Death Penalty

[miko2d]

midnight Target: And there are still over 100 cases of innocent men on death row over the past 30 years.

 How does that compare to the traffic deaths? Should we abandon cars and airplanes? What human undertaking is perfect?

 miko

[midnight Target]

What human undertaking is so easily perfected? We could reduce the number of innocent executions to ZERO easily.

[Eagler]

STARKE - Newton Carlton Slawson , convicted of killing four members of a Tampa family and a fetus, was executed by injection Friday after a 13-hour delay while his mental competency was questioned.


Slawson, 48, was convicted in the April 11, 1989, shooting deaths of Gerald and Peggy Wood, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and their two young children, Glendon, 3, and Jennifer, 4. Slawson sliced Peggy Wood's body with a knife and pulled out her fetus, which had two gunshot wounds and multiple cuts, court records show

14 years living off the tax payers sweat is about 13 years 6 months too long for me

[Nifty]

Originally posted by midnight Target
What human undertaking is so easily perfected? We could reduce the number of innocent executions to ZERO easily.

I would love for it to be zero.  At the same time, though, I cannot condone letting people who murder families live out the remainder of their natural lives on my tax dollars.  If you can give me an alternative to capital punishment where truly guilty multiple murderers do not suck state/federal dollars for the rest of their natural lives, I'd be more than happy to back your alternative.

[midnight Target]

Executed Despite Doubts About Guilt

There is no way to tell how many of the over 750 people executed since 1976 may also have been innocent. Courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead. Defense attorneys move on to other cases where clients' lives can still be saved. Some of those with strong claims include:

Roger Keith Coleman Virginia Conviction 1982 Executed 1992
Coleman was convicted of raping and murdering his sister-in-law in 1981, but both his trial and appeal were plagued by errors made by his attorneys. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the merits of his petition because his state appeal had been filed one day late. Considerable evidence was developed after the trial to refute the state's evidence, and that evidence might well have produced a different result at a re-trial. Governor Wilder considered a commutation for Coleman, but allowed him to be executed when Coleman failed a lie detector test on the day of his execution.

Joseph O'Dell Virginia Conviction 1986 Executed 1997
New DNA blood evidence has thrown considerable doubt on the murder and rape conviction of O'Dell. In reviewing his case in 1991, three Supreme Court Justices, said they had doubts about O'Dell's guilt and whether he should have been allowed to represent himself. Without the blood evidence, there is little linking O'Dell to the crime. In September, 1996, the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated his death sentence and upheld his conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review O'Dell's claims of innocence and held that its decision regarding juries being told about the alternative sentence of life-without-parole was not retroactive to his case. O'Dell asked the state to conduct DNA tests on other pieces of evidence to demonstrate his innocence but was refused. He was executed on July 23rd.

David Spence Texas Conviction 1984 Executed 1997
Spence was charged with murdering three teenagers in 1982. He was allegedly hired by a convenience store owner to kill another girl, and killed these victims by mistake. The convenience store owner, Muneer Deeb, was originally convicted and sentenced to death, but then was acquitted at a re-trial. The police lieutenant who supervised the investigation of Spence, Marvin Horton, later concluded: "I do not think David Spence committed this crime." Ramon Salinas, the homicide detective who actually conducted the investigation, said: "My opinion is that David Spence was innocent. Nothing from the investigation ever led us to any evidence that he was involved." No physical evidence connected Spence to the crime. The case against Spence was pursued by a zealous narcotics cop who relied on testimony of prison inmates who were granted favors in return for testimony.

Leo Jones Florida Convicted 1981 Executed 1998
Jones was convicted of murdering a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida. Jones signed a confession after several hours of police interrogation, but he later claimed the confession was coerced. In the mid-1980s, the policeman who arrested Jones and the detective who took his confession were forced out of uniform for ethical violations. The policeman was later identified by a fellow officer as an "enforcer" who had used torture. Many witnesses came forward pointing to another suspect in the case.

