Are you willing to help society out in this manner?

[Anachronism]

Innocent until proven guilty is one of the core ideals of a Western liberal democracy.

That may be, but it is not a core ideal that I agree with for the most part.

Think about your weekend. How much of your time this weekend could you not account for if necessary? I spent most of my weekend either at the gym or cleaning, re-organizing, packing, and moving things out of the attic of the building I live in. Through phone records, gate codes, security cameras, entry codes for buildings, the gym, etc... I could probably account for my whereabouts, roughly 85% of my waking hours this past weekend. Through eye-witness testimony I can account for the other 15%, and can confirm the other 85%. It shouldn't be that difficult to prove you weren't at a crime scene, if you really weren't there.

 

[High_Gravity]

YES. If I am insufficiently able to prove that I did not have the motive, means, and opportunity to commit a sufficiently heinous crime and am convicted for it, I would have no problem being executed for it.

BTW - So far as I'm aware, execution is a 100% proven deterent to future criminal activity for everyone that it's used on. That's good enough for me.

How though? the death penalty only worries people after the fact when the crime is already commited, I don't hear any criminals saying "oh we need to behave because we might get the death penalty", its only an issue after the fact when they try to cop a plea, thats it.

Pretty much. Does a deterrent really matter if you're convinced you'll get away with the crime? How many of those planning on committing first-degree murder are planning on getting caught? Not many would be my guess.

Thats what I'm sayin, I don't remember hearing John Wayne Gacey, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, the South Bend Shovel Slayer, Ed Gein or even Sammy Grovano saying they were worried about the death penalty when they were caught.

 

[High_Gravity]

Innocent until proven guilty is one of the core ideals of a Western liberal democracy.

That may be, but it is not a core ideal that I agree with for the most part.

Think about your weekend. How much of your time this weekend could you not account for if necessary? I spent most of my weekend either at the gym or cleaning, re-organizing, packing, and moving things out of the attic of the building I live in. Through phone records, gate codes, security cameras, entry codes for buildings, the gym, etc... I could probably account for my whereabouts, roughly 85% of my waking hours this past weekend. Through eye-witness testimony I can account for the other 15%, and can confirm the other 85%. It shouldn't be that difficult to prove you weren't at a crime scene, if you really weren't there.

For people who are wrongfully convicted its not always that simple, if it was there would be 0 people wrongfully imprisoned in this country.

 

[rightwinger]

I guess the answer is yes if Political Chic says it will help

 

[Zoom-boing]

Death penalty as a deterrent? Oh hell, jail is enough of a deterrent for me. I commit no crime cause I don't want to do the time.

In answer to the OP . . . no way, jose.

 

[Sheldon]

Innocent until proven guilty is one of the core ideals of a Western liberal democracy.

That may be, but it is not a core ideal that I agree with for the most part.

Think about your weekend. How much of your time this weekend could you not account for if necessary? I spent most of my weekend either at the gym or cleaning, re-organizing, packing, and moving things out of the attic of the building I live in. Through phone records, gate codes, security cameras, entry codes for buildings, the gym, etc... I could probably account for my whereabouts, roughly 85% of my waking hours this past weekend. Through eye-witness testimony I can account for the other 15%, and can confirm the other 85%. It shouldn't be that difficult to prove you weren't at a crime scene, if you really weren't there.

You're extrapolating a hypothetical anecdote onto a complex real-world.

 

[Anachronism]

Funny, I expected JB to be the first to deliberately throw in a counter argument.

You say insufficiently able to prove, but what if it were proven yet the prosecutor hid the evidence and you were convicted anyway? I know that was not in the original question, but I expected it to be implied.

I am a strong believer in FATE, Immie. Our lives are largely out of our own control. Again, if I am not sufficiently able to provide PROOF (phone records, security videos, eye witness statements, etc...) for my own whereabouts, and I am living the type of life where I would be a potential suspect in the sort of act that might get me executed, I may not be guilty of that particular act, but I'm definitely not an innocent person. There's an old saying.... "Lay down with the pigs long enough eventually you end up stinking like them."

