting pulled over because I dared to drive my car to try to find work in a town that has no public transportation.
Troubleshooter: Emotion is a very real response to a stimulus. Regardless of of the subjectivity of that emotion, it is real. Fear, for instance is a salient responce to danger. Anger is a response to fear or danger.
I agree. The fight or flight mechanism, stimulated by fear, is probably our most valuable survival instinct. And the 'reality' of any given emotion can only be ascribed by the individual, not dictated by an external party.
A couple of people have got a little bit confused, thinking I am attacking their emotions. I don't care what you feel. It is your subjective (real to you) emotion and this should never dictate action, be it YOUR action or the action of the state. Imagine if you went through life taking all your emotions to their logical conclusions. You would have slept with (and impregnated) every woman you found attractive, have married every guy you thought you loved, and murdered everyone who stimulated that most potent of emotions: fear. You would kill them because they are a threat to you or your family. Every killing is an act of self defense - you are eliminating a threat. Survival of the fittest. What goes through the mind of a murderer? The man who kills his wife and kids because she had an affair and the pain is too much to bear: the kids are a reminder. The woman who kills her lifelong abuser because there's no other escape. It's all self-preservation, taken to its psychopathic extreme.
I do not advocate ANY killing. NO ONE has the right to kill. There are no exceptions. We are the only species that kill each other en masse. We are the only species who are aware of our own inevitable death and we are the only species that knowingly commit suicide. No surprise then that many of us escape to insanity. If one can reject immediate emotional gratification in favour of rational, objective, effective action, then maybe we can begin to evolve from our inhumanity.
Marichko that sounds like hell.
One of the women I was in prison with was a murderer. The other was a crack whore. I didn't talk to the others. However, I don't think the murderer should've been in there. She killed an uncle who'd sexually abused her from a very young age up until the day she killed him. IMO that's self-defense. She'd reported him, and no one would believe her or help her, so she helped herself. However, she told me this: "I killed someone, and no matter what he did to me, I guess I deserve to be here because I did a killing." I've never forgotten that, because, like the people who put her there, she was casting herself in the wrong, when I really don't think she was.
In your opinion she should not have been in there as it was self defense. Yet in legal terms it was not self defense and as such she was convicted of murder? Is it not possible that there are other such cases of abused and desperate people who have hit back at their abuser and yet are still considered murderers? Is it not also possible that these people may be sentenced to death if such a sanction is available in that state?
Originally posted by marichiko
It is hard for me to imagine ANYONE who's life is that desperate that they would wish to live under those conditions.
I can only relay what I was told and tha I feel it to be believable and the anecdotal evidence is from a reputable source. That source being someone who has put many people in jail and been told thank you for it.
Originally posted by Catwoman
What goes through the mind of a murderer?
Of this we have plenty of evidence. Many, many things go through the mind of a killer. Some are remorseful for having acted on impulse. Some are indifferent, having acted on impulse. Some are blissful reliving their experience as they describe it to you.
Originally posted by Catwoman
The woman who kills her lifelong abuser because there's no other escape. It's all self-preservation, taken to its psychopathic extreme.
While I don't agree that a woman who does this should walk away without punishment, I don't believe it to be quite so psychopathic. I've seen psycho, that's not psycho.
Originally posted by Catwoman
I do not advocate ANY killing. NO ONE has the right to kill. There are no exceptions.
There are no absolutes.
Originally posted by Catwoman
We are the only species that kill each other en masse. We are the only species who are aware of our own inevitable death and we are the only species that knowingly commit suicide.
That we know of to date.
Originally posted by Catwoman
No surprise then that many of us escape to insanity. If one can reject immediate emotional gratification in favour of rational, objective, effective action, then maybe we can begin to evolve from our inhumanity.
Wouldn't that be excessive humanity?
There are no absolutes.
That is a paradox and ineffable.
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Catwoman
No surprise then that many of us escape to insanity. If one can reject immediate emotional gratification in favour of rational, objective, effective action, then maybe we can begin to evolve from our inhumanity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wouldn't that be excessive humanity?
Would that be a bad thing?
About that crack ho ...
Please remember that what was heard in the jail cell were the words of a woman working on her story ... that story alone will neither convict nor exonerate her. That's what the evidence is for.
She could have been entirely truthful. She could have been totally full of shit. She could have killed someone who was or was not a relative, who did or did not refuse to pay for services rendered, who did or did not use up all the rock (or that she THOUGHT used up all the rock), or she could have been acting irrational as a consequence of her extreme crack use.
Don't feel sorry for someone just because they claim they have been abused.
The governor of Massachusetts is trying to reinstate the death penalty in his state. He thinks he can make it fair and accurate.
It's a good thing for
these guys he hasn't succeeded yet.
OK, more accurately, it's a good thing for future people in the same position as those guys.
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
I can only relay what I was told and tha I feel it to be believable and the anecdotal evidence is from a reputable source. That source being someone who has put many people in jail and been told thank you for it.
Perhaps conditions are more humane in jails in your state. Also, while your source may be reliable, his informants may not:
Suspect (being handicuffed, desperately trying to think of a way out, tries the 'Please don't throw me in that briar patch ploy'):
"Officer, I want to thank you for arresting me. You are doing just what I hoped for. Thank you ever so much! (meanwhile wishing officer in hell).
When I was in jail, the person in charge of the county jail system was interviewed by one of the local TV stations. The wardens had switched the TV to that channel because they wanted to see their boss in the news. The man claimed that poor people went out and deliberately committed crimes so that they could get medical treatment thru the jail. Even the wardens sniggered at this one, and we women prisoners went into such a fury of cat calls and shouted comments and obscenities at the broadcast of this fairy tale that we were placed on lock down for the rest of the night.
Originally posted by DanaC
Marichko that sounds like hell.
In your opinion she should not have been in there as it was self defense. Yet in legal terms it was not self defense and as such she was convicted of murder? Is it not possible that there are other such cases of abused and desperate people who have hit back at their abuser and yet are still considered murderers? Is it not also possible that these people may be sentenced to death if such a sanction is available in that state?
Death IS available in La. Because she killed in self-defense, I believe she may have gotten voluntary manslaughter.
Oh, there are thousands of people in prison because they killed abusers. They're in prison because they weren't being attacked when they did it. What most people don't understand is this: when you're being attacked by someone bigger and stronger than you are, you're not going to risk getting a weapon that could be taken away from you and used against you. (Been there, done that) So you wait till they're vulnerable. It's the only chance you've got. I don't think they should be in prison. I think they should get medals...domestic abuse isn't taken seriously, and so these abusers are let loose to kill their accusers and/or go on to abuse more people and continue to get away with it.
The last stats I found on domestic violence leading to murder was that 80% of the women who are killed by abusers are killed AFTER THEY LEAVE. Not to mention the so-called "restraining orders" --cops can't do anything until the abuser actually violates the order--by which time the abusee is usually dead.
I don't have any sympathy for abusers. I've been there. I found out after I got away that he'd tried to stomp his ex to death and tried to kill his five-year-old daughter. These men are cunning and the process is so gradual that you don't realize what's going on until it's too late... let me tell you one thing--if I saw him on the side of the road bleeding to death, I'd grab a chair and some popcorn and WATCH.
Sidhe
Originally posted by wolf
About that crack ho ...
Please remember that what was heard in the jail cell were the words of a woman working on her story ... that story alone will neither convict nor exonerate her. That's what the evidence is for.
She could have been entirely truthful. She could have been totally full of shit. She could have killed someone who was or was not a relative, who did or did not refuse to pay for services rendered, who did or did not use up all the rock (or that she THOUGHT used up all the rock), or she could have been acting irrational as a consequence of her extreme crack use.
Don't feel sorry for someone just because they claim they have been abused.
Oh no. The crack ho and the murderer were two different people. The crack ho was completely unremorseful. All she could talk about was how she couldn't wait to get out and "get some dick so I can buy some crack." :haha:
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Oh, there are thousands of people in prison because they killed abusers. . . . I don't think they should be in prison. I think they should get medals
The more you write, the less sense you are making.
Should we put murderers to death, or give them medals?
If you look into the history of most people in prison for murder, you will see that mostly they come from horrible backgrounds filled with abuse and neglect. You don't seem to care about any of that, and think they should be fried, but then you turn around and say other victims of abuse who commit murder deserve medals? So some victims of abuse can get away with murder, and some others can't? HUH?!
This is a prime example of why you should avoid basing opinions on emotion only. It just doesn't make sense.
Oh, and by the way, I'm not saying you have no right to your emotions.
Originally posted by Catwoman
That is a paradox and ineffable.
Nope, it was a joke.
Originally posted by Catwoman
Would that be a bad thing?
It is when taken in the context of the range of behaviors that humans are capable of. When we stay near the middle of the behavior spectrum we're good, but when we start reaching into the far ends of the curve you get blind rage and blind adoration and so on.
Animals don't have that problem, and it's a problem we need to get a handle on.
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
They're in prison because they weren't being attacked when they did it. What most people don't understand is this: when you're being attacked by someone bigger and stronger than you are, you're not going to risk getting a weapon that could be taken away from you and used against you. (Been there, done that) So you wait till they're vulnerable. It's the only chance you've got.
[snip]
I don't have any sympathy for abusers. I've been there. I found out after I got away that he'd tried to stomp his ex to death and tried to kill his five-year-old daughter. These men are cunning and the process is so gradual that you don't realize what's going on until it's too late... let me tell you one thing--if I saw him on the side of the road bleeding to death, I'd grab a chair and some popcorn and WATCH.
[COLOR=indigo]My first husband (the one that murdered Steven) abused me from the time Justin was born until he found another woman he thought was better than me a year and some later. This included dislocating my fingers and knees, rape with a knife, an involuntary tattoo on my hand, carving his "mark" into my chest with a knife, having sex with women in our bed WHILE I WAS IN IT (God Forbid I give any sign of waking up) and threatening my family and me if I left him or told anyone what was going on.
If you think for one minute I would have confronted him while he was awake, you have another think coming. NOW I would kill anyone who even seriously thought of that as he slept, but then, being a scared, 18 year old dumb ass that believed the poison he was spewing? Not a chance.[/COLOR]
Originally posted by glatt
The more you write, the less sense you are making.
Should we put murderers to death, or give them medals?
If you look into the history of most people in prison for murder, you will see that mostly they come from horrible backgrounds filled with abuse and neglect. You don't seem to care about any of that, and think they should be fried, but then you turn around and say other victims of abuse who commit murder deserve medals? So some victims of abuse can get away with murder, and some others can't? HUH?!
This is a prime example of why you should avoid basing opinions on emotion only. It just doesn't make sense.
Oh, and by the way, I'm not saying you have no right to your emotions.
[COLOR=indigo]Here is the difference....(IMO)
People who murder people for no reason (Travis killing Steven for no damn reason.)
vs
People who kill other people in self defense. (If I were to kill Travis as he slept, or had Steven killed Travis.)
Those are two different things. Two different scenarios. Two different punishments.
[/COLOR]
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
It is when taken in the context of the range of behaviors that humans are capable of. When we stay near the middle of the behavior spectrum we're good, but when we start reaching into the far ends of the curve you get blind rage and blind adoration and so on.
Animals don't have that problem, and it's a problem we need to get a handle on.
I agree completely. Rationality is the antidote to irrationality - therefore punishment should be dictated thus and not by emotion. The dp only makes sense in its emotional context. There is no rational argument for it other than nil recidivism - and this can be achieved through a 'life means life' sentencing policy.
This is a prime example of why you should avoid basing opinions on emotion only. It just doesn't make sense.
Oh, and by the way, I'm not saying you have no right to your emotions.
Hear hear.:beer:
Originally posted by glatt
Should we put murderers to death, or give them medals?
If you look into the history of most people in prison for murder, you will see that mostly they come from horrible backgrounds filled with abuse and neglect. You don't seem to care about any of that, and think they should be fried, but then you turn around and say other victims of abuse who commit murder deserve medals? So some victims of abuse can get away with murder, and some others can't? HUH?!
I don't think that people who kill in self-defense should go to prison. People who kill serial abusers should get medals.
There's a difference between protecting yourself and/or your children, and stalking someone to kill, killing randomly, or killing for profit of some sort.
You're right. I don't care if Ted Bundy or Charles Manson or any other serial killer had a bad background. I don't care if the guy who shot the convenience store clerk so as not to leave witnesses got his ass beat as a child. I don't care if the pedophile who raped and killed the five-year-old didn't get the bike he wanted when he was ten. No. I DON'T care.
They aren't defending their lives against anyone. Rather, they are exercising the ultimate control over the life of someone else, and they get off on it. There's a difference between someone who kills an abuser because they feel it's the only way to escape, and the punk who shoots you because he wants your shoes.
Sidhe
Originally posted by Catwoman
I agree completely. Rationality is the antidote to irrationality - therefore punishment should be dictated thus and not by emotion. The dp only makes sense in its emotional context. There is no rational argument for it other than nil recidivism - and this can be achieved through a 'life means life' sentencing policy.
[B]This is a prime example of why you should avoid basing opinions on emotion only. It just doesn't make sense.
I believe the death penalty IS rational. By this, I mean that in order for society to not only survive, but flourish, we must rid it of the elements that would prey on society and thus lower the quality of life of citizens, as well as deplete funds that could be used to better that society.
We don't execute EVERYONE. Just those that our courts--which are here for just this purpose--decide are too much a risk to society.
Yes, the DP is an emotional subject for me. BUT, I didn't just wake up one day and say, "Hey! I think the DP is a great idea! Let's start killing everyone! Mwah hah HAAAAAA!" This is something I've thought about and read about a lot.
From a strictly logical point of view, I feel that if we are not allowed to make these people useful in some way, such as in a lab (life in prison is not being useful--all it does is take money I could be using to improve my life and giving it to the upkeep of someone who would think nothing of destroying that life for whatever reason), that if they're going to prey on society over and over until they're caught, spreading fear and misery, then they should be eliminated.
Read Robert Ressler. He's a serial killer profiler with the FBI.
http://www.robertkressler.com/
He was one of the first to develop profiling by going into prisons and talking with serial killers. He found that most of them tried to justify their actions in one way or another, tried to give excuses, outright lied, and talked to him mainly because it was a way to relive the crimes.
Some people just deserve to pay the ultimate price for what they've done. They serve absolutely no purpose except to drain society of resources.
Sidhe
Originally posted by OnyxCougar
[COLOR=indigo]My first husband (the one that murdered Steven) abused me from the time Justin was born until he found another woman he thought was better than me a year and some later. This included dislocating my fingers and knees, rape with a knife, an involuntary tattoo on my hand, carving his "mark" into my chest with a knife, having sex with women in our bed WHILE I WAS IN IT (God Forbid I give any sign of waking up) and threatening my family and me if I left him or told anyone what was going on.
If you think for one minute I would have confronted him while he was awake, you have another think coming. NOW I would kill anyone who even seriously thought of that as he slept, but then, being a scared, 18 year old dumb ass that believed the poison he was spewing? Not a chance.[/COLOR]
I'm right there with you. I have a knife scar down my chest from my personal psycho. I was choked, beaten, sent to the hospital twice (this was before cops were required to arrest whether charges were pressed or not--these cops just told me, "well, we don't see him, but if he comes back, call us"...Yeah, right.), and emotionally tortured. He had people following me, he checked my gas gauge to make sure I didn't go anywhere except work.
I finally got away the time he attacked me, choking me, and I just freaked the hell out. Next thing I knew, my hands were around HIS neck, and if I'd have gotten a better grip, I'd've done my best to kill him. As it was, he threw me back against the wall and left. I used that time to get away and hide from him. It took six months before he stopped looking for me.
I was 18 at the time this happened too. It took two years for me to get away from him. The abuse happened so gradually that I didn't really see it coming until the first time his hands went around my throat. It was just an explosion of violence out of the blue, a massive escalation. By that time, I was walking on eggshells.
For example: if I didn't clean the house well enough, I was attacked. If I DID clean it well enough, then I was fixing it up so that I could meet someone and have an affair. There was no way to win. The psychological torture is such that when they tell you something, you believe them. He told me he had people following me, and that he always knew where I was and what I was doing. He was 28. I was 18. He was my first serious relationship. What did I know, right? I was a kid, more or less, and he used that. He could be charming when he wanted to be, and in front of other people.
I get so tired of hearing people say, "well, why doesn't she just leave?" I'll tell them why: IF you're allowed to have a job, it's a shitty one, so you don't have the money to leave. Some people don't have family or friends, or anyone to help them. Some have children. And 80% of domestic violence that ends in the death of the woman happens AFTER she leaves. You're so psychologically tortured, and so brainwashed, that you have no will, and the strength you do have is put into escaping abuse by doing what you think he wants. Some women don't have vehicles. There are a lot of reasons it's hard to leave.
Abusers don't stop abusing. They just move on to someone else. I see that as a serial criminal. Just because they don't always kill doesn't mean they don't ruin lives irreparably. Perhaps if abuse were considered more than a minor infraction, and people got more than a slap on the wrist for it (if that), we might not have so many murderers out there (since they all claim abuse as kids). Anti-DP's want to start being proactive, start THERE.
But you know what? That abuse didn't lead me to kill. I didn't decide all men were like that and therefore needed to die. Ultimately, it's not our childhood. It's the choices we make. As grown men and women, we have the option of making our own choices in behavior. I'm not going to justify my behavior by blaming it on something that happened when I was a kid, and I'm not going to accept it from a murderer.
Sidhe
"Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life...Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
But you know what? That abuse didn't lead me to kill.
So if you knew it was wrong to kill, then why are you willing to give medals to others who do?
Lady S. and Onyx, I'm right there with you (read my earlier post about deciding to kill the man who abused me). I never ever want to see this man again. I don't want to know if he's alive or dead. I don't care what happens to him, but it would be nice if he never abused another woman again, for whatever reason that prevented him from doing so.
