Woman with 70 IQ set for Va. execution

From Lithwick last year, about the Willingham case and the Supreme Court's mockery of the hypothetical innocent man who was put to death.

http://www.slate.com/id/2227222

 

nice pull

 

She's a human being who hired another to commit murder.

If she's smart enough to do the crime, she should be smart enough to suffer the consequences of the crime.

 

I've always been opposed to the death penalty though I will admit there's something instinctive in all of us that demands a life for a life.
When you read about some particularly bad murders or even child molestation cases that are not murders, you're probably not human if on some level you don't want the perpetrator to die and suffer in the process.
But I don't trust the criminal justice system to get it right every time and given the irreversibility of the punishment, the system had better get it right every time.
The Ricky Lee Rector case was despicable. On the whole, I like Bill Clinton, but I'll never forgive him for the way he handled that case.
I also hate the fact that in that situation doing the right thing would have been viewed as a political liability.
For anyone running for office, opposing the death penalty is political suicide. It's not right, but that's the way it is.

 

I don't struggle with much in my beliefs, but capital punishment is one that I go back and forth on constantly.

 

Me too.

I see both sides of the argument and agree with both of them at times.

I'm generally in favor of it, but wouldn't be sad to see it go either.

I think some people have basically forfeited their right to walk among us, but am uncomfortable with our government putting someone to death.

I think it's an effective tool in the prosecutor's arsenal. A lot of folks will take a plea to avoid a possible death sentence. (Double edged sword of course.)

I'd like to think it's a deterrent, but can't be sure. I'd like to think that if criminal knew that killing a cop would get you the chair (or the needle), that it might make it safer for cops.

I have no sympathy for most of the people on Death Row. I find many of the people advocating for them to be completely disingenuous. (The Mumia advocates for instance.)

I think you'd have a lot more people willing to let go of the death penalty if we really felt like the worst among us would be incarcerated for life.

The death penalty is permanent. I think a lot of us fear that too many murders will find a sympathetic judge or parole board who will spring someone we thought was going to get life.

 

How could life without parole mean anything but life without parole?

 

Well, to start, if life without parole is the top punishment, it means that they may be offered a plea to something less.

When the death penalty is on the table, then life without parole is what they're taking in the plea.

And there's no guaranty that the worst offenders will be sentenced to life without parole.

 

I too have mixed reactions to the death penalty.

The science and mechanism for putting someone to death in modern American society seems a bit perverse.

But, I worked on a project for a newspaper, spending a lot of time in Texas prisons over the course of several weeks. I knew just by looking at some of those folks that they would probably waste much time killing me if they thought that they might gain something from it.


And, oddly to me at least, is the notion that, if someone is really sorry for what they've done and finds Jesus, there's less of a reason for them to be put to death.

On the other side, there are people who, through accident of birth, ended up in situations where you could have made a pretty good bet that they could easily end up on death row.

 

why do you hate the environment?

 

But after someone receives that sentence, that's the sentence. There's no way around it.