Death Penalty Poll

[KevinWestern]

Wondering how much death penalty opinions align with general party affiliation.



My first poll. Hope this works.

If we could prove with absolutely certainty that people are guilty of crimes they are convicted for (all the time) I'd be pro-death penalty. But the fact of the matter is that we have just too many inmates on death row being found as innocent years later.

The execution of an innocent man is murder, and I cannot stand to support that.

.

 

[Immanuel]

I have a feeling I'm going to stay a small minority as an anti-capital punishment conservative.

One of the leading reasons I am against capital punishment is because it is not administrated fairly. People who can afford good lawyers have so much better chance at getting out of it than poor people.

Since justice can't be blind, and since it does appear that people have been condemned to death who were innocent, I have slowly abandoned the capital punishment position I was raised to believe in.

You are not alone,we have 2 major social blights,capital punishment is one of them.

Its been proven to be really arbitrary in its use,and we make a huge mockery of the whole thing,whats with swabbing the injection sight with alcohol?? you are just moments from killing the person,yet we swab their arms,it's disgusting.

I would like to know what you consider the other blight: 2nd Amendment? Abortion? Something else?

Immie

 

[sfcalifornia]

Problem is

I am not sure If I lean left or right!

I am for capital punishment--but I want the person I punish to be guilty of a grievous crime and the proof of his guilt so evident that the insane and the stupid have to admit he is guilty.

Pretty tall order, I know. But there are people that fit that description without question. Hey, we even picked up a couple very recently--the Boston marathon bomber and that kidnapper in Cleveland.

Come on--even if you are against the death penalty, deep down you want something tragically heinous to happen to them!!

The only reason why I would be against the death penalty is because that penalty wouldn't be tragically heinous enough, especially the way in which the death penalty is humanely carried out these days. Keep the POS alive and make their remaining years a living hell on Earth. Complete solitary confinement and total sensory deprivation. No light or sound ever.

 

[Staidhup]

Judicial review and oversight is sufficient to alleviate most if no all fears that an innocent person would face the maximum sentence of death. With that said, without an ultimate punishment in place there is no deterrent to those that take a life.

 

[Yurt]

i lean right, but am against the DP.

here is why:

our justice is not perfect. without a doubt there are many who deserve death. however, that is outweighed by the innocent person put to death. just one person wrongly put to do death by the state should cause alarm for anyone who supports the death penalty.

if we had a more perfect system i would support it. unfortunately, we don't and we don't just have on innocent person put to death, we have dozens.

you cannot have a just government when so many innocent people are purposely put to death.

 

[Yurt]

Judicial review and oversight is sufficient to alleviate most if no all fears that an innocent person would face the maximum sentence of death. With that said, without an ultimate punishment in place there is no deterrent to those that take a life.

if that were true, then there would be no innocent people put to death

 

[Staidhup]

Problem is

I am not sure If I lean left or right!

I am for capital punishment--but I want the person I punish to be guilty of a grievous crime and the proof of his guilt so evident that the insane and the stupid have to admit he is guilty.

Pretty tall order, I know. But there are people that fit that description without question. Hey, we even picked up a couple very recently--the Boston marathon bomber and that kidnapper in Cleveland.

Come on--even if you are against the death penalty, deep down you want something tragically heinous to happen to them!!

The only reason why I would be against the death penalty is because that penalty wouldn't be tragically heinous enough, especially the way in which the death penalty is humanely carried out these days. Keep the POS alive and make their remaining years a living hell on Earth. Complete solitary confinement and total sensory deprivation. No light or sound ever.

Unfortunately this has been deemed inhumane treatment by the courts. The courts have ruled they need three square meals, TV time, INTERNET access, access to the exercise grounds, and some time outdoors.

 

[Staidhup]

Judicial review and oversight is sufficient to alleviate most if no all fears that an innocent person would face the maximum sentence of death. With that said, without an ultimate punishment in place there is no deterrent to those that take a life.

if that were true, then there would be no innocent people put to death

Then please site some examples.

 

[Kondor3]

There's no option for "Centrist and pro capital punishment" ...

 

[nodoginnafight]

The poll choices are inadequate as there are many people who do not define themselves according to the standard Left/Right choices.

In my case: Independent and perfectly copacetic with the Death Penalty for certain crimes.

Nothin' like a good hangin'.

Indpendent is non-party affiliated. It doesn't have anything to do with left or right. But I agree that the poll choices are inadequate. I am a moderate. I lean right on some issues (fiscal, abortion) and left on some (immigration, others).

I do not favor the death penalty.

 

[nodoginnafight]

Judicial review and oversight is sufficient to alleviate most if no all fears that an innocent person would face the maximum sentence of death. With that said, without an ultimate punishment in place there is no deterrent to those that take a life.

if that were true, then there would be no innocent people put to death

Main reasons I do not favor a death penalty:

1) We are human beings. No system we put in place will be perfect. No matter how many layers of review we put into place. As long as we enforce a death penalty there will be people who are executed who are not guilty of the crime they are being put to death for.

2) To make the death penalty an effective deterrent it would have to be administered more uniformly and faster. Faster would mean fewer layers of review and that would mean more people put to death who are not guilty of the crime they are being put to death for.

3) Factoring the extreme security measures necessary to house a person who has nothing left to lose and the expense of every layer of appeal, it is more economical in most cases to house an inmate in the general population for the rest of his life than it is to put him to death.