That said, I found that I could not go around hating this individual. Hate and anger are corrosive emotions which destroy the soul. He was abused as a child. I, too, consider that no excuse, but it is an explanation for his behavior. His Mother was a single parent who used to lock him in the closet while she went to work. Beatings were a part of his dailey life as a child. Does that mean he gets to inflict the same treatment on me or anybody else? No fucking way! But it helped me to understand and stop hating. I imagined him as an adorable little 4 year old boy. I imagined this little boy being locked in a closet for 8 hours or more, peeing in his pants because he couldn't go to the bathroom. I imagined this little kid with huge blue eyes getting back handed across the face for the most minor infraction. It made me want to cry. He never learned a normal way of loving anyone. All he was ever taught was anger and abuse. While I will never, ever condone his actions, I feel sorry for him. I am happy, happy, happy that he has vanished from my life. Do I wish him dead? No, I simply wish him healed.
[COLOR=indigo]And that's fine for you. I'm glad you managed to envision your way to peace.
But that doesn't happen often.
I've tried forgiving. I can't. I can't forgive what he did. He wasn't abused as a child, he abused his nieces. He was in trouble with the law as a juvenile (stole his mother's car, picked up his under 15 yo girlfriend and fled the state), and when his mother couldn't deal with him, she sent him to his aunt and uncle.
There is alot more of my story around here on the Cellar, in different places, but the bottom line is, Lady S pretty much described my husband. Only mine went further than hers.
I remember the first time my fingers were dislocated. Because I didn't catch on to learning how to eat with chopsticks fast enough. He dislocated the left hand fingers first, so I had 5 chances. That's fair, right?
I was not allowed to wear makeup/wear nice clothes. That meant I wanted attention. That meant I wanted guys to look at me. That meant that I wanted to fuck other men. Logical, right?
And God help me if I LOOK at another man. Cuz then I wanna fuck him. And lets face it, no man would want ME. I mean, I'm fat, ugly and am DAMN lucky that I have HIM. I should be grateful to him for putting up with me.
I better go to work (at ALWAYS a crappy job) but not talk to male employees. Also, he will pick me up. This meant arriving 30 minutes before I got off work, glaring at all the males and leering at all the females, trying to talk them into sleeping with them. I got fired from Carl's Jr. once because a female manager felt threatened by him, and since he refused to stop coming to pick me up (forcing me to walk because there's no way I was going to drive MY car anywhere and leave him no transportation, even tho he didn't work), I got fired.
These were the highlights.
And I've tried. I've tried to forgive and move on. I've mostly gotten past when he did to me. But I will never forgive him for what he did to Steven. I can't. To do that would disrepect Steven. Steve wasn't no prize, but he didn't deserve THAT.
[/COLOR]
Originally posted by glatt
So if you knew it was wrong to kill, then why are you willing to give medals to others who do?
I was beaten down, but my sense of self-preservation, and probably my temper, finally overcame that. For all I knew at the time, I was going to die. The only thing going through my head at the time was, "If I'm going to die, I'm fucking taking him with me." It didn't come to that, but that was my intent.
See my comment on abusers, above. They're serial criminals. They don't stop. They just find someone else weaker.
And to Mari: Mine wasn't abused either. He was kinda spoiled, actually. I found out later that he'd been psychiatrically examined around age 15 or so, and the doctors told his mother he was a borderline personality disorder and should be committed for treatment because he showed signs of being dangerous. Again, personality disorders cannot be cured. Instead of committing him, she let him loose, and look what happened. Two women (that I know of) and a child almost died. He knew what he was doing, and he knew that it was wrong. He was good at evading detection, and never left a mark on me.
Sidhe
"I was not allowed to wear makeup/wear nice clothes. That meant I wanted attention. That meant I wanted guys to look at me. That meant that I wanted to fuck other men. Logical, right?
And God help me if I LOOK at another man. Cuz then I wanna fuck him. And lets face it, no man would want ME. I mean, I'm fat, ugly and am DAMN lucky that I have HIM. I should be grateful to him for putting up with me.
I better go to work (at ALWAYS a crappy job) but not talk to male employees. Also, he will pick me up. This meant arriving 30 minutes before I got off work, glaring at all the males and leering at all the females, trying to talk them into sleeping with them. I got fired from Carl's Jr. once because a female manager felt threatened by him, and since he refused to stop coming to pick me up (forcing me to walk because there's no way I was going to drive MY car anywhere and leave him no transportation, even tho he didn't work), I got fired.
These were the highlights."
Damn, Onyx...that sounds like what I went through.
To everyone else:
I don't think the majority of people understand the constant terror abusers cause. Those who have been abused, in whatever way, DO know. They're excellent brainwashers, and have the ability to keep you in fear constantly. You're on eggshells the whole time because you never know what will set them off. Something that is ignored one day will set off an explosion the next, all to keep you off-balance. They isolate you from anyone who can help you. When they threaten to kill you, you believe them.
IMO, they're as bad as murderers. They destroy something in you, and you never REALLY trust again, not like you used to. And that's for the people who, for whatever reason, are better able to deal with the memories. For those who are more traumatized, and can't deal very well, the abuser has destroyed their lives. And those are just the ones who get through the ordeal with their lives.
And one thing that makes abusers worse than most murderers (except, of course, the thrill-seeking murderers, like sexual sadists) is that they ENJOY the suffering they cause. They enjoy the feeling of power it gives them. They are the true sadists. And they will keep on doing it, over and over, because they love the way it makes them feel.
Even if kevin HAD been abused as a kid, I wouldn't feel sorry for him. He was a grown man, and he made his choice to do what he did, over and over, to more than one person. He'd been in jail for it before (I spoke at length with his ex-wife), and apparantly he wasn't able to learn from his experience.
You know, I grew up in an alcoholic family. I witnessed and ref'd fights from the age of eight to the age of sixteen. I put the adults in the house to bed at night because they were too drunk to make it themselves. But am I a drunk? Nope. I lived it, I learned it, but I made the choice to not inflict such behavior on the family I would one day have.
It seems to me that these criminals who are blaming abuse for the way they act, wouldn't want to treat someone the same way, because they know how awful it is. Like someone who was beaten as a child choosing to use other methods to discipline their own children, because they don't want to repeat the pattern. Many people are abused as kids. They don't all grow up to kill or abuse, because they make the CHOICE not to. It's all about power. Murder is about power. Rape is about power. Abuse is about power.
Choices we make as adults (and as children) should have consequences. When they don't, all that is shown is that one can get away with bad behavior. The DP is all about consequences for the ultimate in unacceptable behavior. If we're going to start somewhere, start with rewarding good choices, and punishing the bad ones. We learn as children what is and is not acceptable social behavior. When these little juvenile delinquents get slap on the wrist after slap on the wrist, they learn that bad choices don't have consequences that outweigh the pleasure of the bad behavior.
I, personally, think we should bring back public humiliation for lesser crimes and first offenses (this is in reference to non-violent crimes, property crimes, and the like, not for murderers, rapists, abusers or child molesters).
Bring back the stocks and the canes.
Don't put a thief in jail, put him in the stocks in the public square for a couple of days and sell rotten fruit to throw at him (that'll pay for his food and water); don't stick the little gangsta wannabe in jail for robbery--cane his ass in front of his friends (I say this because a few years back, when the caning issue came up because of the American delinquent who got caned...there was a town in the states--I can't remember the name of it offhand--in which they had a problem with defacing public property. The Elders of the town suggested caning instead of jail time. When reporters interviewed some of the gang members in jail, the gang members said that they'd rather have jail time than be caned.) It hurts like a bitch, but it does no lasting damage and doesn't cost the state a thing. I'm sure someone would do the caning for free. People are very sensitive to humiliation. I think public humiliation would do some good. All that's hurt is pride, and maybe someone's butt, and it would keep our jails and prisons free for the murderers, rapists, abusers and other violent criminals.
Sidhe
Amite Jury finds Man Guilty in Killings of Woman, Children
Bob Anderson--Florida Parishes Bureau
Amite: A jury convicted Simon Hutchinson of four counts of second-degree murder in the killing of an Independence family, court officials said Monday.
A jury unanimously found Hutchinson guilty of the murders of Barbara Jean Curry, and her children, Joseph Curry, 17, Daytoria "Coco" Curry, 15, and 16-month-old Jocorey Marshall. Jurors deliberated for about 40 minutes before returning the verdict Friday, according to Brenda Bickford of the District Attorney's office.
Fire officials found the toddler's body in the family's burned-out mobile home, setting off a search for the rest of the family.
The following day, authorities found the bodies of the mother and her two older children in a wooded area near Uneedus.
Detectives said the three were forced to lie down and each was shot in the head.
Under state law, Hutchinson, who will be sentenced Wednesday, must receive at least one life sentence, but could get four consecutive life sentences, ads did Perry Pooler, who was convicted previously in the same case, prosecutor Don Wall said.
Pooler was called to the stand last week in Hutchinson's trial, but refused to testify despite being promised immunity from any further prosecution resulting from his testimony. District Court judge Bob Morrison added another six month sentence to Pooler's prison time for refusing to testify, court officials said.
Prior to their trials, Pooler and Hutchinson had each given statements blaming the other for the shootings, authorities said.
Authorities said two guns were used to kill the three oldest family members.
One of those was identified as having belonged to Hutchinson, Wall said.
Hutchinson did not testify and the defense did not call any witnesses, court officials said.
Wall said robbery appeared to be the motive for the break-in and fire at the Curry's home, but there were indications that the family members had been killed because they recognized Pooler.
Four people are dead. An entire family, including an infant, because two men wanted someone else's property and were willing to kill so as not to be identified-- and the men who did it get LIFE?? Pathetic. :angry: :rar:
Let's see...four people, plus their family...just counting immediete family, that could probably add up to somewhere around, oh, if there are aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents on both sides, lowest estimate, twenty people whose lives were shattered. At LEAST. :mad:
Sidhe
Thats awful. What a thing to happen to a family. Add to that total any relatives the murderers themselves have. Their loved ones( if those men are loved ) arent dead but they are no longer part of the same world. Must be horrendous to love someone and them do something like that. How does anyone cope with that? I doubt they garner much sympathy from people, theirs must be a very lonely brand of grief.
Originally posted by DanaC
Thats awful. What a thing to happen to a family. Add to that total any relatives the murderers themselves have. Their loved ones( if those men are loved ) arent dead but they are no longer part of the same world. Must be horrendous to love someone and them do something like that. How does anyone cope with that? I doubt they garner much sympathy from people, theirs must be a very lonely brand of grief.
I agree. I feel sorry for the families of the murderers, because from now on, people are going to whisper about them when they go out in public, and think about how hard it is when they have to deal with their friends....
Assuming that these two men did not come from abusive families, then that means they also ruined the lives of their own families, who are innocent in all of this. They have to live with knowing that their child/brother/cousin/grandson/nephew/uncle is a cold-blooded killer. It'll reflect on them, whether they deserve it or not.
Just another example of the callousness of murderers. Not only don't they care about strangers, but they don't even think about their own families when they do things like this. They're so self-centered that no one ever crosses their minds except themselves.
I don't want these people breeding. If you want a champion show animal, you breed for desirable traits, and breed out the undesirable traits. I don't want to have to worry about these people continuing to breed their undesirable traits back into the gene pool.
And before you ask, yes, I'm all for genetic advances. I see no problem with cloning or stem-cell research. ;)
Sidhe
I dont think there is much chance of those two going forth and multiplying
Talking of stemcell research have you heard what British scientists have beenup to? Stem cells to grow teeth....No more need for dentures....Figures thats what our scientists would be devoting their time to. :D Now maybe us Brits can keep our teeth past 40!
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
And before you ask, yes, I'm all for genetic advances. I see no problem with cloning or stem-cell research.
And eugenics, apparently.
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
And eugenics, apparently.
We'll be on the eugenics side, and you can be on the dysgenics side.
Edit: Sidhe posted from me by accident, but I agree with her this time. :D
OMG! He AGREES with me? Call Ripley's, quick!!!;)
Sidhe
So two wrongs make a right?:)
Bruce. where is that sig from? Its been bugging me for ages, it seems familiar
Genetically altering people is an inevitability. The Jews have been doing it for centuries. We should go ahead and get the mistakes out of the way so we can learn from them and start getting it right.
All of the (conservative, religious right) attempts to stifle research in America will accomplish is to put America behind on the world stage.
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
Genetically altering people is an inevitability. The Jews have been doing it for centuries.
What do you mean?
Originally posted by sycamore
What do you mean?
Their strong belief in marrying well. Their attitude, which some would call mercenary, is that you should go out of your way to marry someone who is successful.
By making marrying well such a priority it pushes the curve upward by making prospective mates strive that much harder to be worthy.
If every person looking to marry is looking for a doctor, a lawyer, or a rabbi, you are forcing more people to raise their standards of achievement.
An upward spiral of the quality of the resultant offspring for so long as the trend continues.
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
Genetically altering people is an inevitability. The Jews have been doing it for centuries.
If they have, they've been doing a bang-up job ... breeding for Tay-Sachs and Depression by limiting mating choices to a narrower gene pool.
Originally posted by wolf
If they have, they've been doing a bang-up job ... breeding for Tay-Sachs and Depression by limiting mating choices to a narrower gene pool.
I didn't say it worked flawlessly, just that that was what they were doing.
A genetic disorder that you can only get if you are Jewish and both parents carry the necessary recessive gene. Guarantees an early death.
Info available
here.
Edit to add:
National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases Assoc. (check it out for the image and headline on the homepage. Man oh man. They are trying to draw people in with this?
Yikes.
Yeah, genetics is ugly, even if only from the perspective of how many things can go wrong.
Originally posted by wolf
A genetic disorder that you can only get if you are Jewish and both parents carry the necessary recessive gene. Guarantees an early death.
The NTSAD-DV notes that Jews are not the only ones affected by Tay-Sachs.
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
Their strong belief in marrying well. Their attitude, which some would call mercenary, is that you should go out of your way to marry someone who is successful.
By making marrying well such a priority it pushes the curve upward by making prospective mates strive that much harder to be worthy.
If every person looking to marry is looking for a doctor, a lawyer, or a rabbi, you are forcing more people to raise their standards of achievement.
An upward spiral of the quality of the resultant offspring for so long as the trend continues.
You have some sources for this?
Originally posted by sycamore
NTSAD-DV clearly notes that Jews are not the only ones affected by Tay-Sachs.
It's like the belief here in America that only blacks get sickle-cell anemia.
It also occurs in people with mediterranean ancestry.
Originally posted by sycamore
You have some sources for this?
A personal observation actually. I wasn't claiming that that was actually the results.
Wolf's post may give it some corroboration though. I'd have to give it some more study.
I think that the Jewish folks are more interested in marrying within the Jewish community. I think it's more of a faith thing. The interfaith marriage isn't as big of a deal among Protestants, but I know that strict Catholics tend to marry the same; they have to get a special dispensation to marry a non-catholic. People who place a high value on orthodoxy tend to marry those who also place a high value on orthodoxy. I wouldn't doubt that another part of it is racial pride. The fact that Jewish men tend to gravitate towards jobs that make an assload of money is just lagniappe.
I see no problem in breeding for good genes. It seems the logical thing to do. Look at what not considering genetics has done for hemophilia in England's royal family. Look at what it did to the Egyptian Pharoahs. These are just examples of what being more concerned with maintaining the blueness of the blood than with introducing new blood into the gene pool can result in.
This is why we don't marry within our own families (many royal families throughout history did this, because one had to marry within one's own station, and extended family was the "logical" choice if one was to be sure of bloodline, ancestry, and breeding). It strengthens the recessive genes, therefore making it more likely for the negatives to reappear. If we do that long enough, then even when one does marry outside of the family group, they have more of a chance of passing on a larger and stronger set of recessive genes.
That's fine if you code for blue eyes and blonde hair, but not if you code for hemophilia. Men either have it or they don't, becaue it's carried on the X. Women, who have two X's, can carry it, but don't have it unless it's on both. So that means if a female carrier marries a male who is sick, then any male children they have will be sick, and end up passing it to their own children. Any girls they have will be carriers. So, hemophilia becomes more and more widespread as the children grow up and marry and have children of their own.
I don't think there's anything wrong with breeding with genetics in mind. Several traits are genetic, one of which is intelligence. Research has found that children of two highly intelligent people can, due to environment, not measure up to the intelligence of their parents, but that children of parents with lower intelligence can only advance so far intellectually, again depending on the environment (Disclaimer: NO, I am NOT saying that stupid people should not be allowed to breed, despite any personal feelings I may have concerning said breeding).
The more research we do with genetics (the church needs to keep the hell out of it, IMO. All they're doing is impeding progress) the better off our future offspring will be.
Think about when we can use cloning to grow a hand or a foot or an eye. Think about being able to look at genetic profiles of parents so that any problems with the fetus can be corrected in utero (as they're doing with some congenital illnesses now, like spina bifida. A friend of mine and his wife had their child's spine worked on while the wife was pregnant, and the child is doing fine now.)
Sidhe
Originally posted by TheLorax
"Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life...Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
That is sound wisdom in a world that has fate and magic, but I don't believe that it is applicable to this world.
Terminating
proven murderers could very well stabilize the future.
We don't know. We do know that keeping them around does no one any good.
DanaC and I were commenting on how the actions of a murderer affect his own family. Here's a quote from a book called "An Hour To Kill," a true story about Ken Register, an 18-year-old who abducted, raped, sodomized and stabbed to death one of his best friends, Crystal Todd. The following excerpt is a quote taken from his mother:
"You don't know what it's like to go to the store and have someone stare as if to say, 'That's Ken Register's mother.'"...Conversations ceased when she entered rooms. People sensed that small talk was no longer appropriate. Shirley felt in her heart that she needed to respond, that it was somehow important for her to speak up. But what was there to say? What words woul let others know what she and her family were going through?
