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Really, in cases like this, the "death" penalty does not even seem harsh enough. A cushy last meal, last rites, lay in a nice bed, have a needle stuck in the arm. That does not come close to the penalty these sickos should have. Back in the 17th century, they tied men to stakes in the water, and let them watch the tide slowly come in...and get nibbled on by random fish, still alive. Or they would hang them, and sometimes they would not die for hours. Brutal...but really, if we have a death penalty, why bother to be so "humane", after all the death penalty is reserved for people who did heinous crimes. I would be good with watching these guys be thrown in an alligator pond.
In Cuba a few years ago several men attempted a boat escape. They were caught and on trial within the week ... then lined up and shot. This was less than two weeks after their failed escape.
I am against vigilante justice but our appeals system needs work. We need harsh punishment immediately for child molesters and anyone that harms children. I think it would cut down on some of the crime if a person is guilty and we expedited punishment.
Troy Davis is a good example he killed a cop in Savannah, a father with children that never got to know their dad ... 23 years later Troy became the poster child for Democracy Now, NAACP and NCADP. Davis became the victim instead of police officer Mark MacPhail that he murdered.
In Cuba a few years ago several men attempted a boat escape. They were caught and on trial within the week ... then lined up and shot. This was less than two weeks after their failed escape.
Leon Czogolz assassinated President McKinley in 1900 with a handgun. He was arrested, tried, and executed within six weeks of the occurrence of the crime. Czogolz was certainly guilty of shooting McKinley. Any number of people had observed him raise the pistol and fire shots into McKinley's torso while he was in a line at "the Temple of Music" at the 1900 Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
Nevertheless, most historians who look back on all of this see it as a mistake. First, Czolgolz undoubtedly suffered from mental illness at the time. No one can begin to pretend that a legal proceeding which takes all of six weeks from arrest to execution could even begin to evaluate a complex issue like mental illness and whether it drove him to shoot the President. Second, and more importantly, the prompt trial and execution of Czogolz was flawed in the sense that the total circumstances of the crime should have been considered. Did Czolgolz really act alone? Was he part of a conspiracy of some sort to kill McKinley? Even if no one else was involved in the crime, when a President is murdered there is going to be endless speculation about all the "conspiracies" that must have been involved in his death. Anyone who doubts this need only think of all the books and theories published in the last 48 years about the John F. Kennedy assassination. A lengthy public trial and investigation could have put much of this to rest.
Not every person occupies the stature that the President of the United States does. However, not only the offender, but the public would be poorly served by a system that rushes to judgment without adequate time to investigate all the nuances of an important case.
Deterrence is an important part of the criminal justice system. However, "getting things right" is an even more important part. People can't respect a system that doesn't take the time to thoroughly sort through the worst crimes that occur. Its interesting to me that the example of "speedy and efficient system" that you cite is from Communist Cuba. Most people regard this Totalitarian system as broken. Is your point that it worked on one occasion?
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I am against vigilante justice but our appeals system needs work. We need harsh punishment immediately for child molesters and anyone that harms children. I think it would cut down on some of the crime if a person is guilty and we expedited punishment.
I think you could make a direct correlation between the number of innocent people executed by the system and the speed during which the entire process took place. We currently incarcerate or imprison some innocent people who have been incorrectly adjudicated as guilty by our system. Most of accept that--to a point--as the price we have to pay to have a criminal justice system. When you start killing people (death penalty) you add an entirely new layer to that. How many innocent deaths are we willing to accept as the price for having the death penalty? And, please don't try to tell me innocent people never end up on death row. It has happened and for those who actually bother to read my posts on this group, I've cited articles and books that prove it.
Yes, we could speed up the appeals process. What is the price you are willing to accept for shortening all appeals to say two years in length? Are you willing to accept the execution of 1 innocent offender every year? Are you willing to accept the incarceration of 150 new innocent offenders for crimes like child molestation?
If you want a shortened appeals process than go for it. But don't sit around and pretend there will be no consequences. More innocent people will go to jail and a few innocent people will eventually be executed. Be prepared to justify that outcome and argue that the advantages of such a process outweigh its costs.
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Troy Davis is a good example he killed a cop in Savannah, a father with children that never got to know their dad ... 23 years later Troy became the poster child for Democracy Now, NAACP and NCADP. Davis became the victim instead of police officer Mark MacPhail that he murdered.
