Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Gunslinger on February 10, 2004, 12:23:42 AM
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4221640/
Being the first time I've started such a discussion please take it easy on me. I myself have mixed feelings on execution. As a parent I try to teach my kids right from wrong and that two wrongs dont make a right. On that basis it would be hard to explain to my kids later in life why people are still executed. To add another aspect I am a man of fait. To me, this seems like playing god. However, it might be god's will for him to die like this, who am I to question it. Lastly, what if the man is in fact innocent? If one innocent man is executed everyone in society has failed.
As far as the pro execution points go its real simple. What if it had been my family that had been killed. Cooper was convicted of stabbing and hacking to death Douglas and Peggy Ryen, both 41, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and 11-year-old Christopher Hughes after escaping from prison in 1983. The Ryens’ son, Joshua, then 8, survived a slit throat. With that in mind one would think he gets the easy ticket out of life via leathel injection.
I am not at all fluent in the law or the law's intentions but I have to ask. Is execution more for punishment or deterrence? I don't buy the argument that european nations quit doing it along time ago so therefor it is barbaric. Why should a family wait 20 years for justice to be conveined? If this man was convicted in a court of law by a jurry of his peers with every other apeal denied, why now?
What would be some good alternatives to execution besides life in prison?
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The demand by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals...
I didn't read any farther.
MiniD
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9th circus court... a more liberal organization has never operated in the area of law, and in all likelihood, never will.
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Originally posted by Steve
9th circus court... a more liberal organization has never operated in the area of law, and in all likelihood, never will.
and the most overruled court in the land. They are a disgrace.
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When you have a threat, you have one responsible option:
Neutralize it.
Since we don't have a method for fixing whatever is wrong with people who kill, we have one very efficient way of neutralizing the threat, execution.
The day there's a 100% effective method for guaranteeing a killer will never be a threat (other then execution), then open the conversation about alternatives to the death penalty. Until then...
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Oh, regarding the ruling, here's the important part:
"They said the execution should be stayed, but only for as long as it takes to test the shirt for evidence of a preservative that would indicate that Cooper’s blood was planted."[/b]
This is hardly a ticket out of prison, it's just an evidence check. If we're executing people, there has to be no doubt about it. You need to maintain both properness and the appearance of properness. This is all about the latter part.
They'll run the test, figure out the evidence wasn't planted ( :rolleyes: ) then bzzzt, game over.
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to me the death penalty is to assure that the jerk will never do it again.
Plus it cost money to house and feed him for the reast of his life.
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Sounds like he has allready been in prison 18 years..wow.
What is a 9th circuit court?
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Is he guilty?
Anyway, it has come out of the water that in some years some 17 indiviuduals were executed in the US, later to be proved not guilty. Death is hard to undo....
The answer is: Penal colonies, :D
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Originally posted by mrblack
to me the death penalty is to assure that the jerk will never do it again.
Plus it cost money to house and feed him for the reast of his life.
yeah but it costs the taxpayer more to kill them, in a humane way than it costs to keep them in prision for life. why cant we concentrate on ways to make life in prison so hard that they want to commit suicide. and encourage them to do so.
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yeah but it costs the taxpayer more to kill them
THAT is a flaw in the legal system where they have 50 zillion appeals and stays. Then they make the arguement that the original lawyer didn't do his job, and they go thru the 50 zillions appeals and stays all over again.
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Life in prision is a harsher sentence than the death penalty.
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Yes it is pretty sad that this guy has spent 20 years in prison and on the day of his execution they give him a stay. I think that in itself is cruel and inhumane punishment.
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Angus: Anyway, it has come out of the water that in some years some 17 indiviuduals were executed in the US, later to be proved not guilty.
If you question the validity of killing itself based on human judgement, sure - we are not perfect or omniscient and errors are going to be made.
If on the other hand you are just doing economic calculation in terms of human lives, how many people were killed because a recidivist criminal was not executed and let out after his - often lengthy - prison term?
I do not know the detail but I bet that most of those 17 indiviuduals who got wrongly executed were criminals with long records.
It is very unlikely that an upstanding guy with a job and family would get executed for a greasly murder of a family for $100 or a rape. In most cases the police and prosecution err by grabbing some nearby low-life - about whom they often know for sure that he has commited other murders and rapes but do not have evidence that would stand in court.
