Do You Support the Death Penalty?

[Ravi]

I detect a lot of hostility here especially since you've been reduced to the language quoted above. You can't hide behind "one innocent person" executed, since I offered you the chance to save 74 innocent persons.

You can detect whatever you want. Next time, at the very least try to recognize how easy it is to manipulate statistics to fool the general public.

 

[PoliticalChic]

You can detect whatever you want. Next time, at the very least try to recognize how easy it is to manipulate statistics to fool the general public.

Again, you are avoiding the question. IF, I could prove to you that 74 innocent lives can be saved, would you still be against the death penalty. We both know why you don't want to answer that question.

 

[sky dancer]

I detect a lot of hostility here especially since you've been reduced to the language quoted above. You can't hide behind "one innocent person" executed, since I offered you the chance to save 74 innocent persons.

Nonsense. Put the murderers behind bars for the rest of their lives and you have saved lives. Execution is unnecessary, barbaric and if even one innocent person is executed it is one too many.

LWOP provides a reasonable alternative. Execution is vengeance killing--and it makes all of us taxpayers who fund it complicit.

 

[Ravi]

Again, you are avoiding the question. IF, I could prove to you that 74 innocent lives can be saved, would you still be against the death penalty. We both know why you don't want to answer that question.

No offense, PC, but are you drunk? I already answered your question.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Damn! This is the 2nd time i have found worthy a post of yours to rep and it still says have to spread some around....but kudos!

Yes, i have read in many different analysis on the subject that the death penalty DOES NOT deter murder....or reduce the rate of murder.

Kudos to you for managing to drool all over yourself over a post that claims no deterrence, while mysteriously managing to never have read the post that claims deterrence with even more studies cited.

I have to ask now why it is that you're so very afraid to even acknowledge the existence of the other side, let alone the possibility that it MIGHT have some validity. Close-mindedness, or just intellectual cowardice?

 

[Cecilie1200]

In 2007 the world continued to move closer to the universal abolition of the capital punishment. Historical landmark towards the worldwide abolition of death penalty is the resolution on moratorium on executions endorsed by the United Nations 62nd General Assembly on 18 December 2007. 104 UN member states voted in favour of the ground-breaking resolution. 54 countries voted against, while 29 abstained. The resolution was supported by 87 governments from all regions of the world, as well as by NGOs including the World Coalition against the Death Penalty, the Community of Sant'Egidio, Hands Off Cain and Amnesty International.

More than two thirds of the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice. By the end of the 2007, 91 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
Death Penalty Statistics

Yes, yes, we're all duly in awe of your astounding ability at finding and posting agenda-driven propaganda sites. I'm certain that I've never seen anyone more talented than you at conflating opinion with fact.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I'll go with my research data that contradicts yours.

Yeah, that great, objective source of "research data", Amnesty International. Oh, it's TERRIBLY surprising that THEY concluded that the death penalty was bad. Could have knocked me over with a feather.

 

[sky dancer]

Cecile--


May you overcome your anger.

 

[Diuretic]

Good luck with that, mate.

I'm a stubborn bast....I mean, I'm persistent

 

[Luissa]

Do you support the death penalty?

Nope I don't!

 

[PoliticalChic]

Nonsense. Put the murderers behind bars for the rest of their lives and you have saved lives. Execution is unnecessary, barbaric and if even one innocent person is executed it is one too many.

LWOP provides a reasonable alternative. Execution is vengeance killing--and it makes all of us taxpayers who fund it complicit.

Let's consider the victims who were executed unnecessarily. We all know that there is always a possiblity that a person with a life sentence may be released because of the imperfections of our justice system.

3 Reasons why I believe in capital punishment:

1) Leopold and Loeb, thrill killers who coldly murdered 14 year old Bobby Franks in Chicago (1924)

They worked out a plan during the next seven months. For a victim, they chose a 14 year old boy named Bobby Franks. He was the son of the millionaire Jacob Franks, and a distant cousin of Loeb. They were already acquainted with the boy and he went happily with them on that May afternoon. They drove him to within a few blocks of the Franks residence in Hyde Park then suddenly grabbed him, stuffed a gag in his mouth and smashed his skull four times with a chisel. He fell to the floor and bled to death in the car.

When the brief bit of excitement was over, Leopold and Loeb casually drove away, stopped for lunch and then ended up near a culvert along the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks. After dunking the boy’s head underwater to make sure that he was dead, they poured acid on his face (so that he would be hard to identify) then stuffed his body into a drainpipe.

After this, they drove to Leopold’s home, where they spent the afternoon and evening drinking and playing cards. Around midnight, they telephoned the Franks’ home and told Mr. Franks that he could soon expect a ransom demand for the return of his son. They typed out a letter on a stolen typewriter and mailed it to Franks, intent on continuing their twisted “game”. However, by the time the letter arrived, workmen had already stumbled upon the body of Bobby Franks.

Bobby Franks as he looked around the time of his murder

Despite their “mental prowess” and “high intelligence”, Leopold and Loeb were quickly caught. Leopold had dropped his eyeglasses near the spot where the body had been hidden and police had (cleverly) traced the prescription back to him. They also traced the ransom note to a typewriter that Leopold had “borrowed” from his fraternity house the year before.