And, contrary to popular belief, religion isn't the answer. Ken Register and his father were involved in the church; they helped to build the new church, Ken himself often accompanied the minister and did chores for some of the older church members. He attended church regularly. People took that as evidence of his moral upbringing and good character. He had, in fact, spent the morning of the day that Crystal was murdered scrubbing the floors of the new church that he and his father helped construct. He arrived early at church the next morning after visiting the mother of the murdered girl, and during the service, he played his guitar and led the music. He attended church services that day and later went to attend another church function with his girlfriend. He was a pallbearer at Crystal's funeral.
There's no way that anyone will be able to convince me that an 18-year-old boy who was raised in the church doesn't know the difference between right and wrong. He drove her out to a secluded area, raped and sodomized her, and then murdered her and threw her into a ditch.
There were 35 different cuts and stab wounds, seven bruises, and three abrasions. Some of the wounds were made before she died, some during, and some after. Her face had been cut on her left cheek, on her right eyebrow, below the right eye, and below the inside corner of her right eye, 11 stab wounds to the face and head in all. She had bruises on the left temple, upper and lower lip, right eyebrow, right upper eyelid, and in the right temporal area. There were 3 knife wounds to the neck, any of which would have been fatal. The slashes were so deep and made with such force that they sliced the bones on her spinal column, and the only thing holding her head on was her spinal column. There were six more stab wounds in her chest measuring more than a half inch long and two and a quarter inches deep. One of the wounds penetrated the right lung. One was made through the middle of the stomach and under the breastbone into the liver while Crystal was dying. Twice she had been stabbed in the back with such force that the knife stuck in the bone of the spinal column. Another 3-inch-deep wound was made between the ribs and penetrated the aorta. Most of the additional knife wounds made to her abdomen were made after she had died and penetrated the liver and small bowel. Two wounds had opened the abdominal wall, and her intestines protruded through the holes. The examination of the head showed three stab wounds on the left side that penetrated the skull and passed into her brain. One of the medical examiners said that he had never, in the 400+ autopsies he had performed, seen knife stabs so deeply penetrate the brain.
The medical examiners ruled the cause of death as exsanguination, and concluded that she was conscious during the several minutes that it took her to die and that she was cut and stabbed repeatedly as she was dying. The medical examiner said that she was conscious while she was being stabbed repeatedly in the head and face. A stab wound just above her left ear paralyzed the right side of her body, yet she continued to fight off the attacker with her left hand, which suffered multiple cuts. She was nearly decapitated, and a necklace was imbedded in the cuts. The sexual part of the forensic investigation indicated that a foriegn object was inserted into anus up to and after her death. The doctor explained that Crystal was anally raped while being stabbed, while bleeding to death, and after she died.
Medical examiners also discovered significant bruising around the vaginal and rectal areas from blunt force. Sperm was found in both the vaginal and anal areas.
He confessed to the murder when the DNA made it clear that he was guilty.
He destroyed a girl's life. He destroyed the lives of her family members. He destroyed his family's life.
And so, remind me again why he deserves to live?
Sidhe
edited to include the autopsy report...
Whether or not he deserves to live is besides the point. Whether or not it is right for *us* to kill him is the question
Originally posted by DanaC
Whether or not he deserves to live is besides the point. Whether or not it is right for *us* to kill him is the question
Why would it not be right?
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
We do know that keeping them around does no one any good.
You might think that...I think they could be beneficial for research purposes.
Originally posted by sycamore
You might think that...I think they could be beneficial for research purposes.
What sort of research?
Originally posted by DanaC
Bruce. where is that sig from? Its been bugging me for ages, it seems familiar
[COLOR=indigo]Desperado - The Eagles.[/COLOR]
Why would it not be right?
Because there is no way to be sure that everybody sentenced to die is guilty even if we can be totally sure of some......Because violence is cyclical and state violence against it's citizens ( even those who have committed terrible crimes) gives a message that violence and murder is alright in special circumstances ( beyond self defense) ....Because there are other ways to deal with murderers which allow for later appeals and changes in law....Because when the state has the right to kill it sets a dangerous precedent ( imo) which can then be used a as tool in class/race conflict.....Because it doesnt solve the problem it just removes one murderer from the world, trust me another will come along to take their place. ....Because it has no deterrant effect......Because two wrongs do not make a right......Because it is symptomatic of the dehumanising of criminals to the point where people on here can claim a murderer to be "not a person"
.......Because it is disproportinately carried out against the killers of white people despite the murders of black people being just a smuch of a problem. .....Because it disproportinately affects black people .....Because it disproportinately affects those too poor to acquire good advocates.....
Those are just a few of my reasons as I think we've already discussed.
Originally posted by DanaC
Because there is no way to be sure that everybody sentenced to die is guilty even if we can be totally sure of some......Because violence is cyclical and state violence against it's citizens ( even those who have committed terrible crimes) gives a message that violence and murder is alright in special circumstances ( beyond self defense) ....Because there are other ways to deal with murderers which allow for later appeals and changes in law....Because when the state has the right to kill it sets a dangerous precedent ( imo) which can then be used a as tool in class/race conflict.....Because it doesnt solve the problem it just removes one murderer from the world, trust me another will come along to take their place. ....Because it has no deterrant effect......Because two wrongs do not make a right......Because it is symptomatic of the dehumanising of criminals to the point where people on here can claim a murderer to be "not a person"
.......Because it is disproportinately carried out against the killers of white people despite the murders of black people being just a smuch of a problem. .....Because it disproportinately affects black people .....Because it disproportinately affects those too poor to acquire good advocates.....
Those are just a few of my reasons as I think we've already discussed.
So you'd rather create another problem than try to solve the real problem.
I dont see how not wanting to execute murderers is creating a new problem. I mean....if you guys were executing your killers and that had solved the problem well, then I could see how you might think that. But you kill your murderers and we dont yet we have a very similar level of crime.
Originally posted by sycamore
You might think that...I think they could be beneficial for research purposes.
If they would LET us use them in a lab, I'd be all for it.
To DanaC "Whether or not it is right for *us* to kill him is the question":
The State has the responsibility of ensuring the safety of its citizens. The penalties for infractions of the law are public, and therefore anyone who breaks the law is by definition subjecting himself to that punishment if caught. I get tired of hearing convicted murderers say "they tell me I was wrong to kill, and now they're going to kill me." They KNEW the penalty when they committed the act. No use whining, trying to get sympathy, now that they have to pay the price for their act. They should've thought about that before.
It is right for the state to execute those they deem too dangerous to live because that is how society is set up. The rules are there for everyone to see. Society has agreed upon them, and have thus empowered the State to execute.
I maintain that lawful execution is no more murder than lawful confiscation is stealing.
Sidhe
The State has the responsibility of ensuring the safety of its citizens
I would agree. Protecting it's citizens is something my own country takes as seriously as yours yet we dont kill for any crime. I do not think capital punishment has the effect of protecting citizens.
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
If they would LET us use them in a lab, I'd be all for it.
Our thoughts on this issue are probably quite different.
Originally posted by DanaC
.......Because it is disproportinately carried out against the killers of white people despite the murders of black people being just a smuch of a problem. .....Because it disproportinately affects black people .....Because it disproportinately affects those too poor to acquire good advocates.....
The question is not race. That's a red herring. The question is, "did they do it?" We all know OJ did it, but he got away, even with overwhelming evidence. DNA doesn't lie. It can be altered to NOT look like who it is, but it cannot be altered to LOOK like who it ISN'T.
Are the poor folks guilty? Would you rather we give them a sleazy high-class lawyer like OJ's, so they can get away with murder?
Race and class aren't as much of a factor as people try to make them out to be, IMO. They seem to me to be just things brought in to cloud the issue.
I don't care WHAT color you are, I don't care how much money you have. If you're guilty, you should pay the penalty.
Sidhe
Originally posted by sycamore
Our thoughts on this issue are probably quite different.
Yup. I'd be willing to bet they are.
Originally posted by DanaC
I dont see how not wanting to execute murderers is creating a new problem. I mean....if you guys were executing your killers and that had solved the problem well, then I could see how you might think that. But you kill your murderers and we dont yet we have a very similar level of crime.
If that works for you guys, then rock on. Over here, we get rid of them permanently (ostensibly). Perhaps if all the states were like Texas, the death penalty WOULD be more of a deterrent than it is now.
I maintain my position that I don't feel that I should have to pay for these people to be housed and given luxuries that I can't afford, such as medical care. Putting them in prison for life is doing just that. It means I'm working to feed, clothe, shelter, and give medical care to the enemy, while they sit there being worthless and useless. They serve no purpose IN prison, and they're too dangerous to let out. What's the point of their existence?
Sidhe
I don't care WHAT color you are, I don't care how much money you have. If you're guilty, you should pay the penalty.
Given that the quality of your legal representation is dependant upon your bankbalance I would posit that those with money are more likely to be found innocent and those without money guilty regardless of whether or not they did it. OJ is a case in point. He was able to afford the best of legal defense and therefore got away with murder ( we presume)
And whilst you may not care what colour or income bracket the defendant falls into the scales of justice seem to.
These are stats you provided earlier in the thread:
White-- 1,701 -- 46.71%
Black -- 1,562 -- 42.77%
Hispanic-- 312 -- 8.54%
Native American -- 45 -- 1.23%
Asian -- 32 -- 0.88%
You never provided a source for these...what are they? Where do they come from?
If that figure is suggesting that 42.77 per cent of those on death row are black then there is a serious problem. Unless 42% of the population are black that suggests the death sentence is being disproportionately applied to black americans
Or are those figures indicative of something else? more info please:)
I followed the link you provided on your post . Wasnt able to find those figures but did find a very interesting article
Towards Death Penalty Reforms Originally posted by DanaC
Unless 42% of the population are black
Nope...12%.
12%? I'd stabbed a guess at 10% so I wasnt far off;)
Originally posted by sycamore
These are stats you provided earlier in the thread:
White-- 1,701 -- 46.71%
Black -- 1,562 -- 42.77%
Hispanic-- 312 -- 8.54%
Native American -- 45 -- 1.23%
Asian -- 32 -- 0.88%
You never provided a source for these...what are they? Where do they come from?
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0875651.html
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cp.htm
I believe that's where I found them.
More interesting links:
http://www.geocities.com/bigmike_75/essays/w/11.html
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cp01.htm
http://www.thenewamerican.com/focus/cap_punishment/
http://www.4essays.com/essays/CAPITAL_.HTM
Sidhe
46.3% of state and federal inmates are black? Thats terrifying
"Between 1973 and 2002, 102 inmates on death row have been exonerated and freed. The most common reasons for wrongful convictions are mistaken eyewitness testimony, the false testimony of informants and “incentivized witnesses,” incompetent lawyers, defective or fraudulent scientific evidence, prosecutorial and police misconduct, and false confessions. In recent years, DNA played a role in overturning 12 of these wrongful death row convictions."
So.....without DNA testing ( a fairly recent addition to the legal eagles arsenal) thats at least 12 people who would have been wrongfully executed. One wonders how many people each year who didnt have access to such methods have been killed wrongfully. The fact that so many deathrow inmates have been exonerated suggests to me there are likely also many who havent been exonerated and yet have been wrongfully convicted.
I mean......it's great if you happen to be one of those who have a good legal team working on your behalf, but from what I have read some states ( like Texas) are less than thorough in ensuring appeals are available and fully supported.
If the UK had had the death sentence over the last twenty years I know of at least 10 Irishmen who would likely have been hung for offences they were later proved to be innocent of. I simply do not trust the state , the judges, the jury or the legal system as a whole not to fuck it up and kill an innocent, either by accident or design
Originally posted by DanaC
Because it is symptomatic of the dehumanising of criminals to the point where people on here can claim a murderer to be "not a person"
[COLOR=indigo]That would be me.
And any living creature that chooses to treat an innocent person in that manner is NOT a person.
It is below an animal. It is SUBhuman.
The Death Penalty does not make me believe this. The filthy vermin that perpetrates that act against society does.
I'm not talking about killing petty thieves here. I'm talking about sick fucks like the guy who tortured that poor girl. If they need help pulling the switch, they can call me.[/COLOR]
Originally posted by DanaC
If that figure is suggesting that 42.77 per cent of those on death row are black then there is a serious problem. Unless 42% of the population are black that suggests the death sentence is being disproportionately applied to black americans
Or are those figures indicative of something else? more info please:)
http://www.streetgangs.com/
How about that?
Much street violence, including murder is committed by gangs (No, I'm not saying that ALL street violence is committed by gangs, so everyone keep your shorts on). Check out the number of black gangs and then the number of latino, asian, and white gangs.
So basically, what you're saying is, for every one minority we execute, we should execute a white guy? Doesn't guilt matter? It shouldn't matter if it's a black/asian/latino/white guy, and another black/asian/latino/white guy evaded justice. It doesn't change the fact that this guy is still guilty, no matter his color.
A small percentage of the society is generally responsible for the larger percentage of crime, and perhaps race may have an influence on what type of crime one commits. But it doesn't make the person any less guilty. I can't help but feel that if white guys were found guilty and executed in disproportionate numbers, that no one would give a shit. But when it comes to minorities, it's considered racism and persecution.
I'm mostly Native American (a quarter), but I don't bitch about the number of Native Americans on death row. If they committed the crime, they deserve to be there.
This is just one more way to emphasize race. If race is being used as an excuse for everything, racism will always be an issue. Keep throwing it up in people's faces, and they'll use that as an excuse for racism. I've seen it happen.
People need to worry about guilt, not race. If someone murdered someone in my family, I wouldn't care what color they were or how much money they had. Given the chance, I'd execute them myself and save the state an assload of money.
Sidhe
It is below an animal. It is SUBhuman.
Wow. *it* is subhuman? Did you really just say that?
I think this is where I get off this particular merrygoround. I cant argue with that.
Originally posted by DanaC
46.3% of state and federal inmates are black? Thats terrifying
Does it matter whether or not they're guilty?
Originally posted by DanaC
"Between 1973 and 2002, 102 inmates on death row have been exonerated and freed.
102 out of how many in 29 years? Considering the thousands of people on death row, and the advanced science we have now, that's not a bad ratio.
Sidhe
Originally posted by OnyxCougar
[COLOR=indigo]That would be me.
And any living creature that chooses to treat an innocent person in that manner is NOT a person.
It is below an animal. It is SUBhuman.
The Death Penalty does not make me believe this. The filthy vermin that perpetrates that act against society does.
I'm not talking about killing petty thieves here. I'm talking about sick fucks like the guy who tortured that poor girl. If they need help pulling the switch, they can call me.[/COLOR]
Damn, Onyx....you just make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...:)
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
But you know what? That abuse didn't lead me to kill. I didn't decide all men were like that and therefore needed to die. Ultimately, it's not our childhood. It's the choices we make. As grown men and women, we have the option of making our own choices in behavior. I'm not going to justify my behavior by blaming it on something that happened when I was a kid, and I'm not going to accept it from a murderer.
Sidhe
I can only offer my respect and support for coming through such an ordeal without loosing your sense of reason, as happens in so many cases. There is an overwhelming trend to base actions (and reactions) on past experiences so forgive me for assuming your pro dp stance is entirely emotional and rooted in past conflict. If you have succeeded in objectivising the argument and still believe in 'eye for an eye', I cannot then argue this is an irrational response resulting from years of undeserved abuse.
So what then do I argue? We have already agreed that:
- past experience/abuse is no excuse for killing
- it is disproportionately expensive to keep them alive
- the act of murder is dehumanising (although I cannot concede to 'subhuman' - they are still physiologically, technically and literally human beings)
- a killers 'worth' is questionable
Aside from the economical factor (which I believe is callous and should not take precedence in this argument), the above statements are all condemnations of the act of killing - and are not automatically a valid advocation for our right to terminate. We are all in agreement here that killing, particularly the brutal cases you refer to, is abhorrent and intolerable. Where we differ in opinion is that it is right to take their life 'in return'. You may argue the above as justification - and you may be quite right - why should an abuser, a torturer, a killer - deserve to live? Maybe they don't. But that they
deserve it is not a good enough reason to act upon it. That hypothesis underpins our justice system - a culture of punishment, not of
response. I do not feel that committing a person to death is a response to their crime. I do not have the breadth of experience or knowledge to suggest an appropriate response. I do know that some things in this life lie beyond our power of expression, that sometimes a feeling so strong although not 'proven' should be acknowledged - and this I feel most strongly about. No one has the right to kill, no matter whether it is deserved. It is cyclical, endless and irresolvable.
"Aside from the economical factor (which I believe is callous and should not take precedence in this argument), the above statements are all condemnations of the act of killing - and are not automatically a valid advocation for our right to terminate. We are all in agreement here that killing, particularly the brutal cases you refer to, is abhorrent and intolerable. Where we differ in opinion is that it is right to take their life 'in return'. "
The only real answer I can give to that is the fact that the penalties for crimes are well-known. We have established punishments, agreed upon them, and codified them as law. The individual, as part of the society, accepts those laws, and when s/he violates one or more of those laws, s/he knows the penalty.
If you don't believe in state-sanctioned execution, don't kill and therefore place yourself in the position of being executed if caught. Murderers on death row seem to be the most vocal anti-dp voices in the world. Murder is apparantly ok, as long as it's not THEM facing death.
The simple fact is, the state has said, "if you murder, the penalty for the life you took is your own life." That's the law. It hasn't changed yet, so the fact that it is law, and that it is WELL-KNOWN law, is its justification. This is how we have chosen to deal with the most dangerous predators. If you don't want to die, don't commit cold-blooded murder. It's very simple, and doesn't take a rocket scientist to make the logical connection.
