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Old 05-03-2004, 01:54 PM   #31
Slartibartfast
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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.
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Old 05-03-2004, 02:23 PM   #32
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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.

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Old 05-03-2004, 03:31 PM   #33
Lady Sidhe
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Quote:
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
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Last edited by Lady Sidhe; 05-03-2004 at 03:37 PM.
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Old 05-03-2004, 03:47 PM   #34
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Quote:
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.
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Old 05-03-2004, 03:55 PM   #35
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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.
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Old 05-03-2004, 03:56 PM   #36
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Quote:
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?
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Old 05-03-2004, 04:11 PM   #37
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Quote:
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?
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Old 05-03-2004, 04:11 PM   #38
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Quote:
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.
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Old 05-03-2004, 04:21 PM   #39
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marichko, you have a lot more energy than I do. Good post.
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Old 05-03-2004, 04:24 PM   #40
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Quote:
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".
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Old 05-03-2004, 04:27 PM   #41
Lady Sidhe
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Quote:
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


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Last edited by Lady Sidhe; 05-03-2004 at 04:39 PM.
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Old 05-03-2004, 04:33 PM   #42
glatt
 
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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.
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Old 05-03-2004, 04:34 PM   #43
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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.
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Old 05-03-2004, 04:45 PM   #44
Lady Sidhe
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Quote:
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.


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Old 05-03-2004, 04:48 PM   #45
elSicomoro
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Quote:
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?
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