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This is an example of having an opinion about something without having thought it through. To be fair, many people have this opinion, but they are all doing the same thing.
The long appeals process that everyone complains about in death penalty cases is the reason that 4% of the people convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death who are innocent are not executed. Many of those who were falsely convicted were only exonerated during the last stages of the process as well.
In the Ronnie Lee Williams case in Oklahoma, Ronnie was down to his last stage of appeals and had spent over ten years on death row before the real killer was discovered.
Shorten this process down to 24 hours and there'll be a lot of wrongly executed people. That would probably do more to abolish the death penalty than anything else.
If people who supported the death penalty were not hypocritical, they wouldn't oppose a thorough appeals process and more importantly they'd be willing to use tax dollars to pay for good representation for someone accused of murder, rather than simply the haphazard defense that many still get.
I don't think I'm being hypocritical, sure maybe I didn't think it thru with the 24 hour thing. If the person is guilty without a doubt , like I said thru video, confession, or other things that are absolutley proven why would there need to be an appeal ? In cases where DNA was used or witnesses then sure I can see the need for an appeal. But if the case is done and over and completely proven then the execution should be carried out within a short timeframe...not years.
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Originally Posted by Mack Knife
Prisons are also a huge drain on money for very little return.
The death penalty isn't designed to be lasting punishment, it is meant to the the ultimate punishment, the deprivation of life.
That the punishment ends when the individual dies is irrelevant, it isn't part of the idea.
Often, the institutionalization of a person eliminates the confinement as a punishment, the imprisoned adjust to life in confinement, nothing is accomplished by keeping them there except that they can't directly impact the general public through crimes.
A life of imprisonment as punishment will never equal the finality of death as a punishment. There is no acclimation to death, no getting used to it. While one can argue that someone can get used to the fact they will be put to death, when that time comes all that goes out the window and reality come knocking.
Prisons on are big business... people are getting rich off of it...just not you and I.
I think the main question is: Does it give us license to be as barbaric as they are? We all fear crime, and we hate those who hurt others, and we want to see them suffer. But do we want to become just like them in the process?
The US Constitution has a rule against cruel and unusual punishment. Do you want that repealed?
He was a murderer, he put someone else through a horrible, painful death and he put that person's loved ones through a lifetime of misery by taking away the one they loved. So I don't see any issue with this being rather long and painful for him.
If you can't see an issue with it, then you are as bad as he was. It's just human nature I guess to be able to justify all kinds of wrongs and evils because someone else did it and did it worse maybe. When we put down a mad dog, one that really hurt or killed someone, why don't we take a week or more killing the dog. Chop off a foot and inflict an nonlethal injury each day till that BAD dog dies. Hey, in your way of thinking that would be just and right because the dog put someone else through some kind of Hell.
I find that so many Americans and they are usually of the RWNJ variety take their constitution very seriously, that is until it comes into conflict with something unconstitutional that they think is OK. In case you don't know it the US constitution prohibits "Cruel" punishment. PERIOD!!!!!!!!
The chain of comments following an execution are always really disturbing to me. I think it makes us feel superior to think that guys like this guy are fundamentally different, somehow less human. But people don't become "evil" in some vacuum. There are no uncaused causes. If you were somehow thrust into this guys psyche from the first moment of his life... you would be him now. One does not choose their genetics, parents, peers, traumatic experiences, etc.. Indeed, the notion of unfettered free will is incompatible with both logic and physics.
Now, I get that few of you feel empathy towards a person that you have conveniently placed in a bucket, believing that you - being the person you have grown up to be - would "never do anything like this." And the odds are 99.99% that you are right. But the idea that revenge or torture or any negative consequence will undo what he already did... is wrong. Hoping a murderer dies writhing on a gurney or lives a life of horror has NEVER ONCE resurrected a child or restored a rape victim to wholeness.
All we do in rooting on vengeance is add one extra cherry upon the bloody sundae of the world's misery. By not protecting him and rooting on his agony, we are no different from the most base savages. Worse, we BELIEVE we are different because our evil is somehow justified; that our vengeance is somehow purified by the morality of our hatred. I reject it, and yes I weep for this man's death or pain as much as for the girl he murdered. I am connected to each man and woman in society, and when their limbs are ripped, so are mine. When they die, a piece of me dies too. I fear the idea of losing that empathy, that understanding, that notion that even for the most monstrous humans, "there but for the grace of God go I."
If we could reduce the cost and risk of incarceration, it would make sense to get rid of the death penalty. It's basically a stupid idea. The kind of idea a politician or lawyer would think up. But we need cheaper prisons with better security. We need to reduce the cost of life in prison to below the cost of execution. It already is below, because execution requires hundreds of hours of lawyer time. But we need to reduce it below how cheap it would be if we did it with common sense, rather than lawyer/politician thinking.
Why should it cost so much per day to keep someone in prison? Only because the people who design prisons and prison systems have the same kind of mentality as lawyers and politicians. We need people with common sense to design prisons to make them many times cheaper and more secure than they are now.
I don't understand why finding the right drug is so hard, when we have people dying of accidental overdoses every day. Sounds like a few pain killers and a valium and you are done.
I don't understand why finding the right drug is so hard, when we have people dying of accidental overdoses every day. Sounds like a few pain killers and a valium and you are done.
Drug manufacturers who sell lethal injection drugs get boycotted, so they decide not to sell the drugs. State laws state what kinds of drugs are used to kill inmates.
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Originally Posted by scarabchuck
I don't think I'm being hypocritical, sure maybe I didn't think it thru with the 24 hour thing. If the person is guilty without a doubt , like I said thru video, confession, or other things that are absolutley proven why would there need to be an appeal ? In cases where DNA was used or witnesses then sure I can see the need for an appeal. But if the case is done and over and completely proven then the execution should be carried out within a short timeframe...not years.
Confessions can be forced/induced, and this is why confessions are not automatic. In many cases "easy" evidence doesn't exist.
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Originally Posted by Osito
If it was lethal injection, doesn't that stop the heart? He died anyways, I agree, who cares, good riddance.
That's what lawmakers like: "He's a POS criminal, who cares?" He isn't supposed to die painfully. That means the state violated the constitution.
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