The economical factor IS important, however. While it may seem callous, it really isn't. It's an example of how crime and recidivism drains society's resources, resources that could be used to the betterment of society rather than the upkeep of society's predators. WHY should we first have to worry about where they will strike next until they're caught, and then be forced to take care of them for the rest of their lives AFTER they're caught? We don't owe them that. We don't owe them ANYTHING. They owe society. However, they prey on society when they're on the outside, and then leech off society when they're in prison. That seems to me to be placing the well-being of the predator over the short-and long-term well-being of the society that they've offended.
For instance, we have to pay the cops who patrol. Then we have to pay them overtime when they're trying to find a killer. Their family life suffers because of the time they put in (I know some cops, and I've heard it from them); think of all the money we spend in court costs, appeals costs, costs for recidivists, food, shelter, clothing, weight rooms, medical, dental, vision, free schooling, cable, law libraries, attorney's fees, etc. All this, for the rest of their lives. That's a huge price tag.
If we're not allowed to make them useful, such as in the laboratory, and prisons, rather than being self-sufficient, depend on society for their upkeep, society is not benefitting, other than the fact that the predator is in jail, using up yet more of our resources.
Some people do not deserve life. When one person's life causes misery and destruction of the lives of others wherever s/he goes, when this person cannot be rehabilitated, cannot be studied, cannot be made useful, then there is no point in this person's existence.
I think that the benefit to society should outweigh the concern for the murderers. Kinda along the lines of, "if you don't contribute, you don't eat." The Arizona governor who put inmates in tents in the desert had the right idea. They bitched and moaned about how HARRRRD it was, but he said that if it was good enough for our boys in Iraq, it was damn sure good enough for them.
That's just an example of how we cater to criminals. They don't have a RIGHT to accomodations any better than that which can be afforded by the poorest of us. If that's a tent, so be it. If it's a box, so be it. They shouldn't be entitled to health care, when most poor folks, and not-so-poor-folks, on the outside can't afford it. They shouldn't be entitled to entertainment that can't be afforded by people on the outside.
If we'd strip them down to the bare minimum needed for survival, like a lot of honest folks live on, we'd save a lot of money. Anything after food, water, clothing, and minimal shelter is lagniappe, and they aren't entitled to any of it.
Sidhe
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
The simple fact is, the state has said, "if you murder, the penalty for the life you took is your own life." That's the law. It hasn't changed yet, so the fact that it is law, and that it is WELL-KNOWN law, is its justification.
So laws are self-justified by their existance? That logic is a bit circular.
Perhaps, but it doesn't change the fact that it IS the law. While it's the law, any infractions of it will result in the prescribed penalty.
Sidhe
From Roy Hazelwood, who helped to create the FBI's Serial Crime Profiling unit:
"In my experience this climate of tolerance is having two important social consequences: First, as deviant behavior becomes more common in the material we read, hear, and see, parallel behaviors quickly appear in sexual crimes, particularly those acted out against strangers. Second, an increasing number of serious injuries and/or deaths are occurring during "rough sex." When criminal charges are filed, defense attorneys try to portray the injurious behavior as "consensual and accidental....In our "anything goes" society, it can be difficult to convince a judge or fury that any behavior is necessarily involuntary."
"Violent crimes committed by the severely disturbed tend to attract a disproportionate amount of attention from the press. In fact, the mentally ill are responsible for less than 3% of sexual crimes."
Here are two crimes that he worked on that are mentioned in his book:
A 14-year-old girl is kidnapped while hitchhiking with a young male companion. Her abductor immedietely kills the youth, then keeps the girl as his captive. He tortures her, binds her with chains, and forces her to pose for photographs in heavy makeup and suggestive clothing. After several days he strangles her with a bailing-wire garrote, then dumps her body in the loft of an abandoned barn.
Thre male children, ages seven, nine, and ten, take a female playmate to an isolated building where they forcibly undress her and demand that she perform oral sex on them. They insert sticks, rocks, and bottles into her vagina and rectum before releasing the little girl with a threat to kill her if she tells. The three are later identified and arrested after assaulting another young female playmate.
(these kids are already evidencing criminal behavior. The threats against the girl show that they know the difference between right and wrong and are trying to evade capture, and the second assault shows that they will keep doing it as long as they learn that they can get away with it. I wonder how many times they did it before they were caught? Deviant kids turn into deviant adults. They have to be stopped before they graduate to murder. Most sexually-motivated murders begin with things like flashing and window-peeping, and yet these crimes are misdemeanors --LS)
Source: Dark Dreams, by Roy Hazelwood and Stephen G. Michaud
Sidhe
Most sexually-motivated murders begin with things like flashing and window-peeping, and yet these crimes are misdemeanors --LS)
Hey now, I didn't kill anyone. :)
Here's more from Hazelwood that I thought bore passing on. Bear in mind that this man has interviewed hundreds, if not thousands, of murderers and sexual deviants, and helped to create the FBI's BSU, better known as the serial crime profiling unit.
The following are direct quotes, from the same book I cited earlier.
"Any purported explanation for why an individual commits violence is incomplete if it ignores the most important variable, the criminal himself. Each person is a unique product of nature and nurture, genetic destiny, and environmental influences....so while a number of factors seem to contribute to the genesis of an offender, no single element is the cause of deviant behavior."
Here are some of his thoughts on the more common theories:
POVERTY: A great number of offenders come from poor families, and a great number of them don't. For every criminal raised in a poverty-stricken environment, we can find countless law-abiding citizens who overcome that disadvantage to lead honest lives.
CHILDHOOD ABUSE: My research on serial rape supports the view that a large number of sexual criminals have been childhood victims of physical, sexual, or psychological abuse. Yet, as is true with poverty, there are many more abused kids who do not become violent as adults.
VIOLENCE IN THE MEDIA: Movies and television often are blamed for glamorizing violence. In 1977, a 15-year-old Florida youth named Ronny Zamora claimed in court that he killed an elderly female neighbor because of "television intoxication." Zamora's attorney said his client had become addicted to violence by watching television. Fortunately for society, the jurors didn't buy into that theory.
Books, magazines, and music have also been faulted for promoting violence. Rap music, especially, has been accused of objectifying women and using gender-demeaning terminology in the lyrics. While I might not personally appreciate certain kinds of music or films, behavioral studies do not suggest that men who watch or listen to them are, as a result, driven to commit crimes. Certainly offenders with preexisting fantasiesmight seek out such stimulation and even attempt to incorporate some of its elements into future crimes. But to say that a cause-and-effect relationship exists is simply not supported by scientific inquiry.
PORNOGRAPHY: Speaking as a professional, I have to say that I don't believe that it causes sexual violence.
In my experience, education, and training led me to believe that pornography contributes, both passively and actively, to sexual violence in some individuals, in that it it may play an important role in the process that leads to violent sexual assault by providing offenders with a continuous source of new ideas.
From my interviews with rapists, sexual killers, child molesters, sexual sadists, and the wives and companions of these sexually violent men, I know that ritualistic sexual offenders not only own pornography, but they typically collect it. They pore over it, spending endless hours with a favorite picture or video, all the while reinforcing the aberrant fantasy.
GENETICS: Some years ago, a new theory connected the presence of an extra "Y" chromosome in a male's genetic material to a superabundance of testosterone, which was believed to result in violent behavior. No one has ever developed scientific evidence to support this theory, and it is largely discounted today.
A more recent, and also unsubstantiated, hypothesis holds that individuals can inherit a gene that predisposes them to commit criminal acts. This genetic explanation of criminality poses an interesting dilemma for sociologists, psychologists, criminologists, and penologists.
If such behaviors are determined from birth, professionals could do little to prevent them; rehabilitation would be a hopeless task. I believe that this theory will prove to be another false lead in the quest to understand violence in our society.
Still another theory, recently advanced by so-called Evolutionary Psychologists, takes the radical view that rape is a natural biological phenomenon. To paraphrase one adherent, rape is an unfortunate but nonetheless adaptive strategy for passing on one's genes. In my view, this reasoning will go the way of the extra Y chromosome theory.
INSANITY: It's all too easy to dismiss the offender as being "sick," "perverted," or "deranged." However, this assumption does not explain the 97% of crimes committed by individuals who are not psychotic (insane).
One of the more esoteric explanations for criminal behavior I have heard is brain shrinkage. This theory says that one should not be held responsible for one's acts because the brain has shrunk, thus affecting the ability to discern right from wrong. (it was used in a case of embezzlement, and was not accepted by the jury--LS)
BLOOD SUGAR IMBALANCE: Even junk food has been blamed for causing violence. In San Francisco in November of 1978, Supvr. Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were gunned down at city hall by Supvr. Dan White. At the trial, the attorney for White blamed his client's violent behavior in part on the inordinate number of twinkies that White had consumed.
"I'm confident that no single factor of any sort will ever suffice to explain the millions of variations that occur among individuals. No two peole are alike, and the factors that combine to cause people to turn to violence will always be unique.
Perhaps the most obvious (and most frightening) explanation of all is that some offenders commit crimes simply because they want to! They like it! And they have no regard for what the rest of society thinks.
This is the dark mind's most disturbing corner of all."
Sidhe
Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
Hey now, I didn't kill anyone. :)
That we know of.
Yet.
;)
Sidhe
Originally posted by sycamore
Not necessarily...you've been on a jury before.
Yeah but it was grand jury...indictments.
Originally posted by Catwoman
If one can reject immediate emotional gratification in favour of rational, objective, effective action, then maybe we can begin to evolve from our inhumanity.
The only "problem" I have with that is this: how long will you wait for that to happen? Some people hold grudges (yeah petty, but real), and personally, it would take a v.e.r.y long time for me to calm down and think "rationally".
However, as I said before, because *I* would not be the one to issue the final punishment, then why should it matter in the long run? Shouldn't these non-emotional suggestions be put to someone who would be on a jury regarding a murder case?
Originally posted by glatt
The more you write, the less sense you are making.
Should we put murderers to death, or give them medals?
If you look into the history of most people in prison for murder, you will see that mostly they come from horrible backgrounds filled with abuse and neglect.
Some could easily bring up the argument that many people come from dysfunctional homes and are just fine. With that being the case, then maybe society should focus on trying to educate people to not procreate so quickly (or even at all) if the home isn't as stable as it can possibly be. That's just my take on a possible "solution", because after the damage is done and the crime has been committed, in many cases, it's just too late after that to do much of anything about it except to punish the person for the crime committed.
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
To everyone else:
I don't think the majority of people understand the constant terror abusers cause. Those who have been abused, in whatever way, DO know.
And those of us who have had to help the abused know as well. I told the story in another thread about how I had to beat the living fuck out of the man who was abusing my best friend. Long story short: she had dated him for 2 years. One night, she decides she was going to leave him, and asked me to help her move her things out of his apt. Ok fine. Ended up being a big old throwdown...him hiting her, and me hiting him to get him off of her. I beat him down then, and I'd sure as fuck beat him the hell down now if I ever saw his punk ass again. :mad:
IMO, they're as bad as murderers. They destroy something in you, and you never REALLY trust again, not like you used to. And that's for the people who, for whatever reason, are better able to deal with the memories. For those who are more traumatized, and can't deal very well, the abuser has destroyed their lives. And those are just the ones who get through the ordeal with their lives.
I saw that in the eyes of the second person I had to help get out of an abusive situation. She had been through so much with this particular man (and even before she met him), that there were times that you could tell that she had just given up on life, and here she was with a 6 year old daughter to raise. Oh yeah: he beat her while she was pregnant with that daughter too. Lovely. I say death to him just for that alone, I don't give a flying fuck
WHO doesn't like it! :rar:
Even if kevin HAD been abused as a kid, I wouldn't feel sorry for him. He was a grown man, and he made his choice to do what he did, over and over, to more than one person. He'd been in jail for it before (I spoke at length with his ex-wife), and apparantly he wasn't able to learn from his experience.
Ah hm...repeat offender. Yeah, jail really rehabilitated him.
It seems to me that these criminals who are blaming abuse for the way they act, wouldn't want to treat someone the same way, because they know how awful it is. Like someone who was beaten as a child choosing to use other methods to discipline their own children, because they don't want to repeat the pattern. Many people are abused as kids. They don't all grow up to kill or abuse, because they make the CHOICE not to. It's all about power. Murder is about power. Rape is about power. Abuse is about power.
Choices we make as adults (and as children) should have consequences. When they don't, all that is shown is that one can get away with bad behavior. The DP is all about consequences for the ultimate in unacceptable behavior. If we're going to start somewhere, start with rewarding good choices, and punishing the bad ones. We learn as children what is and is not acceptable social behavior. When these little juvenile delinquents get slap on the wrist after slap on the wrist, they learn that bad choices don't have consequences that outweigh the pleasure of the bad behavior.
I, personally, think we should bring back public humiliation for lesser crimes and first offenses (this is in reference to non-violent crimes, property crimes, and the like, not for murderers, rapists, abusers or child molesters).
Bring back the stocks and the canes.
Don't put a thief in jail, put him in the stocks in the public square for a couple of days and sell rotten fruit to throw at him (that'll pay for his food and water); don't stick the little gangsta wannabe in jail for robbery--cane his ass in front of his friends (I say this because a few years back, when the caning issue came up because of the American delinquent who got caned...there was a town in the states--I can't remember the name of it offhand--in which they had a problem with defacing public property. The Elders of the town suggested caning instead of jail time. When reporters interviewed some of the gang members in jail, the gang members said that they'd rather have jail time than be caned.) It hurts like a bitch, but it does no lasting damage and doesn't cost the state a thing. I'm sure someone would do the caning for free. People are very sensitive to humiliation. I think public humiliation would do some good. All that's hurt is pride, and maybe someone's butt, and it would keep our jails and prisons free for the murderers, rapists, abusers and other violent criminals.
Sidhe
Couldn't snip a word of that. Glad to see that you made it out of that hell (and to everyone else that had to come through hell).
Originally posted by ladysycamore
With that being the case, then maybe society should focus on trying to educate people to not procreate so quickly (or even at all) if the home isn't as stable as it can possibly be.
Lsyc,
who would be deciding when a home is stable enough? I agree that the overpopulation of underprivelaged portions of our society is troubling, and I understand that you do not want kids for yourself. You say it all the time. I wonder, though, how much of that is brought about by your unfortunate health situation and the fact that childbirth, for you, may not be an option. I repeatedly get the sense that you actually DO want kids, and are telling yourself that you CHOOSE not to. I'm sorry to be so direct about this, but this is not the first time this has occured to me, and i thought I should ask you.
feel free to ignore me, i mean no offense, but CAN you have kids if you change your mind?
Originally posted by Troubleshooter
Yeah, genetics is ugly, even if only from the perspective of how many things can go wrong.
Ah well, best to be childfree. No genetics, no problem! :D
*only half-joking folks...well, maybe...*
Here's something interesting I found. It's from Confessions, by St. Augustine, and concerns sin. Replace the word sin with the word crime, and it describes exactly the process that profilers have found is used by the criminal. Comments in parentheses refer to the criminal, non-parentheticals are from St. Augustine:
1. The mind conceives of an action... (fantasizing, for the criminal)
2. ...which is referred to the senses (perhaps videotaping or photographing possible victims)
3. The individual considers the possible consequences ("What I'm doing is illegal, and blah, blah, blah)
4. He decides to commit the sin (crime) ("It may not work, but I want to try it anyway")
5. He then rationalizes the act. ("I did this because I was abused as a kid")
Sidhe
Here are some more reasons I support the dp. Again, gleaned from observations made by profilers:
"The sexual offender is never fully inactive. He may not be acting out against a specific victim, but he will be making plans, selecting new targets, acting out against other victims, or gathering materials. He is never dormant."
SOCIOPATHS do not feel remorse or shame, guilt or appropriate fear. THEY DO NOT LEARN FROM PUNISHMENT. They are easily bored. They like excitement. They find it difficult to delay gratification, no matter where their self-interest may lie. They are chronic liars, even when they have no need or reason to lie. They have no understanding of, or concern for, the harm they cause others. The only concern they have is for their own gratification.
Billy Lee Chad, a rapist, sexual sadist, and murderer, wrote a manuscript while in jail called "Dark Secrets." In this manuscript, he blames the criminal justice system for making him a sexual predator, but contradicts this claim when he says of his crimes, "I never had experienced such sexual pleasure." he also said, "I knew what I had done was wrong, but where was [sic] the feelings of guilt that were supposed to accompany such a deed? What was it that caused me to feel such elation? What was it that allowed me to take another human's life with no feeling of remorse?"
When describing an attack he made on his pregnant wife when she refused him sex, he said, "The fear she showed would fire me even more. I couldn't see her face, just those eyes, afraid and pleading. I felt myself slipping into the feeling of supremacy again. I wanted to kill." Describing his second rape-murder, he said, "she was writhing in pain, and I loved it. I was now combining my sexual high of rape and my power high of fear to make a total sum that is beyond explaining. I was alive for the sole purpose of causing pain and receiving sexual gratification. I have never experienced a high like this from any drug."
He described laughing on the way home in his car. Neither afraid nor sorry for committing the brutal act, he said he'd never felt more satisfied in his life, like a "supreme ruler." He even said that he relived the rape-murder in a wet dream that night.
Commenting on another murder, one that he masturbated in the midst of, he said, after he had "sanitized" the apartment of forensic evidence, that "I started to giggle as I walked away from the place. By the time I got to the corner, I was laughing hysterically. I calmed myself, and still smiling, hailed a cab."
According to profilers, peeping, obscene calls, and exposure, considered nusiance offenses, can be precursors to violent behavior.
Also according to profilers, the two types of sexual offenders with the most characteristics in common are sexual sadists and pedophiles.
--Both are ritualistic sexual criminals, with highly developed fantasy lives. They tend to carry out their crimes according to a script.