So the cons are mistakes, non-deterrent, and more expensive.
The pros are: Vengeance

IMHO the cons outweigh the pros

 

[Meathead]

The justices systems are imperfect. Everybody knows that. The problem doesn't lay there. The problem lies in the appeals process. There are those who should have summary executions. They could certainly cut down on expense and most of the other arguments

 

[nodoginnafight]

The justices systems are imperfect. Everybody knows that. The problem doesn't lay there. The problem lies in the appeals process. There are those who should have summary executions. They could certainly cut down on expense and most of the other arguments

Removing layers of appeal will increase the number of people who are put to death for crimes they did not committ.

And creating different timetables in different cases only adds to the disparity of enforcement that robs the death penalty of any deterrent value.

 

[Yurt]

Judicial review and oversight is sufficient to alleviate most if no all fears that an innocent person would face the maximum sentence of death. With that said, without an ultimate punishment in place there is no deterrent to those that take a life.

if that were true, then there would be no innocent people put to death

Then please site some examples.

10 Convicts Presumed Innocent After Execution - Listverse

 

[Flopper]

Eighteen people have been proven innocent and exonerated by DNA testing in the United States after serving time on death row. They were convicted in 11 states and served a combined 229 years in prison including 202 years on death row – for crimes they didn't commit. One has to wonder how many hundreds of innocent people have we hung, electrocuted and shot for crimes they didn't do?

We can not longer support capital punishment based on the belief that our justice system does not make mistakes in capital cases. The only logical defense for capital punishment is the belief that sacrificing a few to save many is acceptable. However, there is no compelling evidence that's true.

The Innocence Project - The Innocent and the Death Penaltyhttp://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/The_Innocent_and_the_Death_Penalty.php

 

[Yurt]

QUOTE=nodoginnafight;7218516]

Main reasons I do not favor a death penalty:

1) We are human beings. No system we put in place will be perfect. No matter how many layers of review we put into place. As long as we enforce a death penalty there will be people who are executed who are not guilty of the crime they are being put to death for.

i agree. except for those who confess and there is absolutely no doubt their confession is true. not beyond a reasonable doubt, but no doubt. example, DNA evidence from more than one lab, more than one eye witness etc.

2) To make the death penalty an effective deterrent it would have to be administered more uniformly and faster. Faster would mean fewer layers of review and that would mean more people put to death who are not guilty of the crime they are being put to death for.

completely agree. the usual 2 decade death penalty sentence doesn't really deter justice at all. with that said, we don't know how many countless confessions or plea deals are made because of the thread of the DP. so, it could be argued, it does work, just not in the way we want, in that, it doesn't really deter crime.

3) Factoring the extreme security measures necessary to house a person who has nothing left to lose and the expense of every layer of appeal, it is more economical in most cases to house an inmate in the general population for the rest of his life than it is to put him to death.

a death row inmate in CA cost no more than a person in a non DR inmate in max ad seg.

So the cons are mistakes, non-deterrent, and more expensive.
The pros are: Vengeance

IMHO the cons outweigh the pros

here is my take on our justice system. CA recently changed their prison name from CDC (california department of corrections) to CDCR (california department of corrections and rehabilitation). i am all for rehabilitation because it is proven, absolutely proven in CA that our prison system simply spits out people who are usually worse than when they went in. i am not for a system like that at all. however, i believe prison is also about 'vengeance' in that it is about punishment. if our government did not punish or exact 'revenge' upon wrongdoers, then we would have no government because the citizens would have no faith in the government keeping order.

 

[Flopper]

Judicial review and oversight is sufficient to alleviate most if no all fears that an innocent person would face the maximum sentence of death. With that said, without an ultimate punishment in place there is no deterrent to those that take a life.

if that were true, then there would be no innocent people put to death

Then please site some examples.

Courts do not order retrials or set aside verdicts after the convicted is executed so they cannot be found innocent. It maintains the illusion that the legal system does not execute the innocent.

 

[Againsheila]

I'm a moderate and I don't believe in the death penalty simply because it costs us more money than life in prison. Whenever possible, they should be saving the tax payers money.

 

[chikenwing]

I have a feeling I'm going to stay a small minority as an anti-capital punishment conservative.

One of the leading reasons I am against capital punishment is because it is not administrated fairly. People who can afford good lawyers have so much better chance at getting out of it than poor people.

Since justice can't be blind, and since it does appear that people have been condemned to death who were innocent, I have slowly abandoned the capital punishment position I was raised to believe in.

You are not alone,we have 2 major social blights,capital punishment is one of them.

Its been proven to be really arbitrary in its use,and we make a huge mockery of the whole thing,whats with swabbing the injection sight with alcohol?? you are just moments from killing the person,yet we swab their arms,it's disgusting.

I would like to know what you consider the other blight: 2nd Amendment? Abortion? Something else?

Immie

Abortion

 

[JohnA]

Good poll. I am tied ( and one-half opposite ) with "right-leaning anti-capital punishment." Whoops, just checked again and am in the lead...

I'm ambivalent and right-leaning. The reason is because too many people are railroaded in by two collaborating witnesses and their supporters who may have committed the crime themselves. In Illinois, there is a "Project Innocence" that found that 11 prisoners on death row in Illinois did not commit the crimes for which they were sentenced to death. It caused a governor to suspend the death penalty in his state until he fulfilled his term.

When I first learned of the Innocence Project, I became anti-death penalty, but as time wore on, I saw that there are some who should never, never be allowed to see daylight again. This would happen in the event of a natural catastrophe such as a flood or earthquake on prison grounds. The evacuation could result in the escape of a serial killer who would just continue his crime. Maybe the public would be served if this type of criminal was disabled from hurting others for good.

The Innocence Project

The problem with your hypothetical is that it hasn't happened - whereas hundreds of innocent people have been executed unjustly.

The odds of someone escaping a SuperMax facility are lower than the odds of a lethal injection not working.

'

LINK to *hundreds of innocent people have been executed * please or is that just your opinion of which of course you have every right to express