In January 1936 though, Loeb was murdered by another prisoner who claimed that he had killed the other man because he had tried to make homosexual advances toward him. The attacker slashed Loeb 56 times in the back with a homemade knife and left him to bleed to death in the shower room. The killer's claims inspired rumors that Loeb was a brutal prison rapist, but this was not the case. In fact, the murder had been committed because the other prisoner felt shortchanged because Loeb had not given him as many cigarettes as he had given to some of the other prisoners.

Leopold lived on in prison for many years and was said to have made many adjustments to his character and some would even say had rehabilitated completely. Even so, appeals for his parole were turned down three times. Finally, in 1958, his fourth appeal was pleaded by the poet Carl Sandburg, who even went as far as to offer Leopold a room in his own home. Finally, in March of that year, he was released. He went on to write a book about his experiences called LIFE PLUS 99 YEARS and moved to Puerto Rico. There, he worked among the poor, married a widow and died in 1971.

LEOPOLD & LOEB: CHICAGO'S THRILL KILLERS

Leopold was released and had a wife and a life after prison. When did Bobby Franks receive the same opportunity?

2) Richard Speck who murdered 8 women after reassuring then that he only wanted their money. (Chicago, 1966)

The Crime:

At first Speck reassured the young women that all he wanted was money. Then with a gun and a knife he scared the girls into submission and got them all into one bedroom. He cut strips of bed sheets and bound each of them and began removing one after another to other parts of the townhouse where he murdered them. Two nurses were murdered as they returned home and walked into the mayhem. The girls waiting their turn to die, tried to hide under beds but Speck found them all but one.

The Victims:

Pamela Wilkening - Gagged, stabbed through the heart.

Gloria Davy - Raped, sexually brutalized, strangled.

Suzanne Farris - Stabbed 18 times and strangled.

Mary Ann Jordan - Stabbed in the chest, neck and eye.

Nina Schmale - Stabbed in her neck and suffocated.

Patricia Matusek - punched resulting in a ruptured liver and strangled.

Valentina Paison - Her throat was cut.

Merlita Gargullo - Stabbed and strangled.

Speck was found guilty and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court ruled against capital punishment and his sentence was changed to 50 to 100 years in prison.

Richard Speck - Profile of Richard Speck - Born to Raise Hell

During the time he was in prison, he had female hormones given to him and was having sex with a fellow inmate.

Why should a life be given to these people behind bars?

3) In 2003 Governor George Ryan commuted 167 death sentences in Illinois prisons.

In one sweep, Governor Ryan, a Republican, spared the lives of 163 men and 4 women who have served a collective 2,000 years for the murders of more than 250 people. His bold move was seen as the most significant statement questioning capital punishment since the Supreme Court struck down states' old death penalty laws in 1972. It seemed sure to secure Mr. Ryan's legacy as a leading critic of state-sponsored executions even as he faces possible indictment in a corruption scandal that stopped him from seeking re-election.

Citing Issue of Fairness, Governor Clears Out Death Row in Illinois - New York Times

How many of these prisoners were released into the population?

Those who believe the way you do, are blind to the fact that there is evil in the world. And an example must be made of those who particpate in it. I believe those who are opposed to the death penalty are not on a higher moral plane than most of us, but rather they are facilitators for the guilty, and refuse to give the innocent dead their due.

 

[Diuretic]

PC - are you basing your argument on societal revenge?

 

[Vintij]

I dont understand why we use the death penalty? If we are going to do something this drastic, why is it so wrong to put these inmates to good use rather than waste their lives? What is so wrong with putting them to harsh labor in chains to help build our dwindling infrastructure. Why is that so wrong, they have already commited murder, they should pay us back as a society.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I dont understand why we use the death penalty? If we are going to do something this drastic, why is it so wrong to put these inmates to good use rather than waste their lives? What is so wrong with putting them to harsh labor in chains to help build our dwindling infrastructure. Why is that so wrong, they have already commited murder, they should pay us back as a society.

I'm only saying this half tongue-in-cheek, how about we harvest their organs too?

 

[Luissa]

One of the big reasons why I don't support it is the cost of the appeal system and it usually takes years, I heard once about ten years before they are usually actually put to death. Plus the whole percentage of error of a false conviction, just the other day a man's convictions of murder was overturned due to new evidence, using DNA testing to prove he wasn't at the crimes scene. He had been in prison for twenty years or more.

 

[Luissa]

I'm only saying this half tongue-in-cheek, how about we harvest their organs too?

probably cannot do that if they are electrocuted or lethal injection was used!and most states do not hang anymore!

I watched video of Sadam being hanged the other day, it was disturbing and people were allowed to yell things at him during the process!

 

[PoliticalChic]

PC - are you basing your argument on societal revenge?

If you're referring to the cases I mentioned like Leopold and Loeb, and Richard Speck, these people are evil incarnate. For what they have done, they need to be eradicated from this earth.

 

[PoliticalChic]

probably cannot do that if they are electrocuted or lethal injection was used!and most states do not hang anymore!

I watched video of Sadam being hanged the other day, it was disturbing and people were allowed to yell things at him during the process!

LOL! I was only half-serious. I'd rather see people like Jeffrey Dahmer executed.

 

[Diuretic]

If you're referring to the cases I mentioned like Leopold and Loeb, and Richard Speck, these people are evil incarnate. For what they have done, they need to be eradicated from this earth.

I was referring to your referring....it made me think that's all, no trap here. Do you argue for societal revenge as being a justification for the death penalty?

 

[PoliticalChic]

I was referring to your referring....it made me think that's all, no trap here. Do you argue for societal revenge as being a justification for the death penalty?

Yes, one of the arguments.