How though? the death penalty only worries people after the fact when the crime is already commited, I don't hear any criminals saying "oh we need to behave because we might get the death penalty", its only an issue after the fact when they try to cop a plea, thats it.

You missed my point... I said it's a 100% proven deterent for FUTURE crimes. Once the criminal has been executed, I am 100% certain that he will never commit another crime. Do you have any stories or stats to the contrary?

 

[Anachronism]

No one has to prove their innocence in the USA.

Which is one of the problems with our system so far as I'm concerned.

 

[emilynghiem]

Hi Immie:
And in a way, I have been put in a situation where I was forced to sacrifice life for the sake of free choice. I regret that and wish I had not been coerced and had never entered into that catch-22 situation, but in the end, I understand that free choice is necessary in order to set up a sustainable society by freely informed choice and not purely by blind faith or force of law. (the situation was being emotionallly coerced to have an abortion against my will and my beliefs because of other people's pressures; it made me understand why people would rather prevent this by just making abortion illegal if that's the only thing that could have protected my consent from pressures, including the threat of the father to commit suicide which killed any life connection or spirit I felt at all; however, I have faith that abortion can be prevented by resolving the causes of relationship abuse that lead up to it; that is a superior approach because it solves problems at the root, not criminalizing them after the fact, and the majority of people who are against abortion prove that force of law is not necessary to put an end to abortion since these people believe by free will.)

I support the CHOICE of the death penalty/war/abortion not being illegal, because I believe policies/decisions should be made by CONSENSUS regarding religious issues, or else they should remain private or separated. Since I believe in this standard, then I agree to be under that standard, where such decisions have to be made by consensus including mine.

I believe this is enough to protect me and others from oppression or abuse of the laws to commit injustice, and the reason this failed in the past to protect me from abuse was that people around me and including me were not taught to respect consent as the standard.

Now I find that people who adhere to the standard of consent/consensus most effectively
are more able to invoke or enforce that same standard to the same degree. It is like the Golden Rule. So the more people who discover this standard applies to Civil and Constitutional law enforcement, that you get the justice you give, it raises the standard.
Everyone I know wants their consent protection from oppression or abuse by others,
so this knowledge empowers them to take and share equal responsibility for enforcement.

In the meantime, where people compromise consensus/consent for majority rule in cases of conflict, to the same degree they are willing to impose against others, they indeed should be equally accepting where they get imposed on themselves to that same degree!

I do NOT agree to political bullying by economic or emotional coercion or
majority rule where religious and spiritual issues should be resolved to
include and protect and represent all views equally, under Constitutional laws.

I am not perfect at enforcing this standard, but I commit to it and agree
to corrections or restitution where I fail to meet it, so that just relations can be restored.
Not everyone believes or is at this level of restoring justice and consent of the governed,
but I am willing to work through the process until we can establish a sane
consistent level of law enforcement, by informed consent not by force of law by bullying.

The death penalty is a dangerous expensive mess,
and I believe taxpayers are owed restitution BIG TIME for
the lives and losses it has cost over the years.

If the public were paid back for the cost of violations of "separation of church and state"
by mixing religious laws on capital punishment with state jursidiction and prosecution,
those billions wasted on ineffective, unethical or unconstitutional actions by the state
can be paid back as credits into a fund to cover for health care reform, to build military and teaching hospitals to serve the vets, mentally disabled, and others at risk and in need, so that is what I would propose to the Governors and to the President concerned.

The people who originally committed the capital offenses should pay restitution
instead of charging and punishing taxpayers several times over for the crimes of others,
along with the corruption of private interests making money off the prison contracts.

Criminal abuses and addictions are more effectively treated by medical approaches
as a sickness, that can even be cured by early enough detection and intervention, including spiritual healing that is free and cannot be legislated by the state.

We can't afford to keep paying for problems to escalate.
By pure trial and error, the solutions will rise to public attention anyway.

In the meantime, YES, I am willing to resolve all conflicts by consensus
in order to enforce that model of free choice, which DOES ALLOW the
free choice of abortion, war, the death penalty -- as long as final
decisions are made by consensus since these involve spiritual/religious issues
and cannot be legislated by the state, without consent of all parties, or else it violates religious freedom and equal protection of the laws by imposing a biased decision on dissenters.

