'The Death Penalty, Nearing Its End'

Our government, and that of several other nations, has the capability and the apparent intent to kill a large percentage -- perhaps the majority -- of the human race for no particular reason other than political affiliation.

I see no reason the government shouldn't terminate specific individuals who have proven through their actions to be an active danger to society at large.

 

I think that the strongest response to this is that human error being what it is, it's impossible to completely prevent mistakes from happening, i.e. executing innocent people, even if everyone tries to do everything honestly. It's 12 average joes, voting on this.

 

and it's a couple hundred joes voting to attack another country. both cases innocent people are dying. think that was starman's point.

 

You have to admit, though, that there are some instances in which there is absolutely no doubt. I'll give you an example: Many years ago, in my former city of residence there was a fairly notorious capital murder trial. Guy gets convicted on, say, a Tuesday. They begin the sentencing phase on Thursday. That night, our capital murder defendant somehow gets his hands on some twerpy little habitual misdemeanant (booked on a DWI charge) and beats him to death before the guards can intervene. It's all caught on video. There is no doubt.

The point is, no matter where you come down on the morality of capital punishment, you can't argue that there's always a chance of an execution-of-an-innocent.

 

Ragu, this is essentially my case right now.

The defense attorney at trial did not challenge the state's extremely flawed theory of the case with the most plausible alternate theory available. And that's essentially our core argument right now. There is DNA evidence, therefore, sitting in an evidence locker somewhere, that the defense attorney at trial never thought worthwhile to examine. We're desperately fighting to discover it.

 

I've seen several specific instances where I had no qualms with a particular defendant being sentenced to death.

Yet I've long thought the cost of executing someone far outweighed its value as punishment. You have to house the condemned in separate quarters. They appropriately have rights to additional appeals and counsel to effectuate those appeals. The lengthy process and periodic revisiting of the case takes a terrible toll on relatives of the victim. A life sentence without parole is far more efficient.

Then in recent years as we've seen more and more wrongful convictions, which reveal inconvenient truths about the flaws in our justice system, and the stark numbers about how the death penalty is disproportionately given to people of color and the poor, I've become even less convinced that it is a worthwhile pursuit to end a man's life for the sake of justice.

 

No, but how are we supposed to have a system where we, in some principled way, sort out the kind-of, sort-of, probably guilty people from the he-definitely-did-it people? There are cases I've worked on where every SOB involved in the prosecution would have sworn on his or her mother's grave that these guys were guilty as sin because of X, Y, and Z. And, as it turns out, they didn't do it.

There are posters here who have argued passionately that Cameron Todd Willingham obviously killed his children because he didn't seem sad enough when talking to the fire department afterward, or some such nonsense.

 

No idea. Which is why I too am inclined to think that the DP should no longer be used.

 

It does not deter crime.

If you are a Christian, you cannot make a case for capital punishnment.

We look like a bunch of bloodthirsty ghouls to much of the civilized world for killing prisoners.

The only purpose of it is for vengeance.

Get rid of it already.

 

What I meant was that if the death penalty is in place, there is always the chance that innocents, at large, will be executed. Certainly there are some cases where it's pretty incontrovertible.

Then, of course, even in those cases we're asking the random sampling of average joes to weigh aggravating and mitigating factors, which is likely asking what is bigger, the color red or the letter "P"? It gets to be a farce, really.

 

Oh, I understand, and I agree with you.

I do wonder, however, what a post-DP world looks like. Is there as much emphasis placed on freeing the wrongly convicted?