Do You Support the Death Penalty?

[Turboswede]

The only issue I have with it is that too many innocent people have been victims of capital punishment.

DNA evidence exonerates people almost daily so it is no stretch to say that many of those people executed were innocent.

I think that the death penalty is warranted only if no doubt exists none zero zip nada

If life without parole actually meant life without parole, I'd be fine with abolishing capital punishment.

Yup, I am against it on the grounds that its not revokable. If we could be 100% sure than its not a problem.

 

[mattskramer]

I’ll support the death penalty when it can be known with 100.0000 percent accuracy that the people found guilty and sentenced to capital punishment really did the crime from which they are sentenced.

I would rather have 1,000,000,000,000 people convicted of murder spend a lifetime in jail than risk executing someone who did not commit the crime for which he was executed.

I guess that you can call me "pro-life". Aside from that, I think that I am tough on crime.

 

[mattskramer]

Sorry, but if someone is guilty of first degree murder and is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Time for him to say bye bye. Better off dead then that piece of shit sitting in a cell not being rehabiltated and spending thousands of tax payer money.

So the “Ooops, we may have made a mistake” factor does not bother you.

See the bios of the people that lucked out.
The Innocence Project - Know the Cases: Browse Profiles

 

[Andrew2382]

hence the term beyond a reasonable doubt

 

[mattskramer]

hence the term beyond a reasonable doubt

Even when there was no reasonable doubt, some that were convicted were exonerated. The phrase is practically meaningless.

 

[Diuretic]

A decision by a trier of fact is always based on probability. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is a very high level of probability for sure but it's still probability.

 

[YWN666]

I voted yes but only in those cases where there is no doubt of guilt.

 

[Silence]

IT HAPPENS all too often....

Facts on Post-Conviction DNA Exonerations
[Print Version]


There have been 223 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.

• The first DNA exoneration took place in 1989. Exonerations have been won in 32 states; since 2000, there have been 158 exonerations.

• 17 of the 223 people exonerated through DNA served time on death row.

• The average length of time served by exonerees is 12 years. The total number of years served is approximately 2,754.

• The average age of exonerees at the time of their wrongful convictions was 26.

Races of the 223 exonerees:

138 African Americans
59 Caucasians
19 Latinos
1 Asian American
6 whose race is unknown

• The true suspects and/or perpetrators have been identified in 88 of the DNA exoneration cases.

• Since 1989, there have been tens of thousands of cases where prime suspects were identified and pursued—until DNA testing (prior to conviction) proved that they were wrongly accused.

• In more than 25 percent of cases in a National Institute of Justice study, suspects were excluded once DNA testing was conducted during the criminal investigation (the study, conducted in 1995, included 10,060 cases where testing was performed by FBI labs).

• About half of the people exonerated through DNA testing have been financially compensated. 25 states, the federal government, and the District of Columbia have passed laws to compensate people who were wrongfully incarcerated. Awards under these statutes vary from state to state.

• 33 percent of cases closed by the Innocence Project were closed because of lost or missing evidence.


The Innocence Project - News and Information: Fact Sheets

How many of those cases are more than 20 years old Care? that was my point. TODAY not yesterday. I said in the past it happened a lot.

Juries are much smarter these days and expect more from the prosecution than pointing at the defendant and say "yep, he did it"

 

[mattskramer]

Still, can you guarantee that those convicted really did the crime? I’ll make you a deal. I’ll support the death penalty under the following condition: If jurors send someone to death row who is later found innocent must, themselves, be executed for their nearly fatal mistake. Any takers?

 

[Andrew2382]

K, how about this option.

When someone is guilty we throw them out of the country. if they ente rour borders again they are KOS

 

[mattskramer]

K, how about this option.

When someone is guilty we throw them out of the country. if they ente rour borders again they are KOS

You bet - if they are guilty of bein an illegal alien.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Well to get any juice out of that you'd have to prove god. You can't. No juice. Just an appeal to superstition.

Thank you for that utter non sequitur. If you're not going to bother knowing what the conversation is about, don't presume to butt into it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

as for no one being executed being cleared by dna...i wonder how far the state goes to prove that killed an innocent man??

I believe that in those cases where people were cleared by DNA evidence, the bulk of the work was powered by private interests, such as their lawyers, their families, legal defense funds . . .

If those groups could prove conclusively that someone had been executed wrongly, they would. So far as I know, they haven't yet.

 

[Cecilie1200]

you enjoyed watching the execution of a person that was killed by the state because this person assaulted you and your sis?

i call that SICK.....to the enth degree.

Wow, who asked you?

Not that it's any of your self-righteous, judgemental business, but he wasn't executed for assaulting us. He was executed for stabbing a two-year-old girl multiple times with an ice pick, then leaving her in an abandoned car to bleed to death slowly. The state was ABLE to execute him for that crime because he happened to be in prison at the time, serving a 16-year sentence for assaulting my sister and me. As the only known living victims he ever had, we were invited to attend his execution.