The more consistently you defend consent of all parties equally, then people will respect your consent. If you submit to playing the bullying games, then you gamble and get what you give. Good luck with that! I'd rather lose by standing for what is right, then win by compromising. You can lose the battle and still win the war; people have been doing that for years, and when the sacrifices pay off, the credit belongs to them.

I believe I paid a heavy sacrifice to understand the proper process and enforcement of free choice in a democratic system. It has to be by informed consent, not coercion or bullying, and all conflicts have to be forgiven, resolved or corrected in order not to compete but to cooperate fully and freely on mutual solutions despite our differences.

Getting rid of the death penalty or abortion requires changing the whole dynamic of society and relations, where we no longer commit relationship abuse or capital crimes. So we no longer will have capital punishment or abortion either. These things will solve themselves by addressing the real causes of what leads up to them. Totally by free will not by force.

 

[High_Gravity]

How though? the death penalty only worries people after the fact when the crime is already commited, I don't hear any criminals saying "oh we need to behave because we might get the death penalty", its only an issue after the fact when they try to cop a plea, thats it.

You missed my point... I said it's a 100% proven deterent for FUTURE crimes. Once the criminal has been executed, I am 100% certain that he will never commit another crime. Do you have any stories or stats to the contrary?

I didn't know thats how you meant it.

 

[Sheldon]

No one has to prove their innocence in the USA.

Which is one of the problems with our system so far as I'm concerned.

That sums it up. There won't be any common ground here, I think.

 

[Two Thumbs]

At the risk of seeming cruel.

How often is an innocent person executed?

I have been under the impression that it's extremely hard to execute someone, taking an average of 15 years.

And please no anti-DP sources, I will assume they are exagerating.

 

[Anachronism]

For people who are wrongfully convicted its not always that simple, if it was there would be 0 people wrongfully imprisoned in this country.

H_G, how much of the time are you REALLY "off the grid" on the average day? How much of your time on an average day would you NOT be able to account for if you had to, and provide some form of PROOF as to where you were, with whom, and doing what? I find it really hard to believe that most law-abiding citizens have that much trouble accounting for their whereabouts most of the time.

You're extrapolating a hypothetical anecdote onto a complex real-world.

I'm extrapolating the REALITY of the average middle-class American's lifestyle onto a question that most people wouldn't have to deal with in 100 lifetimes. The people who have that type of issue are generally the ones who have something to hide to begin with.

 

[High_Gravity]

At the risk of seeming cruel.

How often is an innocent person executed?

I have been under the impression that it's extremely hard to execute someone, taking an average of 15 years.

And please no anti-DP sources, I will assume they are exagerating.

I don't know the numbers but on the same token, why not just get rid of all prisons? there are innocent men and women in prison as well, so maybe we should just rid of everything so innocent people aren't convicted anymore.

 

[R.D.]

Are you willing to help society in this manner?

Politicalchic has avoided this question so I ask all of you.

Politicalchic has made the statement in another thread (I will link to it later) that it helps society to let an innocent person be executed because (I am reading into her statement here) the death penalty acts as a deterrent to future crimes.

So, I ask this question of you:

Are you willing to be executed for a crime you did not commit in order to better society?

Simple question with a yes or no answer. But, please feel free to elaborate on your answer in this thread.

Link to thread

http://www.usmessageboard.com/polit...life-and-pro-death-penalty-5.html#post3495010

Thank you all,

Immie

You make it sound voluntary. If wrongly convicted what choice do I have?

I don't think it's a deterrent to any but the one put to death, which works for me. Murderers are egomaniacs who never think they'll get caught

 

[High_Gravity]

For people who are wrongfully convicted its not always that simple, if it was there would be 0 people wrongfully imprisoned in this country.

H_G, how much of the time are you REALLY "off the grid" on the average day? How much of your time on an average day would you NOT be able to account for if you had to, and provide some form of PROOF as to where you were, with whom, and doing what? I find it really hard to believe that most law-abiding citizens have that much trouble accounting for their whereabouts most of the time.

.

