Author Topic: Cooper gets to live, discussion about the death pen. (Read 3061 times)

Gunslinger · « **on:** February 10, 2004, 12:23:42 AM »

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?

Mini D · « **Reply #1 on:** February 10, 2004, 12:29:11 AM »

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The demand by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals...

I didn't read any farther.

MiniD

Steve · « **Reply #2 on:** February 10, 2004, 12:58:24 AM »

9th circus court... a more liberal organization has never operated in the area of law, and in all likelihood, never will.

NUKE · « **Reply #3 on:** February 10, 2004, 01:08:25 AM »

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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.

Chairboy · « **Reply #4 on:** February 10, 2004, 01:16:16 AM »

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...

Chairboy · « **Reply #5 on:** February 10, 2004, 01:18:31 AM »

Oh, regarding the ruling, here's the important part:

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"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 (

) then bzzzt, game over.

mrblack · « **Reply #6 on:** February 10, 2004, 01:20:20 AM »

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.

Pongo · « **Reply #7 on:** February 10, 2004, 01:50:06 AM »

Sounds like he has allready been in prison 18 years..wow.
What is a 9th circuit court?

Angus · « **Reply #8 on:** February 10, 2004, 02:52:59 AM »

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,

bigsky · « **Reply #9 on:** February 10, 2004, 03:19:12 AM »

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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.

Vermillion · « **Reply #10 on:** February 10, 2004, 07:40:02 AM »

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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.

gofaster · « **Reply #11 on:** February 10, 2004, 07:58:44 AM »

Life in prision is a harsher sentence than the death penalty.

Gunslinger · « **Reply #12 on:** February 10, 2004, 09:08:51 AM »

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.

miko2d · « **Reply #13 on:** February 10, 2004, 09:14:46 AM »

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

Mini D · « **Reply #14 on:** February 10, 2004, 09:20:03 AM »

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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