--Both are highly motivated (their crimes give them deep satisfaction) and they invest great amounts of time, money, and energy to their criminal behavior.
--Neither experiences remorse or guilt. The sexual sadist believes that his victims deserve to suffer, and the pedophile doesn't believe that he's caused harm to the child.
--Both are highly practiced at rationalizing their behavior and consequently are poorly motivated to change.
--Both recognize that society abhors them, and they take steps to study their deviant desires and behaviors to better understand them and evade arrest.
--Both collect theme-oriented pornography and/or erotica that serves to compliment their preexisting fantasies.
--They possess average or better-than-average intelligence and social skills. They mesh well in society.
--Both are likely to commit incest with their natural children and will molest stepchildren or other minor relatives.
--They record their criminal sexual acts. This provides them with means of reliving and improving on their criminal acts.
--Their rate of recidivism is much greater than for other sexual offenders. They tend to be model prisoners and consequently are released more quickly and, having learned nothing from their punishment, quickly begin practicing sexual deviance again.
--Both are highly narcissistic.
--Both have low threshold for sexual boredom and involve their victims in progressively offensive and demeaning behaviors.
--Most sexual criminals slow down with age. There is no known burn out age for these two offenders. Unless stopped, such men will offend well into their sixties or seventies.
--They have greater numbers of victims than other sexual offenders. Once these men begin to act out criminally, they will assault until they are caught.
--They are predominately middle-class offenders.
--They are determined.
Scary.
Sidhe
Originally posted by lumberjim
Lsyc,
who would be deciding when a home is stable enough? I agree that the overpopulation of underprivelaged portions of our society is troubling, and I understand that you do not want kids for yourself. You say it all the time.
As far as who would decide...truthfully, I don't have an answer for that right now. However, as far as *what* will determine stable, then I would say the things that are obvious: excessive drug and alchohol abuse, violence in the home (against another person or witnessing abuse), mental, physical, emotional abuse, etc. As far as me stating my childfree status "all of the time"...ah, that may be a result of speaking with several "militant" childfree members on "alt.support.childfree". They can get a person amped up sometimes...;) My bad...
I wonder, though, how much of that is brought about by your unfortunate health situation and the fact that childbirth, for you, may not be an option. I repeatedly get the sense that you actually DO want kids, and are telling yourself that you CHOOSE not to. I'm sorry to be so direct about this, but this is not the first time this has occured to me, and i thought I should ask you.
feel free to ignore me, i mean no offense, but CAN you have kids if you change your mind?
Let me break some things down (you may get more than you bargained for): :p
1) I have never had an overwhelming desire to have kids...not even to be married. This would be the "main" reason, but I do have a few others.
As a young child, I didn't have dreams and fantasies about the man who would sweep me off of my feet, marry and have a family with (as society assumes all little girls do) and live happily ever after. I would hear various horror stories about pregnancy, birth, labor, etc. and truth be told: it turned me off
completely about having kids. Everytime someone would even suggest that I have kids one day, I'd cringe and say, "no thanks" thinking of all of the various problems I might have being pregnant, and never mind the hours of labor and pain. I just saw an episode of
"Starting Over" today where a young gal gave birth and I was practically on the floor writhing everytime she shrieked in pain. And then, they gave her an epidural...not pretty. A big old needle in the back...nah, not for me (*maybe* if I
had to for some other reason such as life saving surgery..maybe).
I've always said that one should have at least 4 things in place before considering starting a family: stable finances, relatively good health, time and patience. I had none of those when I was a teen, in my 20s, or now. As a teenager, I didn't want to find myself a possible single mother, relying on my parents to help me out, and struggling to support myself and my child (plus, I didn't want to give up my swanky lifestyle...that's sort of a joke, but I really didn't want to give up my youth to become a mother).
Marriage I'm more receptive to, but that also takes some planning, and I do have to weight the pros and cons of that as well.
2) My health situation does make it somewhat dangerous to have kids, but again, because the desire isn't there, there *is* no danger for me. Why have a kid if I have no desire to be a parent? I strongly feel this is where some people "fail" as parents, because they just "follow the script" (as some CF people say), and deep down they are not willing to actually be parents (but what would the family say???). Family and social pressure can be pretty strong to fight for some, but not for me. Thank goodness my parents aren't hounding me to be grandparents. Many people have kids for all the wrong reasons, and it shows many times in the parenting.
I *do* know of some who have kidney failure and have had kids...My mind boggles over this, because not only would it complicate the pregnancy, but to know that you may have possibly passed that along to the child...unless they did some genetic testing, and I highly doubt many people are even doing this, much less know about it. Kidney failure, diabetes and other things run in my family to some degree, so I sure wouldn't want any child of mine to live like I am right now...many aspects of it sucks ass royally (remember how much trouble I was having trying to walk around at the car convention? One of the sucky aspects...). However, my choice to not have kids came way before I discovered my kidneys failing, as I pointed out in point #1.
3) To answer you question: No. There
is no changing my mind because of the reasons stated above. So no, I am not secretly harboring thoughts of having kids, but choosing to not have them because of my chronic illness. In fact, that just put the nail in the coffin about not having kids (not that the nail *really* needed to be hammered in more).
4) Having kids is not something I feel I "have" to do in order to be a well rounded, decent person. Some people have said that children makes them complete and so on, and that's swell..for them, but not for me (and Syc).
So actually, you were right in saying that childbirth may not be an option, but it was an option that I
chose before I became ill.
Hope that cleared things up for you.
:D
PS: Didn't want to necessarily hijack the thread folks, but he asked. ;)
This is in response to the racial and socioeconomic aspect of DP-worthy crimes. According to the FBI:
The vast majority of sexual sadists in the FBI study (these are the ones who turn into serial killers)--29 out of 30--were whites of european descent.
Blacks and Hispanics are statistically underrepresented, not only among sexual sadists, but among most classes of ritualistic serial criminals. Robert Ressler and John Douglas, in their serial killer survey, interviewed 36 murderers responsible for 118 deaths. Of these, 33 were white males. When Ann Burgess and Roy Hazelwood studied 41 serial rapists (responsible for 837 rapes and more than 400 attempted rapes) there were 36 whites and five blacks. In Hazelwood's study of twenty compliant wives and girlfriends of sexual sadists, 17 were white, 2 were hispanic, and only one was black. In his later study of 150 autoerotic fatalities, 139 of the victims were white and only 7 were black.
Notice how few individuals were responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes: 36 murderers responsible for 188 deaths, and 41 rapists responsible for 1,237 assaults!
A mere 77 people responsible for 1,425 life-destroying acts. These are people who will continue to offend until they're stopped. As they were recidivists, prison had apparantly not rehabilitated them. I'll bet a rope would rehabilitate them....
The white v. black deviant offender also have other differences:
Black rapists cross the racial line much more frequently than do white rapists, and tend to assault elderly women much more often.
As cases of black ritualistic sexual offenders came to Hazelwood's attention, he found that these offenders tended to come from middle-class or higher families. He believes that "as more blacks and hispanics move into the middle class, they will begin to display more of the ritualistic behaviors currently associated with white offenders."
So what this is saying is:
Most serial murderers and rapists will tend to be WHITE.
The HIGHER up on the socioeconomic ladder, the more minorities will engage in the serial, ritualistic types of sexual criminal behavior. So all this "poor" talk holds less water than it would first seem when it comes to serial sexual assault-murders.
Also, it has been found, in a study of 30 sexual sadists, that over half had no arrest record prior to the crimes for which they were imprisoned. (This means that they were probably slapped on the wrist for minor crimes such as peeping, flashing, or obscene phone calls since most sexual assaulters begin small and work their way up the violence ladder. Often these offenses are dropped, or happened during childhood, and the records were expunged or sealed, making it appear that the person had no previous instances of deviant behavior. This is why these offenses should not be taken lightly--they can indicate future behavior, and show previous bad behavior when the offender finally DOES harm someone)
According to Hazelwood, "The fact that some of the most heinous offenders operating in North America had no arrest history is a strong testament to their planning and intelligence."
These are the people we're taking care of, FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. Remind me again why they deserve luxuries that many law-abiding citizens can't afford?? Remind me why they deserve the state's mercy when they didn't feel their victims deserved the same? Remind me why they deserve to live?
Being a human being didn't keep their victims alive, and therefore shouldn't be an excuse to keep them alive either, IMO.
Sidhe
Still another theory, recently advanced by so-called Evolutionary Psychologists, takes the radical view that rape is a natural biological phenomenon. To paraphrase one adherent, rape is an unfortunate but nonetheless adaptive strategy for passing on one's genes. In my view, this reasoning will go the way of the extra Y chromosome theory.
[COLOR=indigo]I just want to bring it up briefly here that this is just
one of the reasons I don't buy into Evolutionary theory.
I am very PRO-personal responsibility. Many people (not all) that believe in the Evolutionary Theory are Humanists, that is, they believe they answer to no one, everything happened randomly, it was all astronomical chance that we're here anyway. Their actions don't matter.
"Animals do it, so it's ok."
"That's what my dad did, and his dad did. It's in my genes."
And I don't mean to beat a very dead horse about the CvE issue, and I'm not bringing Christianity into the argument at this point at all, I'm just saying that it's typical of people that want a scapegoat and not be responsible for themselves bring Evolution into it.
Other than that, preach on Sidhe...
[/COLOR]
When it comes to evolution, I don't think that it can be used as an excuse for bad behavior. I mean hell, even a wolf will stop mid-attack when its opponent wolf shows submission. HUMANS don't do that. You show submission and a human criminal will beat the living shit out of you, then rape and kill you.
Animals seem to be more evolved than humans when it comes to stable societies.
Sidhe
Originally posted by OnyxCougar
[COLOR=indigo]I just want to bring it up briefly here that this is just [b]one of the reasons I don't buy into Evolutionary theory.[/COLOR] [/B]
And the one reason I'll take science over religion any day is that in time the bad ideas go out the window instead of us being stuck with them.
In theory...
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Animals seem to be more evolved than humans when it comes to stable societies.
That's because they are less encumbered by intellect.
There are some people who have a real problem with sapience.
Children exhibit the surrender reflex. I suspect that it's a society-reinforcing thing.
Would a wolf stop mid-attack if it's opponent were from a different pack? Would a wolf surrender if it was not part of the same society as it's opponent?
I'm just saying that it's typical of people that want a scapegoat and not be responsible for themselves bring Evolution into it.
............because nobody ever abdicates responsibilty for their lives to God......Nobody ever claims God told them to do it, or it was God's will that prostitues should die.....Nobody ever uses religion as an excuse or rationale for killing. In my experience evolutionists consider themselves more responsible for their actions not less. We *know* there's nobody else but us to answer to.
Originally posted by DanaC
............because nobody ever abdicates responsibilty for their lives to God......Nobody ever claims God told them to do it, or it was God's will that prostitues should die.....Nobody ever uses religion as an excuse or rationale for killing.
Damn straight they do ... and have since there has been religion. Just look at the crusades. Or the suicide bombing a day in Israel.
"God told me to" is not as popular a defense as "some other dude did it" but it's there.
It's used as an excuse ... it's also a real, strongly held belief. I had a patient who killed his mother and father and damn near killed his brother (who escaped and called the cops) because his family had been replaced by demons and god told him to kill them all. He didn't keep this a secret from his family, btw ... he told them, flat out, "God is telling me to kill you."
It was his first break. His parents didn't believe him.
One of the rare genuine Not Guilty By Reason of Insanities.
Lady Sidhe: The only real answer I can give to that is the fact that the penalties for crimes are well-known. We have established punishments, agreed upon them, and codified them as law. The individual, as part of the society, accepts those laws, and when s/he violates one or more of those laws, s/he knows the penalty.
Agreed.
What we are talking about here is establishing a set of rules - a consensus - for society to abide by. In a democracy, this is ruled by the majority. But what if a majority is wrong?
Quote: Happy Monkey
So laws are self-justified by their existence? That logic is a bit circular.
Ideally, potential punishment should = deterrent. A more likely equation is:
Payoff - (Punishment + level of psychosis + desire for instant gratification) = oh fuck it I'll do the crime anyway.
Research shows that the penalty is not given rational consideration in crimes such as these. So how do we deter? Punishment, reparation, retaliation - these are futile. They do not compensate, they do not resolve. I suggest, and this is the basis of my argument, that not enough is known about the phenomena of murder. Until we understand its root causes, we cannot respond to it. Let us take the time at whatever economical cost to get this one right, and then abolish it forever. Idealist? Yes. Impossible? It was once deemed impossible that the world could be round, that there wasn't a god, and that the earth revolved around the sun.
"Violent crimes committed by the severely disturbed tend to attract a disproportionate amount of attention from the press. In fact, the mentally ill are responsible for less than 3% of sexual crimes."
"Perhaps the most obvious (and most frightening) explanation of all is that some offenders commit crimes simply because they want to! They like it! And they have no regard for what the rest of society thinks."
--Roy Hazelwood (who has worked with violent serial criminals for twenty years)
SOCIOPATHS do not feel remorse or shame, guilt or appropriate fear. THEY DO NOT LEARN FROM PUNISHMENT. They are easily bored. They like excitement. They find it difficult to delay gratification, no matter where their self-interest may lie. They are chronic liars, even when they have no need or reason to lie. They have no understanding of, or concern for, the harm they cause others. The only concern they have is for their own gratification.
Catwoman: "Payoff - (Punishment + level of psychosis + desire for instant gratification) = oh fuck it I'll do the crime anyway.
Research shows that the penalty is not given rational consideration in crimes such as these...."
The level of psychosis isn't something that has to be placed in the equation all, or even MOST, of the time. Despite the nature of the crimes, these people aren't psychotic. A personality disorder is not insanity. Legal insanity and medical insanity are two different things. Being a sociopath does not mean you're insane, and it's not an excuse.
It's not my problem if they don't consider the consequences of their actions. That's just too bad for them if they get caught. And many serial criminals DO consider the consequences. Why else would they try to cover their tracks if not to prevent capture? Evasion indicates knowledge of right and wrong, and that knowledge means that they do not want to pay the consequences, and are taking steps to prevent it.
People who go around indulging in violent whims, and who cannot be rehabilitated (sociopaths), don't garner any sympathy for me. They enjoy what they do, and as long as they're free, they'll continue to do it. There's no point in warehousing them.
As was said before, if the justice system would treat minor offenses, such as window peeping, exposure, offensive, repetitive crank calling, and animal cruelty with more concern, we might be able to catch these guys before they graduate to killing. However, once these people have gratified their urge, they don't go back. How do you rehabilitate someone who cares only for his own desires, and thinks the rest of the world is there for him to use in order to fulfill those desires?
Sidhe
And God said "Let there be rape"
It's not my problem if they don't consider the consequences of their actions.
BUT THAT IS EXACTLY YOUR PROBLEM! If a murderer possessed a true, rational and *sane* sense of consequence they would not kill. Isn't that the problem here? We do not want people to kill. We want murder not to exist. Can you see that far? Can you imagine the possibility?
You're not listening. I am not validating, excusing or justifying murder in any way. We are already agreed on that one. You don't need to keep telling me how wrong it is. You don't need to keep telling me how society shouldn't have to pay for or accommodate them, that they don't 'deserve' to live or that insanity is no excuse to kill.
I am trying to look for a way to progress. To take steps to ensure that, at some point, there will be no need for discussions like these. The dp is PROVEN ineffective as a deterrent. States that do not have the dp have LOWER murder rates. It serves no purpose. It is barbaric and futile. We need to collect and correlate social, environmental and physiological factors into some kind of profile to help us establish the CAUSE of violent crime and then treat the reason, not the symptom. And logistics, while important, should not present any barrier to something so fundamental.
Despite the nature of the crimes, these people aren't psychotic.
Can that statement possibly hold any truth?
Evasion indicates knowledge of right and wrong, and that knowledge means that they do not want to pay the consequences, and are taking steps to prevent it.
Yes, assuming these people are in a sane, logical and rational frame of mind (see above).
How do you rehabilitate someone who cares only for his own desires, and thinks the rest of the world is there for him to use in order to fulfill those desires?
If this is the case (and forgive my ignorance - but I happen to think the circumstances surrounding a murder are a little more complex than this), then rehabilitation is not the most important issue. I am sure there are cases where it will never be possible to reintroduce such an individual into society. But that doesn't mean we cannot learn from them. Aileen Wuornos was interviewed by a psychologist for 15 minutes before determining that she was sane, and was subsequently sentenced to death. Our criminal research facilities are horribly inept, both here and the USA. I keep reiterating that not enough is known and we should establish reason before dictating solution.
If they knowingly, willfully murder someone - not in self defense - kill them. Quickly, not after years on death row, wasting tax payers' money on their existence and their legal appeals. In a clearly unapologetic manner - end them.
If they are "insane" and they commit the same crime - end them. Why is "not being in the right frame of mind" an acceptable defense?
Maybe if the punishments were a little closer to "an eye for an eye" and were swiftly and strictly enforced, the dipshit down the street might think twice about committing a violent crime. Many violent crimes are committed by cowards who may be deterred by the knowledge that there are real and really painful consequences to their actions.
Psychological studies have unequivocally shown that increased punishments are a very low deterrent, but increased chances of getting caught are a very high deterrent.
Think of it this way: would you rather gamble $100 with only a 10% chance of winning, or gamble $1000 with a 90% chance of winning?
The fact that you might lose $1000 is lost to your brain, doesn't matter if it's a hundred thousand. You look and say, "I have a 90% chance of winning! I'll do it!" whereas with the first option you say, "That sounds like a great way to get screwed out of $100. No thanks."
Human beings are risk-takers. It's all about what you think your chances are, not what the possible losses are.
Just tossin' that onto the fire.