Jesus abolished the laws of leviticus for us Christians to answer your statement earlier about God and the Bible....Jesus DIED for ALL of those sins...no???

When you can cite me the point that Jesus abolished death penalty laws, call me. As for Jesus dying for the guy's sins, that's between him and God, and has nothing whatsoever to do with him still having to pay the LEGAL penalties for his actions.

only about 5 states use the death penalty, ALL OTHER STATES do not.

One of the many reasons I live in THIS state, and not one of the others.

more people are executed in texas each year than all other states combined....i had read somewhere....

Yup. Texas has a law limiting the amount of time someone can sit on death row, appealing endlessly. The rest of the country whines about executing heinous filthbags at all, and Texas put in an express lane.

If I were inclined to move to another state, Texas would certainly be on the list of options.

 

[Cecilie1200]

She's not sick. Just honest. I would have felt the same way given the circumstances.

The problem with places like Texas is the electric chair. They need to economize and get the electric sofa. Justice should be swift. They needn't have these murderous felons sit in jail for decades awaiting their justice.

I thought Texas had switched to lethal injection.

Arizona used to have the gas chamber, and still has one last time I checked, because those who were sentenced to death before a certain date get to choose which they prefer.

 

[Cecilie1200]

why was this man on death row? you say he assaulted you and your sister so I can only assume you were not his only victims, correct?

As for innocent men being excuted, well one can only assume it has happened simply based on the fact that in recent years, as DNA technology has advanced, men have been freed from prison for crimes that they clearly did not commit. Rapes, murders, et al.

Now, I for one support DNA testing for ALL convicted rapists and murders currently in prison. Eliminate ANY doubt of their guilt once and for all and then start signing death warrants for those who have received the dealth penalty. I don't believe in allowing these people to live 10-20 years waiting for their sentence to be carried out.

and I'd like an explanation as to how it's more expensive to execute someone than it is to house them for 40-50 years. How much does the electricity bill go up when you throw that switch? can't be that much.

Okay, here's the story.

This guy had a criminal record a mile long for all kinds of things, and was believed by the cops to have killed several women, but they were never able to prove any of those killings conclusively enough to convict him for them.

My sister and I were walking from our home to the nearby Circle K one night to buy her some cigarettes. We had been up late, studying for a nursing exam she had the next day. The guy came up behind us, grabbed my sister, they struggled and fought, I ran for help, and he took off. A couple of days later, we spotted him on the street, called the cops, and he was arrested. He was subsequently convicted of kidnapping, sexual assault, and indecent exposure (he tore her shirt down the front and had his penis exposed through the fly of his jeans at the time) and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

While he was in prison, his fingerprints were matched to those found at the scene of a murder. He had snatched a two-year-old girl from her bed, taken her to an abandoned car in the area, stabbed her repeatedly with an ice pick, and then left her to bleed to death. I'm told that it took a VERY long time for her to die, and her fingerprints were found all over the inside of the car door where she had tried to open it and get to help. This crime had apparently taken place a short time before he attacked us. He was convicted of her murder, and sentenced to death by lethal injection. He had the automatic appeal required by the law in death-sentence cases, and then rejected all other appeals.

As I mentioned in another post, my sister and I were the only known living victims he had, and we were invited to witness his execution, along with the little girl's family.

 

[Cecilie1200]

No man should have the right to decide when another person's life should end. Period. It's in my signature, "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind."

No man does. Society does, which is quite different from one individual person.

I'm glad you find your signature so pithy, but you'll excuse me if I weigh your personal wisdom and profundity pretty lightly against the entirety of human history.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Sorry, but if someone is guilty of first degree murder and is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Time for him to say bye bye. Better off dead then that piece of shit sitting in a cell not being rehabiltated and spending thousands of tax payer money.

Why in God's name would you even want to bother trying to rehabilitate a heinous killer? To what purpose? Are you really going to want to mainstream him back into society someday?

I understand Squeaky Fromme studied secretarial skills in prison. Why, I have no idea, since it's not as though she was going to be paroled, let alone given a job in someone's office. "Here's a letter opener, Squeaky. Open the mail." "YOU'RE a male."

 

[Cecilie1200]

So the “Ooops, we may have made a mistake” factor does not bother you.

See the bios of the people that lucked out.
The Innocence Project - Know the Cases: Browse Profiles

So far as I know, the Innocence Project has never been able to prove that anyone innocent has been executed. As I said, judges and juries tend to be very reluctant to impose the death sentence without overwhelming proof. Murderers are much more likely to receive life sentences.

 

[Cecilie1200]

K, how about this option.

When someone is guilty we throw them out of the country. if they ente rour borders again they are KOS

Yes, because we do such a fantastic job NOW of keeping people out who aren't supposed to be here.