Gary Graham Texas Convicted 1981 Executed 2000
On June 23, 2000, Gary Graham was executed in Texas, despite claims that he was innocent. Graham was 17 when he was charged with the 1981 robbery and shooting of Bobby Lambert outside a Houston supermarket. He was convicted primarily on the testimony of one witness, Bernadine Skillern, who said she saw the killer's face for a few seconds through her car windshield, from a distance of 30 -40 feet away. Two other witnesses, both who worked at the grocery store and said they got a good look at the assailant, said Graham was not the killer but were never interviewed by Graham's court appointed attorney, Ronald Mock, and were not called to testify at trial. Three of the jurors who voted to convict Graham signed affidavits saying they would have voted differently had all of the evidence been available.

[miko2d]

midnight Target: What human undertaking is so easily perfected? We could reduce the number of innocent executions to ZERO easily.

 It sounds tempting.

 Your math is not accurate, though. There is quite a number of innocents that are killed each year by criminals released from prison.

 Also a few extra million dollars that the state diverts towards maintaining an extra jail is bound to kill some innocents through worse road repair or less police on the street, etc..

 You can raise taxes of course to cover both expences, but then families will have less money for food, healthcare, better housing and newer cars etc. and a few extra innocents are going to end up dead anyway.

 Certainly you can raise taxes on rich only but that will cause them to reduce their entrepreneural activities and investing which will result in people losing jobs and having less money for food and healthcare and moving into crime-ridden public housing and some innocents are going to end up dead.

 The amount of resources is limited and diverting them from productive use reduces the total number available for redistribution, no matter how tight you close your eyes not to see the side effects.

 miko

[Eagler]

too bad they shut down ole Sparky - think it made the animals last days alittle less enjoyable.. sumpin for them to thunk bout, instead of just falling asleep at the end.

[Eagler]

MT
instead of killing them, can we ship their crazed tulips to CA to live off your nickel? how bout building a prison to house them within earshot of your home, sound good?

[funkedup]

I think murderers and traitors and child rapists deserve execution.  But even one innocent person executed is too many.  If we give them life without parole, at least we can release them if new evidence clears them of the crime.  I'd be for the death penalty otherwise, but the statistics are just too ugly, particularly in Illinois.  Too many innocent men on death row.

(In Illinois, since the death penalty was reinstated, 12 men were executed, and 13 men on death row were found innocent.  I.e. the likelihood that a death row inmate would be executed was about equal to the chance that he was innocent.  Completely unacceptable.)

[funkedup]

Originally posted by Eagler
MT
instead of killing them, can we ship their crazed tulips to CA to live off your nickel? how bout building a prison to house them within earshot of your home, sound good?

CA has the death penalty, Einstein.

[midnight Target]

My math is accurate miko, your reading comprehension is wanting. I said zero INNOCENT EXECUTIONS.

[funkedup]

Ya know if we stopped putting millions in jail for victimless crimes (drugs), we wouldn't have any problem paying for life imprisonment for all the people on death row...

[GtoRA2]

Anyone remember a recent new article
About the company doing DNA tests to get guys off death row, was "accidental" contaminating evidence?

I cant remember where I read it, but they said it was all handles wrong and the guys that got off because of it where prolly guilty...


Anyone else here it?

Hey MT, if it was fool proof, and no one innocent would die would you be for it? I would.

But you are right, if we can not guarantee a person was guilty then lock them up for life.

[Naso]

I read somewhere that a capital execution cost a huge amount of money, is that correct?

Someone have figures about it?

[miko2d]

midnight Target: My math is accurate miko, your reading comprehension is wanting. I said zero INNOCENT EXECUTIONS.

 Oh, sorry. My mistake on not catching up to your little word play.

 Once you count those faceless dead by government tax decree as "natural causes" or accidents and other specific people put to death death in prison by government decree as "executions", you can make a distinction and strive for "zero executions" - innocent or otherwise, while the rest of us picks up a tab in human lives lost.
 We don't matter, right - after all we are not "executed", just killed by redistributive policies you propose.

 If you are so cincerned with labels, I have a cheaper solution for you. Rename judicial killings from "executions" to something else and your goal of "zero INNOCENT EXECUTIONS" is achieved instantly. How about "terminations"?

 miko