Is it possible to carry that same point back to the risks/outweighing the benefits. If i do x, and am caught there is a 60% chance i will spend 10 years in prison vs. if i do x, and get caught i WILL be executed.
I don't know that you can prove a right or wrong view on this one. But I still fall on the side of extreme, swift, consistant penalty for crimes.
I do speed because the consequence is a piddly ticket
I don't drive while intoxicated because i don't like going to jail.
OK depmats. If I said to you - you are free to commit a murder. You can kill anyone you like. There will be no imposed punishment, jail sentence or other penalty. Go ahead.
What would you do?
Is it possible to carry that same point back to the risks/outweighing the benefits. If i do x, and am caught there is a 60% chance i will spend 10 years in prison vs. if i do x, and get caught i WILL be executed.
No it isn't, you missed my point. What I am saying is that statistically the statement you made does NOT hold true for human psychology. Though it may make sense, it simply isn't what people respond to--the only statistic people psychologically respond to in any meaningful way is the chance they will get caught.
Originally posted by Catwoman
OK depmats. If I said to you - you are free to commit a murder. You can kill anyone you like. There will be no imposed punishment, jail sentence or other penalty. Go ahead.
What would you do?
Fair question - but I haven't run into a situation yet where I would really benefit yet from someone else's death at my hands. There have been people that I would have liked to cause physical harm - but in each case I looked at what the long-term consequence would be to me. Jail? there goes my career.
I know that my view of acceptable punishment wouldn't eliminate crime. I believe it would lower crime rates though. The dead cannot cause injury to another. SOMe people will be deterred by the guarantee of severe penalty. But we would definitely thin the heard of those who do commit violent crimes. Murder and rape top my list of crimes worthy of execution... But as people have pointed out elsewhere I am just a thug.
Here in the fine state of Texas,U.S.A., the death penelty works just fine.
No convicted felon excecuted by the state of Texas has ever gone on to kill again.
What if they were reincarnated and killed again? If you keep them in prison for a couple decades, you put that off for a while!
Iff a bull had calves you wouldn't need cows.
I did not believe in reincarnation the first couple of times i was here either.
Originally posted by Perry5
Here in the fine state of Texas,U.S.A., the death penelty works just fine.
No convicted felon excecuted by the state of Texas has ever gone on to kill again.
Rick Halperin, president of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said Texas once again is inviting the scorn and ridicule of human rights observers from throughout the United States and around the world. “We have a Court of Criminal Appeals that does not even recognize the right of death row inmates to effective legal counsel during habeas appeals,” Halperin said. “We have a parole board that does not take seriously its statutory responsibility to hold legitimate clemency hearings. We have a governor who is beginning to look like he might upstage his predecessor as the state’s executioner-in-chief. We have a flawed and broken execution system in Texas, and even more tragically, there is no political will or moral leadership from either party in the state to stop and critically examine what is happening here.” -
http://www.ncadp.org/html/may7.html
Sounds like you people down in Texas have everything going right for them. Since the death penalty is a state controlled policy the national government is going to let them handle it how they want to. The national government cannot take a stance because they need to be re-elected. I believe that it is morally acceptable to take the life of someone who has taken someone elses, but I would rather have the system be flawless unlike it is today. Texas is a state that seems to be doing things the wrong way, while other states like Illinois are trying to use a more intelligible approach on the subject, but then again morals and values differ for every single person so an overall conclusion that will make everyone happy is infeasible.
You are correct,there is no perfection in the Texas exsecution system,on the otherhand many convicted fellons sentenced to life in prison have gone on to kill again in prison.
(Nothing perfect about that either.)
Originally posted by Perry5
You are correct,there is no perfection in the Texas exsecution system,on the otherhand many convicted fellons sentenced to life in prison have gone on to kill again in prison.
(Nothing perfect about that either.)
Well if they are killing people in prison, isn't that just making more room for different criminals to come in? :rolleyes:
Originally posted by Perry5
You are correct,there is no perfection in the Texas exsecution system,on the otherhand many convicted fellons sentenced to life in prison have gone on to kill again in prison.
(Nothing perfect about that either.)
So quit wasting time and wack 'em sooner. The good news is that if they kill someone in prison... I know it won't be me.
dude, don't tempt fate like that. :eek:
Who believes in fate anyway? :confused:
Originally posted by lumberjim
dude, don't tempt fate like that. :eek:
Thanks for the warning, but if i end up there it is my own dumbass fault.
Originally posted by depmats
So quit wasting time and wack 'em sooner. The good news is that if they kill someone in prison... I know it won't be me.
Perhaps not today,but who knows when some lawyer may decide to stick his finger up your ass and turn you inside out.
To the lawyer the words ill eagle represent nothing more than a sick bird and outragious fees.
Originally posted by Perry5
Perhaps not today,but who knows when some lawyer may decide to stick his finger up your ass and turn you inside out.
To the lawyer the words ill eagle represent nothing more than a sick bird and outragious fees.
If I keep my shit straight I won't have to deal with the bloodsuckers.
Sidhe: Despite the nature of the crimes, these people aren't psychotic.
Catwoman: Can that statement possibly hold any truth?
Why is that so hard to believe? Why is it so hard to believe that people can be JUST that calculating? I don't believe that someone who commits murder for hire is insane. He knows what he's doing, and he has a good reason for doing it, as far as he's concerned.
I don't believe that a mother who drowns her children, to accomplish a specific purpose, is insane. She's just self-centered, and cares for no one other than herself.
I don't believe that an armed robber or rapist who kills the victim is insane. They also kill for a completely logical purpose: to leave no witnesses so that they will not get caught.
I don't understand why people feel the need to believe that anyone who commits a crime, especially a heinous crime, must not be sane. Sanity is not exclusive of crime, and the most dangerous of the criminals tend to be the logical, intelligent ones.
Sidhe:Evasion indicates knowledge of right and wrong, and that knowledge means that they do not want to pay the consequences, and are taking steps to prevent it.
Catwoman:Yes, assuming these people are in a sane, logical and rational frame of mind (see above).
Legal insanity, insanity as defined by law in reference to law, is: A defect or disease of mind that renders the individual incapable of knowing that what they were doing was wrong. That means that if they make attempts to evade capture, then they knew that the action was wrong, and are therefore sane.
Sidhe: How do you rehabilitate someone who cares only for his own desires, and thinks the rest of the world is there for him to use in order to fulfill those desires?
Catwoman: If this is the case (and forgive my ignorance - but I happen to think the circumstances surrounding a murder are a little more complex than this), then rehabilitation is not the most important issue. I am sure there are cases where it will never be possible to reintroduce such an individual into society. But that doesn't mean we cannot learn from them. Aileen Wuornos was interviewed by a psychologist for 15 minutes before determining that she was sane, and was subsequently sentenced to death. Our criminal research facilities are horribly inept, both here and the USA. I keep reiterating that not enough is known and we should establish reason before dictating solution.
Why don't we put more emphasis on helping the people we CAN help?
Personality disorders are not curable. That's the simple fact. One must WANT to be cured of a personality disorder, and since the engagement in the behavior satisfies something in the person with the disorder, they do not want to be "cured." Personality disorders are NOT considered insanity, under the law OR psychiatrically.
Wolf could probably tell you about those wonderful personality disorders. I'm sure she sees them more often than she'd like. And those are the more dangerous, I'd say, because they're calculating and devious in getting what they want.
Sidhe
Originally posted by depmats
So quit wasting time and wack 'em sooner. The good news is that if they kill someone in prison... I know it won't be me.
*standing ovation* BRAVO! :rattat: :beer:
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Sidhe: Despite the nature of the crimes, these people aren't psychotic.
Catwoman: Can that statement possibly hold any truth?
Why is that so hard to believe? Why is it so hard to believe that people can be JUST that calculating? I don't believe that someone who commits murder for hire is insane. He knows what he's doing, and he has a good reason for doing it, as far as he's concerned.
Greed is a big motivater for committing crimes regarding money. Being psychotic means losing touch with reality. Those ppl certain haven't done that at all.
I don't believe that a mother who drowns her children, to accomplish a specific purpose, is insane. She's just self-centered, and cares for no one other than herself.
Well, in the case of Andrea Yates, wasn't she a paranoid schizophrenic? Susan Smith certainly was NOT insane, even though what she did would be considered something akin to insane by most people.
Originally posted by ladysycamore
Well, in the case of Andrea Yates, wasn't she a paranoid schizophrenic? Susan Smith certainly was NOT insane, even though what she did would be considered something akin to insane by most people.
I was going to point out the same thing ... two mothers, both of whom killed their children. Very different reasons and cases, though.
Andrea Yates ... crazy murderer.
Report regarding Defense Psychiatrist Assessment
Susan Smith ... manipulative, self-centered murderer
In the mother example, I was thinking of Susan Smith. Didn't Andrea Yates suffer from postpartum depression?
And thinking about her...I dunno. I think that if someone methodically chases her children down, and drowns them one by one....at the very least, if she IS psychiatrically ill, then she should be sterilized, because she could do it again.
I know that might sound harsh, but I'm just more concerned about the kids than I am about the killers. There's no reason for her to be able to kill more children because some psychiatrist says she's "cured." When I worked in the psych ward, it was a revolving door of people who were supposedly "cured." They were always brought back for medical noncompliance.
Sidhe
Reader's Digest, June 2004
There is a new DNA test that can determine a person's ancestry. Standard DNA tests can determine sex, but tell nothing about a person's appearance.
While prosecutors today routinely use DNA taken from a crime scene to convict an offender, the analysis does not tell police much about whom they should be looking for in the first place. Widely used tests today only reveal a person's sex, but that's changing. Using a huge database of of genetic information from people all over the world, scientists at Penn State University devised a test that looks for "markers" on DNA that give strong clues about a person's ancestry.
The test, known as DNA Witness, can determine whether a person is most likely European, African American, Asian or Native American (people of Hispanic heritage tend to have a mix of ethnic groups.) Crime researchers in Britain are currently working on a test that they hope will detect hair color and even facial characteristics.
Scientists at the University of Ottowa Heart Institute have a method for extracting DNA from the microscopic remnants of skin left behind when a person touches an object. The test can be performed in minutes at the crime scene. The process, which is not available yet, also works for blood, hair, saliva, or even a flake of dandruff.
Researchers are also perfecting ways to identify plant DNA, which would have many uses, including the ability to trace seized shipments of illegal drugs to a given distributor.
Forensic scientists are developing methods to identify animal DNA. One in three homes in the US contains a source of criminal evidence: a cat or dog. As pet lovers know, fur clings to clothing. In one celebrated case, police on Prince Edward Island, Canada, linked white hairs on a bloody jacket found near the scene of a murder to their prime suspect--who owned a cat named Snowball.
Police in Kirkland, Washington, were frustrated. They had a suspect in the murder of a 27-year-old Bible-studies student: her neighbor, Eric H. Hayden. They also had a bed sheet with a bloody hand print. But the pattern on the fabric caused the finger- and palm prints to be unclear, making it impossible to match them to Hayden's hand. Enter Eric Berg, a forensic field supervisor with the police department in nearby Tacoma. Berg took digital photos of the prints and, using a computer program, filtered out the background "noise," producing clear prints that helped convict Hayden, who is now serving 26 years in prison.
Looking for fingerprints remains an essential part of any crime-scene investigation. However, criminals rarely leave behind pristine impressions. Berg's innovative technique, which is now available in police departments in the form of software called More Hits, enables police to read smudged or partial prints.
There is also an FBI-run database called CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), which is a network that lets Federal, State, and Local crime labs exchange and compare DNA electronically. The genetic information in question merely has to be plugged into the system. Using this system, Kansas City police were able to trace the murder ofr a 39-year-old woman (in 2000) to a paroled rapist from Arkansas named Wayne Dumond, who is now serving a life sentence for the murder.
Using computers, scientists at the Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg tracked minor and major crimes for more than a decade in two cities (Rochester, NY, and Pittsburg, PA). After running extensive statistical analyses, the scientists discovered that an uptick in minor crimes such as vandalism usuallly precedes, by about a month, more serious property crimes, such as burglary and larceny.
When the researchers road-tested their program, they were able to predict crimes with at least 80% accuracy. What's more, they could narrow down where the crime would take place to an area as small as an individual police beat--about one square mile. By the end of this year, the researchers hope to begin distributing the software to precincts across the country.
While criminals often seem to strike in a random fashion, statistical analyses of crime locations can disclose patterns. That's useful when police are hunting for serial criminals, says Texas State University criminologist Kim Rossmo, who created a concept called Geographic Profiling. Rossmo notes that criminals tend to commit crimes close to home--but not too close ("comfort zone", in profiling terminology). He has developed software that analyzes an area where linked crimes have occured, then isolates a tiny section where the crook most likely lives. That allows police to focus on specific suspects. In one case, police in Midland, Ontario, used Geographic Profiling to nab a prolific burglar. The system nearly drew a circle around the suspect's home.
Analytical scientist Peter Nunes, of the Forensic Science Center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, part of the US Dept. of Energy, shrank a standard gas chromatographer-mass spectrometer (a bulky instrument, weighing between 200-250 lbs., used to identify organic compounds by vaporizing them and analyzing the resulting gas molecules.) However, transporting substances such as chemical weapons, explosive residues, fire accelerants, and drugs--to crime labe takes time and can be dangerous; therefore, the new and improved GC-MS has been shrunk to a a portable 75 lbs. It is already on the market and is in limited use by the Los Angeles County Sheriff' Dept.
Now that's interesting.....
Sidhe
A man in the crowd was acting strangely. Then, according to an article in the New York Times, he wheeled about and shoved Edgar Rivera, father of three, onto the tracks as the No 6 train screeched into Manhattan's 51st Street Station. The victim's legs were severed.
Police arrested Julio Perez, 43, a homeless man with schizophrenia and a long history of violence. The event, which occurred on April 28, 1999 was eerily similar to another subway attack in January. In that case, Andrew Goldstein, a 29-year old with schizophrenia considered by those who knew him as gentle but weird, pushed Kendra Webdale, who dreamed of being a writer, to her death in a subway station.
The subway attacks resulted in a public outcry that ended in an "assisted outpatient treatment" measure called "Kendra's Law". The legislation authorizes judges to issue orders requiring people to take their medicine, regularly undergo psychiatric treatment, or both. Failure to comply could result in commitment for up to 72 hours. Prior to Kendra's law, a psychiatric patient had to be considered dangerous to be forcibly committed.
Recent data on its effectiveness show 75% fewer people arrested, and there was a 44% decrease in harm to others and a 45% reduction in harm to self.
This is a New York law. Unfortunately, it hasn't been adopted anywhere else that I know of.
Sidhe
Pennsylvania has had a similar law since 1974. I don't know all of the details of Kendra's law, though.
PA has long term involuntary outpatient commitments. If a patient is not compliant with the specified treatment (most outpatient centers consider missing three appointments as noncompliance) the case management office can file a petition for evaluation for the need to be returned to a higher level of care (inpatient, in this case). Doc evaluatest the patient, patient goes to court, court either commits the patient or the patient goes free.
Catwoman reads through new posts and sighs. Has said everything she can on the subject. Agrees with sidhe and lady that many crimes are motivated by greed/self-interest but cannot condone or even bear the thought of killing another human being. Concludes that she at least does not have what it takes to kill, be it first-hand with a knife or gun, or third-hand, by condoning the death penalty.
Originally posted by wolf
Pennsylvania has had a similar law since 1974. I don't know all of the details of Kendra's law, though.
PA has long term involuntary outpatient commitments. If a patient is not compliant with the specified treatment (most outpatient centers consider missing three appointments as noncompliance) the case management office can file a petition for evaluation for the need to be returned to a higher level of care (inpatient, in this case). Doc evaluatest the patient, patient goes to court, court either commits the patient or the patient goes free.
Well, with any luck, it'll spread. Not all mentally ill patients, despite what people think, are harmless eccentrics. I see nothing wrong with forcing medication compliance on people who need it to keep from flipping out and possibly killing someone. I don't care if it's part of their delusion and they aren't doing it maliciously. It doesn't change the danger and it doesn't excuse it.
Here in Louisiana, there's nothing of the sort. It tends to go like this:
Patients are either indigent or committed by the courts, which ends up being the same thing--they get medicaid, and when it runs out, hey, they're cured! It's a MIRACLE!
And then we see them back in about two weeks for being dangerous because they refuse to take their meds....*sigh*
Sidhe
Remember how I brought up trying teenagers as adults for violent crimes such as rape and murder? A&E recently aired a program entitled "Teen Thrill Killers." Here are some of the kids they interviewed.
Fact: In the last 15 years, the incidences of teens killing strangers has doubled
Jason Koskovitch, 18, and cousin Jason Vreeland lured two pizza delivery men to an abandoned house and ambushed them when they arrived, shooting them point-blank while they were in the car. Neither boy had prior records, and Koskovitch said he "always wanted to know what it felt like to kill." They celebrated afterward.
he also said "I had no remorse because I didn't know them. When I don't know them, I don't care."
"The Lords of Chaos." Derek Shields, honor student; Christopher Black, honor student; Pete Magnati, genius IQ; Kevin Foster, 19. leader of the group.
17-day crime spree that included killing animals by burning them to death, theft, vandalism, armed robbery, car theft (Foster murdered the owner of the car), arson, and firebombs.
Chris Black suggested killing a music teacher who'd threatened to turn them in. Shields protested, because he knew the teacher and liked him. Foster planned the shooting, playing on the familiarity of the instructsor, Mark Schwebes (sp), with Derek, having Derek knock on his door. The teacher was murdered on his own doorstep with a 12-gauge shotgun by Foster. Afterwards, Foster bragged about how cool it was to "see [the teacher's] face blown off." to a friend, who reported him to the police and led to the arrests. Chris, Derek, and Pete pled guilty and testified against Foster. Foster received the death penalty, Chris and Derek received life, and Pete received 37 years.