I think it was quite unfortunate that Troy Davis was executed. He may have been guilty. He may have been innocent. The evidence against him was entirely based on eyewitnesses. Some of those eyewitnesses later recanted their testimony and identification of him as the offender. My position is that in order to have the death penalty, if we don't have DNA evidence, than we better have other strong physical evidence. Eye witness testimony has been shown to be very flawed in many circumstances. Southern juries have long histories of treating African Americans disparately based upon their race. People can tell me until they are blue in the face that "racism doesn't exist in America". I've lived long enough and observed enough of it to know they are full of crap.
Look, we've had our share of violent crimes where I live. I won't pretend that if one of my family members was the victim of a violent crime that I wouldn't be screaming for the offender's blood either. However, that's not really the point. The reason we have a criminal justice system that is long, cumbersome, and tedious is because we don't want these matters resolved through our emotions. We want them resolved properly and correctly by reason and analysis. Lastly If the offender is sitting in jail the whole time the process is underway, he/she is doing no further harm to society
Still good with these child molesting killers being gator food. They have a big pen of gators outside of St. Augustine, FL.
There is clear evidence, they even confessed, DNA, and an eye witness. What more do we need?
It seems people want a video of the event ... to be able to see all the gory details. In recent years it appears 'eyewitness accounts' just don't get it.
The reason being ... time has passed often years before the case goes to court and a good defense lawyer is able to convince the said eyewitness they didn't see what they thought they did many years ago!
The reason being ... time has passed often years before the case goes to court and a good defense lawyer is able to convince the said eyewitness they didn't see what they thought they did many years ago!
Which appears to be one of the reasons why there can be, apparently, 5 eye-witnesses and each offers a different description or narrative of events...
I think it is a worse punishment to have life in prison without ANY chance of parole.
It is also cheaper than pursuing the death penalty.
Although, I can understand a victim's family wanting to feel that sense of closure that comes when the guilty person is finally put to death.
Unfortunately, that often doesn't come for years......
How is life in prison cheaper than pursuing the death penalty?
The Manson girls have been in prison for over 40 yrs now. They were going to be sentenced to death but the Supreme Court overturned the death penalty.
While in prison they got college degrees, medical care, dental work.
Susan Atkins got brain cancer and died in jail, but she was treated for it.
Her family and supporters tried to get her released, and hearings were held which cost the state of CA money.
They wanted some mercy for her. This is the woman who proudly boasted that she told Sharon Tate who pleaded for the life of her unborn child "B***h I have no pity for you", before stabbing her to death.
I was so glad CA might the right decision and kept her in jail.
And the other two Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkle go in front of the parole board every few years, thankfully the last remaining Tate sister and members of the LaBianca family are there to speak their mind.
here is a website presenting arguments for and against the idea that capital punishment is cheaper than life in prison - there appear to be more articles stating that it is cheaper to keep someone in prison for life rather than putting them on death row, where they may not be executed for many, many years.
here is a website presenting arguments for and against the idea that capital punishment is cheaper than life in prison - there appear to be more articles stating that it is cheaper to keep someone in prison for life rather than putting them on death row, where they may not be executed for many, many years.
Welcome to the "True Crime" forum where a large number of posters fancy themselves "experts" on criminal justice despite the fact that the only sources for their knowledge tend to be sensationalized newspaper and t.v. accounts of terrible crimes, books by Ann Rule, and what their similarly uneducated friends and neighbors constantly spout.
You can quote solid numbers from the Department of Justice, FBI, or anywhere else. You'll never convince most of these people because it isn't what they want to believe. You can explain that the appeals process for convicted criminal defendants is long and tedious because (1) its what the U.S. Supreme Court requires; and (2) some innocent people have been freed during the last stages of this process. These people want to design an entire system based on a few horrendous crimes. They want to label our criminal justice system a "failure" because they compare it with their idea of perfection rather than other systems in this world. Some of them will even deny reality when the contrary evidence is staring them in the face.
I think most of them went to school without taking a course in Civics. If they had they might have learned that the Eighth Amendment protects all persons (including the riff raff) from "cruel and unusual punishments". (I don't argue that the death penalty per se is cruel and unusual. I do contend that throwing offenders into an alligator pond is). A variety of other protections exist within our system to prevent it from becoming a "mill" or assembly line that destroys our liberties as Americans. Sometime, it would be instructive for most of them to read the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution instead of watching "Law and Order".
No, things like "racism" don't exist (even in the Jim Crow South) which executes probably 85% of the people who are given the death penalty in this country. Even though the number of people being executed is disproportionately African American we shouldn't even consider something like racism.
Don't "pop their bubble". This artificial and nonsensical world is exactly where most of these people are comfortable living.
Bill Petit suffered the worst loss a man can go through, his family brutally murdered. This is the story of how, little by little, a man puts a life together.
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