See that depends, everyone is different. If I work a 9 to 5 and have a wife and kids at home, I will have an easier time accounting for what I did and where I was. However if you are single how do you really account for where you are in the evening hours when you are not at work? If I stayed in and watched tv or took a nap, who would vouch for me on this?

 

[Anachronism]

I didn't know thats how you meant it.

I assumed that from your response. These violent criminals are like rabid dogs. There is no rehabilitating them. You put them down quickly and quietly and move on with life before they hurt someone else.

 

[Two Thumbs]

At the risk of seeming cruel.

How often is an innocent person executed?

I have been under the impression that it's extremely hard to execute someone, taking an average of 15 years.

And please no anti-DP sources, I will assume they are exagerating.

I don't know the numbers but on the same token, why not just get rid of all prisons? there are innocent men and women in prison as well, so maybe we should just rid of everything so innocent people aren't convicted anymore.

Not sure where you are going with this. If we didn't have jails and prisons we would have disorder.

I did some quick reasearch and since 1973 111 or 130, depending on who's counting, innocent people have gotten off of death row. Which makes it look like the system works to me.

 

[High_Gravity]

At the risk of seeming cruel.

How often is an innocent person executed?

I have been under the impression that it's extremely hard to execute someone, taking an average of 15 years.

And please no anti-DP sources, I will assume they are exagerating.

I don't know the numbers but on the same token, why not just get rid of all prisons? there are innocent men and women in prison as well, so maybe we should just rid of everything so innocent people aren't convicted anymore.

Not sure where you are going with this. If we didn't have jails and prisons we would have disorder.

I did some quick reasearch and since 1973 111 or 130, depending on who's counting, innocent people have gotten off of death row. Which makes it look like the system works to me.

I was being sarcastic, if we are going to get rid of the death penalty because innocent people are killed, we should also get rid of all prisons because there are many innocent people in there as well.

 

[emilynghiem]

You missed my point... I said it's a 100% proven deterent for FUTURE crimes. Once the criminal has been executed, I am 100% certain that he will never commit another crime. Do you have any stories or stats to the contrary?

1. If you execute the right person.
2. Given the expensive legal protocol involved in PROVING and JUSTIFYING such a religious decision to terminate life where the state is basically seeking public approval for playing God, that is where it drags out and is not guaranteed deterrent
a. I believe more people would be more afraid of deportation and losing citizenship than sitting on death row with legal appeals, so I would propose signing agreements in advance that if someone is convicted of a capital offense, or any premediated crime especially abusing a firearm to commit robbery or rape, they agree to forfeit citizenship for the length of the sentence served in prison labor while an immigrant on the waiting list trades places and has a guest or lifetime visa to work legally in their place, many people would be glad to have the chance to work an honest living as a citizen instead of abusing that freedom to go commit violations against others.
b. Also of all the capital cases I have seen, more people kill to avoid prosecution by silencing the witness; this seems to be a greater motivation in the mind of the killer at the time than fear of capital punishment. They aren't thinking about getting killed, they are thinking of killing so they can escape justice altogether, to fight beat the system even if they get killed in the process or in the end. Whatever "spiritual process" they may go through sitting on death row, they can go through that in a foreign prison, funded by their own labor or sponsored by a restorative justice ministry who believes in rehab and recovery instead of at taxpayers expense who don't necessarily believe in funding that.

By the time you coudl educate all possible killers to NOT kill their victims or witnesses in order to avoid the death penalty, but to spare their lives so you can plea bargain for a lesser sentence, you could set up the policy to sign away their citizenship if they commit any premeditated crime at all. Or at least sign an agreement by local ordinance in each district, that in order to live in that district, all residents agree to either follow the law and cooperate with police and authorities, to participate in conflict resolution and mediation to resolve any grievance dispute or complaint, be responsible for financial restitution to the victims and to the public for the cost of any crime they commit including prosecution and legal expense, or to complete counseling and recovery if they have a condition that prevents them from meeting that standard of civil conduct; or else agree to forfeit their right to reside in that district if they cannot agree to live by that policy like everyone else.

I firmly believe that the same resources efforts and approach it would take to get rid of either capital crime or punishment would get rid of both at the same time. And everyone I know is against capital crime, so why not focus on that? The other will take care of itself!