Leopold and Loeb- both had genius IQ's and both were rich.
They lured a child into their car, killed him with a chisel, and stuffed his body in a drainpipe. They had no remorse for their act.
John McNeil, Dale Stewart, and Dan Angus (leader), murdered a bicyclist, Tony Batista. They drove around looking for a target; said they wanted to "draw first blood," They killed him for sport, shot at point-blank range in Aug 2000.
"Wilding"
Tacoma, WA.: a gang of 8 kids responsible for over 15 attacks, and planned the murder of 30-year-old Eric Tabes. In addition to over 20 blows to the head, one of the 11-year-old members of the gang bragged about kneeing Tabes 28 times in the face.
Rod Matthews, age 14: One of the first juveniles to be tried as an adult. Lured 14-year-old Shawn Duillette into the woods, and beat him over the head with a baseball bat from behind. Shawn's hands were still in his pockets when he was found. Rod bragged to his friends and led them to the corpse. Rod had told others of the planned murder, and said, "I've been wanting to kill people I hate, and set fires." He said that he wanted to know what it would be like to kill someone, and that he didn't think that Shawn would be missed. He showed no remorse, and was convicted of 2nd degree murder and sentenced to 15 years.
Todd Rizzo, 18: Waterbury Conn. said he "wanted to be famous.", and would preface statements with, "one day, when I'm a serial killer..." Prior to the murder, he rented a video called Paradise Lost, a documentary about child killings. In Sept 97, 13-year-old Stan Edwards was riding by Rizzo's house on his bike. Rizzo befriended him and lured him into the back yard, where he bludgeoned the boy to death with a 3 lb sledgehammer.
He said he wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone, and "I decided I wanted to try to kill him, for no good reason." According to Rizzo's brother, Rizzo wanted to be as famous as Jeffrey Dahmer, whom he idolized.
According to quoted psychologists: "They know right from wrong, but just don't care."
And from a family member of one of the victims: "he's not a juvenile, he's a murderer; You can't be given a conscience."
That hits it on the head. You can't give someone a conscience.
One psychologist said that these kids can't see the consequences of their actions so far ahead. In other words, they know the person will die, but don't consider the effects on the families and friends involved. However, do you honestly believe that it would stop them if they DID? It doesn't stop adults, if THEY consider it at all either.
Research has shown that teenagers experience an increase in self-control and impulse control between the ages of 13-16. Research on the brains of teen thrill killers shows also that there is overactivity in the singulogyrus, which is involved in obsessive thoughts, and overactivity in the prefrontal lobe, which is involved in planning, judgement, and impulse control; personality traits include egocentrism, lack of empathy and lack of remorse and self-control.
Why is it, then, that they seem to have no problem in planning the murders in such a way as to evade capture for so long? If the impulse control is so bad, how is it that they have no problems waiting to appease those impulses until there are no witnesses?
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Research has shown that teenagers experience an increase in self-control and impulse control between the ages of 13-16. Research on the brains of teen thrill killers shows also that there is overactivity in the singulogyrus, which is involved in obsessive thoughts, and overactivity in the prefrontal lobe, which is involved in planning, judgement, and impulse control; personality traits include egocentrism, lack of empathy and lack of remorse and self-control.
All of this science fails to take into account one simple concept:
There is evil in the world. From the BBC news site
Scientists have discovered that the brain's centre of reasoning is among the last areas to mature. The finding, by a team at the US National Institute of Mental Health, may help to explain why teenagers often seem to be so unreasonable.
Researchers used imaging techniques to show "higher order" brain areas do not develop fully until young adulthood.
The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The decade-long study used magnetic resonance imaging to follow the development of the brains of 13 health children every two years as they grew up.
The aim was to get a better picture of how the brain develops so that it would be easily to pin down abnormalities that occur in conditions such as schizophrenia.
The researchers found that grey matter - the working tissue of the brain's cortex - diminishes in a back-to-front wave over time.
They believe this is a key part of the maturation process, whereby unused and unneeded connections between brain cells are gradually destroyed.
They found the first areas to mature were those with the most basic functions, such as processing the senses and movement.
Next came areas, such as the parietal lobes, involved in spatial orientation and language.
Last to mature were areas such as the prefrontal cortex with more advanced functions such as integrating information from the senses and reasoning.
The sequence of maturation seen by the researchers in the developing brain roughly parallels the evolution of the brain from lower order mammals to the highly complex organ that is found in man.
For instance, the prefrontal cortex emerged late in evolution and is among the last to mature.
Researcher Dr Judith Rapoport told BBC News Online: "Maturation starts with more basic facilities such as vision and hearing and then goes on to the ability to integrate and organise many inputs, to weigh consequences of behaviours and to relate to others.
"It is a smart sequence in terms of evolution and individual development."
It has long been thought that the brain produces too much grey matter during the first 18 months of life, and that this is followed by a steady decline as unused circuitry is discarded.
Several years ago the NIMH team discovered a second wave of grey matter over-production just prior to puberty, followed by a second bout of "use-it-or-lose-it" pruning during the teen years.
In a previous study, the same team also found that teenagers who became psychotic prior to puberty lost four times the normal amount of grey matter in their frontal lobes.
This, they argued, suggested that childhood onset schizophrenia may be due to an exaggeration of the normal maturation process, possibly leading to the destruction of potentially useful brain circuits.
By contrast, autism has been associated with an increase, rather than the normal decrease, in grey matter.
This is why children shouldnt be held accountable in the same way adults are. Just because they know right from wrong doesnt mean they
understand that in the same way we do. Their cortex is not fully formed until they reach the age of 16/17. They do not have the same ability to conceptualise that we have as adults.
I was just listening to coverage of the Terry Nichols state trial in Oklahoma. The state of Oklahoma spent $5 million to try Nichols in state court, and there's no guarantee that he'll be given the death penalty.
I have no stake in this at all, but spending $5 million to try and give a guy the death penalty when he's already in prison for life seems like a waste of money to me.
The sequence of maturation seen by the researchers in the developing brain roughly parallels the evolution of the brain from lower order mammals to the highly complex organ that is found in man.
[COLOR=indigo]Again, a theory used as fact. See how they do it? Take that theory out of science and you've got purer science. Research without the bult in assumptions. [/COLOR]
You don't drop a theory from science if a few religions disagree with it.
[COLOR=indigo]Who said anything about religion?[/COLOR]
Religion is the only reason evolution is considered controversial.
Originally posted by DanaC
From the BBC news site
This is why children shouldnt be held accountable in the same way adults are. Just because they know right from wrong doesnt mean they understand that in the same way we do. Their cortex is not fully formed until they reach the age of 16/17. They do not have the same ability to conceptualise that we have as adults.
They seem to have enough ability to wait until there's no one around to catch them, though, don't they?
Sidhe
That's the first thing a kid learns - it's better not to be caught. Just ask Ralphie in A Christmas Story.
Lady Sidhe, the point is that they both understand *and* dont understand their actions. They understand that something is right or wrong, they understand to a degree the consequences of their actions, but their relationship with that information is fundamentally different to an adults. They cannot have the same degree of understanding their brains simply arent ready for it.
I knew at a very young age, if I got caught, I got my ass kicked. :p
[COLOR=indigo]Keep in mind this was one study, not a guaranteed, bonafide concrete rule. It's a theory.[/COLOR]
Originally posted by DanaC
Lady Sidhe, the point is that they both understand *and* dont understand their actions. They understand that something is right or wrong, they understand to a degree the consequences of their actions, but their relationship with that information is fundamentally different to an adults. They cannot have the same degree of understanding their brains simply arent ready for it.
I understand what you're saying, but in the long run, it doesn't really make a difference whether or not they understand the long-term ramifications of their acts. It's enough that they know it's wrong, forbidden, or illegal, and that they choose to do it anyway.
I seriously doubt that adult criminals who commit violent acts give a thought to how it will affect the families of their victims, and if they do, I doubt they CARE. Therefore, understanding that the families will suffer or not is not a mitigating factor, IMO.
Juvenile life is bullshit. If you're 17, four years for murder just teaches you that you can get away with it, especially when your juvenile record is sealed and can't be used against you if you murder again--so juries can't know that you're a recidivist and sentence you accordingly. Besides, most juvenile delinquents know they're going to get a slap on the wrist BECAUSE they're juveniles, so there's no deterrent.
A teenager is not stupid. They know the difference between right and wrong, and they know that murder is illegal. Yet more and more often, we're confronted with violent and/or murderous teenagers who "wanted to know what it felt like to kill," and we treat them with kid gloves because they're "children." A 15-, 16-, 17-, or 18-year-old is not a child. If you're old enough to drive, to vote, or to join the military, you're old enough to be expected to obey the rules just like everyone else, and to pay the consequences like everyone else.
You know how parents tell little kids, "because I said so," to explain some rules? Well, the same should go for teenagers. "Because the law says so, and until the law is changed, you obey it or suffer the consequenses."
If you're old enough to choose to break the law, you're old enough to pay the consequences for it.
That's just how I feel. I'm sick of all these murderers who have a history of violent behavior going back to "childhood," that has never been dealt with. We have to start nipping it in the bud NOW. The safety of the society should take precedence.
Sidhe
Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
I knew at a very young age, if I got caught, I got my ass kicked. :p
And it worked to keep you straight. I know my ass was grass if I did anything wrong, so I kept straight. Nowadays when a kid does wrong the parent will nuture the little bastard and find out whose fault it "really" was. Kids shouldn't be stuck up for, they are deceitful, slimey, conniving, smelly little demons and should be dealt with appropriately.
Four years is a long time to a 17 year old. Hell look how long high school seemed :P
Even if your statement is intended in jest, I have to respond ...
It's s blink of an eye for the dead victim, and their family.
At 17 I was a different character altogether from the character I was at 21
Ah, but did you murder someone at 17, and then at 21 say "Why, that was a foolish thing to do, and I can't even understand why I did it?"
Everyone changes between those ages, the question is the degree of change. Even if the 17-year-old murderer learns the folly of his ways, and at 21 is only robbing convenience stores for the money instead of the thrill of killing, that's not enough improvement.
I didnt murder anyone no. But I did things, made mistakes and later could not get a handle on where the fuck my head had been at that time.
Child Slasher
See, it's not just American methods of raising kids that's at fault. I think everyone knows the hive mentality (not meant to be an insult--just referring to the "many are more important than the individual" way of thinking) in Asia, and yet...
Sidhe
Child Decapitations
*is so disgusted she can't even think of anything to say right now*
'TV intoxicated' killer leaves country
Ronny Zamora, known as the "TV intoxicated" killer of an
83-year-old woman, was deported Wednesday after his release
from a Miami Beach prison. Zamora, who had claimed
"television intoxication'' caused him to kill his neighbor,
Elinor Haggart, 27 years ago is being sent back to his
native Costa Rica, the Miami Herald reported. Zamora has a
job waiting for him in his country. The release agreement
with the Florida Parole Commission says he will be under
supervision for the rest of his life. "He has served his
debt to this community for what he did," said George Yoss,
Zamora's attorney for the past four years. "He has shown
remorse for the longest time." Zamora was 15 when he and
an accomplice shot Haggart and fled to Orlando with her
money. During his trial, the first to be televised, his
lawyer said TV violence had driven the boy to kill Haggart
as he robbed her, the report said. The judge did not
allow the defense and Zamora was convicted. His accomplice,
Darrell Agrella, struck a plea deal and was released from
prison in 1986.
TV intoxication, my ASS....letting this guy go reminds me of the doctor who drugged his wife, tortured her, and skinned her alive. She lived for months in the hospital, in extreme pain, before she died. He went to prison for a little while, until they put him on a plane and sent him out of the country (he got "life" from the jury, on the understanding that the ENTIRE parole board would have to sit to hear his parole requests. Not even half the board was there when they voted to send him out of the country.
Sidhe
Just recently in Hammond, Ronnie Young poured gasoline on his girlfriend Georgia Warford, and set her on fire--he did the same to her house and her car, but I'm more interested in what he did to her. She had 3rd-degree burns over 50% of her body. She is recovering slowly after running down the street and collapsing in front of a convenience store at the end of that street. The first thing she told police was that Ronnie Young did it.
He was caught five hours later. He'd run into the woods and down the road to his daughter's house after he committed the crime.
Attempted murder by immolation. He should die the same way.
Sidhe
Horrendous stuff. I do not believe in state sanctioned killing however. It gives the government too much damn power. When some of this stuff happens, I think that the victims family should get their own justice, if that is what they want, and the police can turn their heads the other way. One less scumbag murder to investigate.
----------- Man Who Killed Wife Gets Four Months -----------
FORT WORTH, Texas - A man convicted of shooting his wife, then
returning to finish her off when he found he had more bullets,
was sentenced on Friday to four months in jail after a jury
recommended probation. Jurors, who spent more than 21 hours
over three days deliberating the punishment, called the
decision difficult and emotional but said they believed
Watkins acted out of "sudden passion." In a confession used
as evidence in his trial, Watkins admitted that he shot his
wife Nancy and then her lover, Keith Fontenot, after finding
them at his home. Watkins chased Fontenot out of the house
and tried to shoot him in the head, but the gun did not go
off. Watkins said he drove away, thinking he was out of
bullets, then realized his gun had only misfired and that he
had more rounds. He then drove back to the house, where he
shot his wife to death while she talked to a 911 dispatcher.
Ok--maybe the first was a crime of passion, ie, attempted manslaughter...but the second? That was first-degree murder--premeditated. And he gets FOUR months?
Since when is being cheated on an excuse for murder?
Sidhe
Since the beginning of recorded history.
Not that I think it still should be. Four months is too little, even if it were a crime of passion.
well, if she was really enjoying it? maybe he came in and she was on top?
Then he was a suckass shot. That in itself should be a crime in Texas....:D
if he was a better shot he should have been able to get them both with only one shot. then he could have said he tried to fire a warning shot but something happened...
No, "Life W/O Parole" means "Life".
Then why call it "life" in the first place? Why not, "imprisonment until we decide you've been in there long enough?"
I don't know if this technically belongs here, but...damn....:haha:
BILLINGS, Montana - A man after spending two years in prison
for bank robbery filed an appeal for wrongful imprisonment.
He claimed innocence even though his partner in crime clearly
identified him. He had a unique defense which proved fatal to
his cause. Transcripts of the appeal revealed a clever, if
unconvincing argument. He thought that the tellers could not
have possibly identified him correctly. Among his more
unforgettable quotes were, "How could the people in the bank
have identified me? I had a mask on when I did the job." His
appeal was denied.
"Life" means they can keep you there forever, if you show no improvement. "Life without parole" means they have to keep you there, regardless of behavior.
Sidhe, you spend entitely to much time and effort researching/reading these articles. It'll give you a warped view of the world.:)
Well, ya gotta have a hobby, ya know.
I went to school on a criminal psych/cj track because I wanted to be a profiler....didn't work out, but I still can't help myself....so I figure, why fight it? :D
Keep going Sid - gives us something to talk about, and often a point of contention - without which things would be oh so boring. :)
He admitted it, and there's a witness...
Ok, here's one...
The guy has admitted to killing 13 women, and the murder for which he's being charged has a WITNESS.
IN COURT: November trial set for Watts in 1979 killing
June 16, 2004
Confessed serial killer Coral Watts will go on trial in November for the 25-year-old murder of a Ferndale woman.
Watts, 50, was dressed in orange-and-white-striped jail garb Tuesday, surrounded by deputies during his arraignment in Oakland County Circuit Court on a first-degree murder charge. Judge Richard Kuhn entered a not-guilty plea for Watts, standard procedure in criminal hearings, and set a Nov. 8 trial date.
Watts, who has admitted to killing 13 women, is accused of stabbing Helen Dutcher, 36, a dozen times on a snowy December night in 1979. A witness testified at a hearing last month that he saw Watts slit Dutcher's throat.
Watts has been in a Texas prison for years under a deal he cut with prosecutors there in which he confessed to several slayings. In exchange, he was allowed to plead guilty to a burglary charge and received a 60-year sentence.
But a change in Texas law means Watts could be released as early as May 2006. Michigan prosecutors say he is linked to several killings in the state, including Dutcher's, and hope to keep him in prison for life.
And so WHAT'S the problem?? Personally, it pisses me off that he was allowed to plead guilty to burglary after he'd confessed to several murders. He's the kind of person the death penalty was made for.
Sidhe
you're absolutely right, sidhe. if a guy admits to a crime, he should not be able to plead it away just so they can close a few more open cases. that should be illegal, as it is openly adverse to the word 'justice'. if a person admits to a capitol crime in a death penalty state, and he/she is found guilty, they should be killed the same day. no appeal. certainly no automatic appeal.
how can a juge justify letting an admitted murderer go down on a burglery charge? stoopid.
so they closed 12 more cases. that's a short cut. they probably would have closed them anyway if they did the job right.
I think the DA that offered that deal should have to go to jail in his place if the guy gets out. that'll keep him inside.
Central Florida Mom Indicted In Deaths Of Children
Official Cause Of Death Under Investigation
Andrea Noel Williams, 32, is suspected of drugging Ilona, 9, Ian, 6, and Ivey, 5. However, autopsy results haven't been issued to show the official cause of the children's deaths.
The indictment says Williams killed her children in early May in her Longwood home.
Police said the children were killed on Mother's Day, May 9 but the bodies were found May 11.
Williams was arrested May 10 in rural North Carolina where authorities said she confessed to killing the children, according to Local 6 News.
Longwood Children Allegedly Poisoned By Mom Buried
Mom Investigated Twice In 2003
LONGWOOD, Fla. -- As three children allegedly poisoned by their mother were buried Tuesday, law enforcement authorities were defending themselves for clearing the woman of past abuse allegations.