Considering that, the magnitude of the errors is not as great and the cost of eliminating those errors by abandoning death penalty may be hundreds of trully innocent lives.
miko
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Originally posted by Pongo
Sounds like he has allready been in prison 18 years..wow.
What is a 9th circuit court?
The 9th circuit court is a California based court of appeals that is renowned for it's extreme leftwing rulings. I'm not exagerating that at all... if anything I'm understating it. Their decision here is not based on burden of evidence or doubt of guilt, it's based on finding a way to block an execution any way they can. There could be video tape of the crime and the 9th would appeal it if the video recorder didn't have a ul listing on it.
MiniD
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QUOTE: "If on the other hand you are just doing economic calculation in terms of human lives, how many people were killed because a recidivist criminal was not executed and let out after his - often lengthy - prison term? "
Well Miko, those 17 executions left the real murderer still walking. So maybe, the death toll is more there as well. Anyway, we have 17 + (?) vs how many?
There is a point in this. Shouldn't life sentence be for LIFE? Or better (and cheaper?) still, shouldn't Death penalty be changed to Life sentence with no pardon possible?
Wonder how it's done in most of Europe. In my country, I actually think the penalties are to weak.
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Originally posted by Mini D
The 9th circuit court is a California based court of appeals that is renowned for it's extreme leftwing rulings. I'm not exagerating that at all... if anything I'm understating it. Their decision here is not based on burden of evidence or doubt of guilt, it's based on finding a way to block an execution any way they can. There could be video tape of the crime and the 9th would appeal it if the video recorder didn't have a ul listing on it.
MiniD
Not exagerating at all?
buahahahahahaha
from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26985-2004Feb9.html
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 9 -- The Supreme Court late Monday let stand an appeals court's stay for a man who hacked four people to death in 1983, denying California's request to let the execution proceed as planned.
So who is "to blame" for the stay? The SC or the 9th?
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You guys forget.
California's governer used to be "the Terminator"
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Angus: Well Miko, those 17 executions left the real murderer still walking. So maybe, the death toll is more there as well.
But since some of those 17 were dangerous criminals, there may have been some lives saved as well.
Anyway, we have 17 + (?) vs how many?
There is a point in this. Shouldn't life sentence be for LIFE? Or better (and cheaper?) still, shouldn't Death penalty be changed to Life sentence with no pardon possible?
I would be possible (tp push the abolition through) if the system was not so screwed up. First, the criminals should be held at their own expense or at least cover most of it with their own labor.
Second, they should not enjoy the same legal rights.
Right now, a prisoner can entertain himself with filing friolous lawsuits that cost him nothing but millions to the state.
They also get medical care for free that would not be available to their victims of their families.
Also, every year the idiotic laws make millions of non-violent people commiting "victimless crimes" (marijuana posession., etc.) to become prisoners - which provides victims to the real criminals. I bet dangerous criminals have better time in prison than they ever do outside - with fresh supply of victims locked in.
The next time someone's son or daughter gets jailed for some trivial reason like friend leaving a joint in their car, he may find little comfort knowing that there will be a bunch of violent murderers welcoming them to prison life.
No wonder people support death penalty so eagerly in US. If alternatives seemed reasonable - hard labor, real "life" sentenses, there would be much less support for capital punishment.
miko
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Executions take way too long in process and cost the state millions of dollars.
The guy was caught and convicted in 1983. He should be **DEAD WITHIN DAYS.**
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Originally posted by miko2d
Angus: Well Miko, those 17 executions left the real murderer still walking. So maybe, the death toll is more there as well.
But since some of those 17 were dangerous criminals, there may have been some lives saved as well.
Anyway, we have 17 + (?) vs how many?
There is a point in this. Shouldn't life sentence be for LIFE? Or better (and cheaper?) still, shouldn't Death penalty be changed to Life sentence with no pardon possible?
I would be possible if the syetem was not so screwed up. First, the criminals should be held at their own expense or at least cover most of it with their own labor.
Second, they should not enjoy the same legal rights.
Right now, a prisoner can entertain himself with filing friolous lawsuits that cost him nothing but millions to the state.
They also get medical care for free that would not be available to their victims of their families.