Andrea Williams, 32, was twice investigated last year by the Seminole County Sheriff's Office, but authorities found no reason to believe the children were at risk.
Williams was arrested May 10 in rural North Carolina. Authorities said she confessed to the killings of her children, Ilona, 9, Ian, 6, and Ivey, 5, the day before - Mother's Day. The children were found dead at the bottom of a trundle bed in their Longwood home.
Williams remains at the Seminole County Jail on murder charges.
Seminole County sheriff's Capt. Greg Barnett said he is confident his Child Protective Services investigators acted properly when they closed three reports without taking any action against Williams. The Sheriff's Office handles child abuse complaints in Seminole.
"We don't have a crystal ball, obviously," Barnett said.
Two reports stemmed from a March 2003 call to the state's abuse hot line by a mother whose child Williams was watching.
The woman told authorities her son made a statement that led her to think there was improper contact between her child and Williams.
The report concludes the boy may have been describing licking a lollipop that Williams gave him as a reward for good behavior, and investigators found no evidence of abuse for him or any of the Williams children.
The final report dealt with an investigation into Williams after she was hospitalized twice in eight days during the fall for mental evaluation under the state's Baker Act, which allows people to be evaluated to see if they are a threat to themselves or others.
It concluded there were "some indicators of substance exposed child," and said Ian told of twice being allowed to take a drink of beer while at the dinner table. The children "did not disclose abuse/neglect," according to the report.
Bodies Of 3 Children Found Stuffed Inside Bed, Mom Confesses
LONGWOOD, Fla. -- Authorities in Seminole County, Fla., found the bodies of three children Tuesday -- all under 10 years old -- stuffed inside a hideaway bed a day after their mother was arrested in North Carolina, according to Local 6 News.
Local 6 News reported that Andrea Williams, 32, confessed to killing her children -- ages 5, 6 and 9 -- and packing them in a bed inside a home located at 890 Georgia Avenue. Investigators told Local 6 News Tuesday night that it appeared the children had been under the bed for days.
Williams was arrested for second-degree trespassing Monday night in North Carolina. A search was launched in North Carolina when her three missing children could not be accounted for.
Longwood Police Chief Tom Jackson said the woman's husband, Gary Williams, helped police search the house Tuesday morning but could not find the children -- Ivy, 5; Ian, 6; and Ilona, 9.
However, Williams' comments while in custody led detectives to the home again and the children were found in the bed, Local 6 News reported.
http://www.southernillinoisan.com/rednews/2004/06/12/build/top/TOP002.html
SUTHERLAND GUILTY IN RETRIAL FOR CHILD'S 1987 MURDER
[Fri Jun 11 2004]
BELLEVILLE (AP) -- A man who spent more than a decade on death row for the 1987 rape and murder of a 10-year-old Southern Illinois girl was convicted for a second time Friday in a retrial ordered by the state Supreme Court.
A St. Clair County jury convicted Cecil Sutherland, 49, on all five counts in the rape and death of Amy Schulz.
Jefferson County State's Attorney Gary Duncan said prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
Sutherland, a former tire-factory worker, was sentenced to die in 1989 after he was convicted the first time of abducting Amy from the small town of Kell, raping and strangling her and cutting her throat. The Supreme Court, however, ruled in 2000 that prosecutors went too far in linking hair and fiber evidence to Sutherland, said he had a weak defense, and ordered a new trial.
"We initially had 12 people who found him guilty, now we have 24," the girl's father, Dennis Schulz, told the Belleville News-Democrat outside the courtroom Friday.
The jury of eight women and four men deliberated for about eight hours Thursday and Friday before announcing the verdict. They found Sutherland guilty on three counts of first-degree murder and one count each of aggravated criminal sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping.
Sutherland showed no emotion while the judge read the verdict, which drew sobs from the girl's family, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Defense attorneys had tried during the six-week trial to turn the focus on Schulz's step-grandfather, William Willis, a convicted sex offender.
Willis, 53, acknowledged during his testimony that he has a history of sexually abusing minors, including pleading guilty to molesting a Boy Scout in 1994. But he said he was never attracted to little girls and never molested Amy.
Prosecutors said Willis was excluded as the killer by hair and fiber evidence that were consistent with Sutherland's.
Duncan, who was not involved in the first trial, said the evidence had been bolstered by DNA technology that was not available in the 1980s.
Sutherland's defense attorney, former Chicago homicide detective John Paul Carroll, argued that the prosecution's mitochondrial DNA tests aren't as definitive as nuclear DNA tests.
Amy's death outraged the community, which created a child-advocacy center named in her honor.
The trial was moved out of Jefferson County because of extensive news coverage of the case in the Mount Vernon area.
Posted on Mon, Jun. 14, 2004
Convicted killer faces new charges of murder, battering detainee
Associated Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - An inmate serving a 40-year sentence for a 1989 murder faces new charges of second degree murder and battery of a detainee, and has been transferred to a new prison, the Department of Corrections said.
Edwin Rivera, 37, of Sarasota, also faces a charge of felony battery causing great bodily harm. Department spokesman Sterling Ivey said he could not provide details about the new charges.
Rivera was arrested in October 1989 in Lee County, and pleaded no contest to murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, shooting missiles into a dwelling or vehicle, grand theft of a motor vehicle and attempted armed robbery.
On April 6, he was transferred from the Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown to Florida State Prison in Starke, Ivey said.
Rivera was arrested on battery charges in April, but those were amended last month to include the murder charge.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates attacks that occur at state prisons, and forwards any charges to the state attorney's office, Ivey said.
So what does it take? Raping and murdering a convent full of nuns?? He can't even contain the violence after it got him in prison, what makes anyone think that prison's going to IMPROVE his behavior? Some people just never learn.
Sidhe
I know this didn't happen in the US, but raping and murdering a child deserves death, IMO
Sidhe
June 14, 2004
Justice for Caroline Dickinson
by Times online and PA news
Francisco Arce Montes was found guilty following a six-day trial in Rennes, Brittany, of the charge of murder of a minor preceded, accompanied, or followed by rape.
Montes, seated in the dock of the ornate packed court room, remained deadpan as the verdict was read out. Thirteen-year-old Caroline’s father, John, 48, from Bodmin, Cornwall, looked straight at Montes.
Just minutes after the sentence, John Dickinson stood on the steps of the court with his wife Sue and said: “I would like to be able to say this in French but the emotion is too much. I’m speaking on behave of Sue, Jenny and myself. The first thing to say is this is all about Caroline or ’Caz’ as some of her friends knew her. Although her life was short, she was happy, we knew she had a life ahead of her full of promise. We have some wonderful memories that we will cherish and she will never be forgotten.”
“The events of the last week have been for us a necessary but draining experience, as of course has the pursuit of justice for Caroline over the last eight years. We will now start the process of rebuilding our lives. We acknowledge that we are not the only victims of this dreadful crime, some of whom gave evidence at the trial and others whose evidence we have heard read. During these difficult times we have received support from many - family, our friends, colleagues and Caroline’s friends. Now is the time to let them know how much we have appreciated that support.”
Mr Dickinson, who at one stage was critical of the French investigation, went on: “We wish to express our particular thanks to the team of gendarmes who we knew as ’Cellule Caroline’ who through their hard work and dedication have brought Montes to justice.”
Mr Dickinson thanked his lawyer, Herve Rouzad le Boeuf; the French examining magistrates; and the Devon and Cornwall police who had worked alongside the French investigators.
For years her killer, 54-year-old Francisco Arce Montes, attacked and menaced women across Europe and in the US. On several occasions he was released without charge or bailed, only to move on and offend again. He was only traced by a stroke of luck when a US customs official, who read about Caroline’s case in a British newspaper, ran a check on one of the suspects named and discovered he was in custody in Florida.
Caroline died on July 18, 1996, within inches of four sleeping schoolfriends from Launceston Community College, in the Brittany village of Pleine-Fougeres.
Francisco Arce Montes was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Wow, a huge torrent of newspaper articles.
I can't handle this thread anymore, it's maxxed out my irritate-o-meter.
Self defense claimed in sword attack
By Pete Bowles
Staff Writer
June 14, 2004, 5:35 PM EDT
A Maspeth teen accused of hacking to death another teenager with a Samurai sword acted in self defense after the friend pointed a BB gun at him, according to a statement the teen gave to police.
"He pointed a gun at my head," the suspect, Michael Desiderio, 18, told a detective after his arrest in the slaying of Ricardo Richardson, also 18, in Richardson's home about 10 a.m. Sunday.
"I left the room," Desiderio said in the statement. "Then I went to get my sword and kept hitting him with the sword. He fell down. I put the sword in my closet in the basement of my home."
The statement Desiderio made to police was presented Monday at his arraignment in Queens County Criminal Court on charges of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Judge Lenora Gerald ordered him held in jail in lieu of bail and scheduled a court hearing for June 28.
Desiderio faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.
Desiderio's attorney, Robert Gottlieb, argued that police had prevented his client from seeing two attorneys who went to a police precinct to assist him and that, as a result, he would seek to have the statement barred from trial.
Desiderio, who Gottlieb said has been working in a law office on Long Island for several months, was arrested at his grandfather's house at 54-43 66th St., where he had been living while his mother was moving into a new cooperative in Glen Oaks. His father lives in Arizona.
According to police, Desiderio killed Richardson with the sword in a two-story house on Maspeth Avenue which had become a hangout for local teenagers. Richardson, who moved to New York from Trinidad a few months ago, had been living in the house and had become a close friend to Desiderio.
Assistant District Attorney Natalie Bell told the court that Desiderio fled to his grandfather's house after the incident. "He left a man bleeding to death," she said.
Bell said Desiderio told the police were to find the bloody sword and admitted that he committed the gruesome crime. "I killed the guy," she quoted Desiderio as telling police. "The knife is wrapped up inside my bloody pants in the house."
Gottlieb said his client, who has a G.E.D. certificate, has never been convicted of a crime. His mother works as a school aide and his father owns his own business, the attorney said.
Uh-huh. I don't know about you, but bringing a sword to a gunfight is the way to go, I always say....
If someone were pointing a gun at my head, I wouldn't run to get a sword, then come BACK....I'd run and keep on going, then call the police. And it was a BB gun, for God's sake...since when is a shot from a BB gun fatal??
So we have someone who's admitted to murder, and I can't believe that he was in fear for his life from a BB gun. And if he WAS in fear for his life, why'd he run away, then go BACK??
It doesn't wash.
Sidhe
Originally posted by Carbonated_Brains
Wow, a huge torrent of newspaper articles.
I can't handle this thread anymore, it's maxxed out my irritate-o-meter.
I said that I'd be putting up articles. If the thread annoys you, I'm not forcing you to read it.
Although, I admit that I should just start putting up links. Problem is, the links expire after a certain amount of time. I'll try to do better, though.
Sidhe
A BB gun shot CAN be fatal, but if you leave, go pick up your sword, then come back and hack the gun-wielder to death, it doesn't matter if it was a BB gun or a Tommy gun, it's still not self-defense!
Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
I said that I'd be putting up articles. If the thread annoys you, I'm not forcing you to read it.
Although, I admit that I should just start putting up links. Problem is, the links expire after a certain amount of time. I'll try to do better, though.
Sidhe
personally, i prefer the quoted excerpts. i don't like to follow links for some reason. and my irritate-o-meter has been pegged for months, so what's the difference? like you said, if we're irritated, we don't have to read the thread.
Inmates charged with murder in convict's beating death
Officials won't give a motive in the case against the two prisoners, who are serving life terms in earlier deaths
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
JOSEPH ROSE
Two Oregon State Penitentiary inmates were charged Tuesday with beating and stabbing another convict to death last September inside the maximum-security prison.
Prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty for Jason Van Brumwell, 28, and Gary Haugen, 42, who were arraigned on aggravated murder charges in Marion County Circuit Court.
The men, who are serving life sentences for murder convictions, are accused of killing David Shane Polin, 31, in an activities area at the Salem prison.
Polin was a former Hillsboro resident serving time for attempted murder and drug convictions. An autopsy found that he died of stab wounds and blunt force head trauma on Sept. 2, 2004.
Authorities declined to discuss details of the case, saying they want to save most of the facts for trial, which isn't expected until 2005.
Don Abar, a Marion County deputy district attorney, said he was reluctant to discuss the possible motive behind the killing.
When murder happens behind bars, Abar said, the motives "are pretty consistent," he said. "It's gangs, drugs or revenge." He wouldn't say which applies to Polin's case.
Polin's wife, Clarinda Polin, said prosecutors have told her she will have to wait until the trial to learn more. "It's frustrating," she said, "but I guess I can understand that they need to keep things quiet to avoid any mess-ups."
She said she visited her husband the Saturday before his death. He didn't mention any problems with other inmates, she said.
Since 1986, there have been five inmate homicides inside Oregon State Penitentiary. "Before that, it had been a long while since we had a murder," said Mike Yoder, a prison spokesman.
State prison officials said Polin's killing prompted a change in how they gather and monitor inmates in the activities area used for counseling sessions and club gatherings.
Polin was attacked in a back room, out of view of corrections officers monitoring the area, said Perrin Damon, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman.
"Inmates are no longer allowed in the back rooms," Damon said. "All inmate activities have been moved to a central area, where there is direct supervision at all times."
A critical-incident review by prison officials found no reason to discipline the officers guarding Brumwell, Haugen and Polin the morning of the attack.
Haugen was convicted of aggravated murder in 1981 in Multnomah County for killing the mother of his ex-girlfriend at her Northeast Portland home. He beat the woman to death with his fists, a hammer and a baseball bat.
Brumwell's aggravated murder conviction stemmed from a robbery and killing in April 1994 at a west Eugene convenience store.
In the days after Polin's death, Oregon State Police investigators said they were getting no help from inmates who might have witnessed the slaying. Abar declined to say how the investigation led to Haugen and Brumwell.
If they'd given them the death penalty for the first murders, maybe this wouldn't have happened, hm?
Sidhe
Inmate pleads guilty in 1989 murder; linked by DNA match
Baltimore - A prison inmate has entered a guilty plea in a Baltimore rape and murder that happened more than 14 years ago.
Fifty-seven-year-old John Holmes pleaded guilty yesterday to the fatal stabbing of Shirley Myers in December 1989 on Montpelier Street in northeast Baltimore. He was convicted of second-degree murder and first degree rape and was given a life sentence -- suspended after 25 years.
Holmes has already been serving a 25-year prison sentence since 1990 for armed robbery. He was linked to the Myers case through DNA tests.
------------------
Woman Pleads Guilty To First-Degree Murder In Husband's Death
POSTED: 6:35 am PDT June 17, 2004
UPDATED: 6:52 am PDT June 17, 2004
LOS ANGELES -- A woman accused of murdering her husband with the help of a man she met on the Internet is facing 25 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder.
Cathleen Quinn also agreed to testify against her alleged accomplice Wednesday.
A judge told Quinn during a hearing in West Valley Superior Court that she would reduce the charge to second-degree murder and sentence her to 15 years to life if she testifies truthfully during the upcoming trial of Alan Lee Lama.
Prosecutors say Quinn met the 35-year-old former radio announcer over the Internet and the two hatched a plot to assault 36-year-old James Quinn of Victorville, Calif.
Cathleen Quinn confessed to detectives that on January 24, 2003 she was driving her husband home from dinner when she took him to an isolated spot where Lama was waiting to rough him up. She said Lama attacked James Quinn with a knife and then used the cord from his sweat shirt to strangle him.
Lama has pleaded not guilty and denied any role. Now that Quinn has pleaded guilty, Lama's jury will be allowed to hear her confession and implication of Lama.
Serial killer Robert Maudsley near death
British serial killer Robert Maudsley is reported to be near
death following 26 years in solitary confinement. The Daily
Mirror reported Monday Maudsley has lost a good deal of
weight because of drugs given to him to control his violent
mood swings have dulled his appetite. "It is hard to feel
sorry for such a man. But it's still shocking to see him
like that," said a prison insider at Wakefield prison.
A doctor visits Maudsely twice a day at his two-room glass
cage -- similar to the one in the film "Silence Of The
Lambs" that starred Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.
Maudsley was sentenced to life in prison in 1974 after he
killed a laborer. Three years later, while in prison he
killed a pedophile. A guard said he fractured the man's
skull like an egg and then ate part of his brain with a
spoon. In 1978, he killed two more convicts. Because of
his prison killings Maudsely was placed into solitary
confinement, a punishment he described as "being buried
alive in a concrete coffin."
Aaaaand, so what, we're supposed to feel sorry for him or something?
Oh, but he's probably crazy or something...his mom yelled at him when he was, like, five, and it traumatized him so much that he had to kill.
Silly me.
Sidhe
Here's another instance where Prison apperantly wasn't a deterrant, they got out and killed again...because "I thought they stole my Xbox".
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/09/fla.killing.probation/index.html
Or the case of the teenager with the pipe bombs...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/08/10/pipe.bombs/index.htmlThis is a bit of fun that was lost in the crash, so I repost it here ...
Note the Bad Ad Placement
Wow on the Xbox ad placement. they stop at nothing!
Google places targeted ads on web pages based on text on the page. Fox may do the same thing. It's all automated.
often times they have ads that aren't even connected to the text on the page - it can be just a coincedence.
on 9/11/01 there were ads for lowered fairs and extra miles on the cnn (i believe) page right below the picture of the plane going into one of the towers. i remember seeing this, but i don't know where so i can't place the link.
There was another one about a woman that killed her boyfriend for erasing her Ipod, that had an Ipod ad on the same page. :rolleyes:
This is a bit of fun that was lost in the crash, so I repost it here ...
Note the Bad Ad Placement
Why do you say it's bad placement? They're trying to avert further murders with free Xboxes!
But what if you're a PS2 fan? The offer could drive you to murder!