Also, every year the idiotic laws make millions of non-violent people commiting "victimless crimes" (marijuana posession., etc.) to become prisoners - which provides victims to the real criminals. I bet dangerous criminals have better time in prison than they ever do outside - with fresh supply of victims locked in.
The next time someone's son or daughter gets jailed for some trivial reason like friend leaving a joint in their car, he may find little comfort knowing that there will be a bunch of violent murderers welcoming them to prosion life.
No wonder people support death penalty so eagerly in US. If alternatives seemed reasonable - hard labor, real "life" sentenses, there would be much less support for capital punishment.
miko
ding ding ding!
what he said - get their useless taxpayer support orange arses out in the heat and pick up trash from the highways, clean up landfills, feed the homeless, anything! -just get them the hell out of their air conditioned/cable tv cells and make them do their "time" in a manner which is less comfortable than their outside existance instead of better...
as for the hacker - he should have stopped wasting our oxygen about 15 years ago...
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Originally posted by midnight Target
So who is "to blame" for the stay? The SC or the 9th?
The 9th. The Supreme Court supported their right to do so. I never said the appeal wasn't legal. Obviously, the supreme court agreed. What I am saying is there most likely is not another appelat court in the U.S. that would still be appealing this case.
MiniD
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
Executions take way too long in process and cost the state millions of dollars.
The guy was caught and convicted in 1983. He should be **DEAD WITHIN DAYS.**
There is ample evidence that many (over 100 in past 30 years) convicts sent to death row were innocent men. "Dead within days" would have eliminated their eventual releases.
Let them work, for life.... good idea.
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Originally posted by Mini D
"The demand by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals..."
I didn't read any farther.
MiniD
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Originally posted by midnight Target
There is ample evidence that many (over 100 in past 30 years) convicts sent to death row were innocent men. "Dead within days" would have eliminated their eventual releases.
Let them work, for life.... good idea.
I don't recall advocating a death within days policy... ever.
I do believe there is a middle ground between death within days and what the 9th routinely does. I consider both to be extremes... neither of which deserve an attempt at defense.
MiniD
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I've been dead set against the DP ever since that day I accidentally walked in on SOB, MiniD and Fatty's mom in the FDB latrine. Talk about cruel and unusual.
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No. We proved that some people killed were innocent VIA DNA.
However, DNA is almost always used in present day Trials, so there's no excuse to delay it.
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I believe that DNA must be used to prove guilt beyond scientific doubt. Having said that I believe the death penalty should be carried out at sunrise of the day following conviction.
I also believe that people opposed to the death penalty should be executed ;)
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I personally favor the death penalty in certain cases.
But the argument that if we don't put the killer to death we leave open the opportunity for him to kill again is pretty absurd.
Has it ever been the case that a murderer convicted and sentenced to life in prison w/o parole in a non-death penalty state and who would have gotten the death penalty in another state, has subsequently been released from prison and killed again?
I suppose there's the people he may kill in prison, or may kill during an escape attempt - but in most death penalty cases the killer is in prison for many, many years before being put to death - so the additional risk to society of life in prison vs. death is simply a non-factor.
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Originally posted by Mini D
I don't recall advocating a death within days policy... ever.
MiniD
I don't recall saying you did.
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Originally posted by Samiam
I personally favor the death penalty in certain cases.
But the argument that if we don't put the killer to death we leave open the opportunity for him to kill again is pretty absurd.
Has it ever been the case that a murderer convicted and sentenced to life in prison w/o parole in a non-death penalty state and who would have gotten the death penalty in another state, has subsequently been released from prison and killed again?
I suppose there's the people he may kill in prison, or may kill during an escape attempt - but in most death penalty cases the killer is in prison for many, many years before being put to death - so the additional risk to society of life in prison vs. death is simply a non-factor.
Read the article. This particular prisoner was an "ESCAPEE" when he commited these crimes. Now I dont know what he was initially in prison for but it does show there's a chance.
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
Read the article. This particular prisoner was an "ESCAPEE" when he commited these crimes. Now I dont know what he was initially in prison for but it does show there's a chance.
Doh! Then let's drop the dude.
Actually, I still claim that the "risk to society" argument is lame as most people sentenced to death spend a long time in prison and have a nearly equal chance of being a societal risk as a lifer.
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Risk to society? Bah.
You kill someone and we'll kill you back! :D
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Originally posted by Yeager
I believe that DNA must be used to prove guilt beyond scientific doubt. Having said that I believe the death penalty should be carried out at sunrise of the day following conviction.
Unfortunately DNA isn't 100%. There's always doubt about how the DNA got to it's location.
Originally posted by miko2d
Also, every year the idiotic laws make millions of non-violent people commiting "victimless crimes" (marijuana posession., etc.) to become prisoners - which provides victims to the real criminals.[/B]
Indeed, the US has the most number of prisoners per capita in the world at 701 per 100,000.
As way of comparison:
Russia is second at 606 per 100,000.
Mexico has 156 per 100,000.
England has 140 per 100,000.
Canada has 116 per 100,000.
Germany has 98 per 100,000
France has 93 per 100,000.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/icps/worldbrief/world_brief.html
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So, it seems like the US gun liberty AND death penalties do not keep people from crime so easily.
My humble country has the rate of 40, which means that the USA has relatively 20 times more people in jail!
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No offense to anyone wasting their time collecting this data, but the numbers don't mean anything.
The US has really stiff punishments. Hence, more people will be in jail.
Other countries have lax punishment, hence less people in jail.
For example, a guy murdered a Belgian Senator. He recieved 18 years jail with parole option at 8.
In the US, he would have at least gotten life in prison.
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"Unfortunately DNA isn't 100%. There's always doubt about how the DNA got to it's location."
OJ probably shot a good round of golf today. Our legal system is a circus altogether.
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
No offense to anyone wasting their time collecting this data, but the numbers don't mean anything.
Of course it means something.
The US has really stiff punishments. Hence, more people will be in jail.
Other countries have lax punishment, hence less people in jail.
Now corrolate the stats I presented with the number of crimes in the given countries.
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Thrawn: Indeed, the US has the most number of prisoners per capita in the world at 701 per 100,000.
As way of comparison:
Russia is second at 606 per 100,000.
In Russia one would get 5 years for an offense that in US would result in probation - like theft.
Angus: So, it seems like the US gun liberty AND death penalties do not keep people from crime so easily.
My humble country has the rate of 40, which means that the USA has relatively 20 times more people in jail!
Most of the people in jail are there for the so-called "victimless crime" non-violent offenses that got criminalised illegitimetely. A couple of ounces of marijuana in your posession or a few plants in your backyard woudl land you in jail for 10 years in USA. What do "gun liberty AND death penalties" have to do with that?
In your humble country (which you did not care to indicate in your profile), those offences are probably not a crime at all.
Also, we have the same laws and guns for all but the crime rate among blacks in US is much greater than among whites - even comparing the samples with the same income level. Almost half of inmates in US prisons are blacks despite being 12% of the population. Another 13% are hispanics that are also disproportionately represented in jail/crime stats.
I bet that your country is mostly white, so you should compare your stats with the stats of white US population if you want to make any sense.
Remove blacks from your stats, you get drop in half. Remove hispanics, you probably get it halved again. Remove drug-posession offences for which in your country no jail is given, and US stats will be about as good as yours.
miko
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I've found the solution!!
Kill the blacks and hispanics !!!
:)
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Originally posted by midnight Target
I don't recall saying you did.
You inferred it with the suggestion that not liking the 9th's policies equates to liking the other extreme MT.
MiniD
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Naso: I've found the solution!!
Kill the blacks and hispanics !!! :)
Just because damn foreigners do not understand how to analyse statistics? :)
miko
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Miko2d:
"I bet that your country is mostly white, so you should compare your stats with the stats of white US population if you want to make any sense.
Remove blacks from your stats, you get drop in half. Remove hispanics, you probably get it halved again. Remove drug-posession offences for which in your country no jail is given, and US stats will be about as good as yours. "
Neg Miko, I did your maths and they go as 700/2/2=approx 175 vs 40. We do have jail for the drug stuff, and not to mention tax offence which will stuff you to jail in no time. Also, roughly 10% included in our figures are foreigners, usually in jail for the drug reason.
Explain your figures again vs a country like the UK who has a lot of coloured people, maybe more than the USA?
And anyway, the percentage in jail goes along nicely with the capital crime rate, which is the highest in the US of any western nation.
BTW, what's wrong with blacks? Genetic crime gene connected with their colour?
(In case you wonder, I am a pinknose :D )