Originally posted by Yeager
hey check this indy: If someone rapes and murders a child, that person should be quickly tried, sentenced, and if found guilty put to death after one appeal taking days or weeks to be heard. Thats what I think....
I do not subscribe to the belief that 100 guilty child murderers should live so that a unproven hypothetical innoncet not be wrongly executed. I dont buy it.
I don't have a problem with death penalty itself, but people make mistakes (not referencing the murderers, but the investigators themselves). HPD crime lab has already shown to be flawed.
Leroy Lewis received a 35-year sentence in a 1991 rape and murder after a Houston crime-lab analyst reported that biological evidence from the crime pointed to him.
Ronald Cantrell received a six-year sentence in a 2001 sexual assault after an analyst reported finding his DNA profile in evidence from the crime.
Lawrence Napper received a life sentence in a 2001 sexual assault after an analyst concluded that DNA profiling eliminated all other suspects.
The men are the faces of the business unfinished in the probe of the Houston Police Department crime lab.
In each case, new tests have discredited the lab's work, eliminating the men as contributors to the biological samples from the crimes or greatly reducing the statistical link between them and the evidence. Yet questions about the implications of those findings on their cases remain unresolved.
Rip already brought up "what about DNA evidence"? Reality shows us it's not close to perfect, at least not in my city.
You tried the emotional "you're defending child killers!" line, when that's not the case at all. Nobody here has said let them go unpunished. This isn't the evening news where emotional appeal sells advertising time.
Somebody else brought up the financial aspect of keeping people locked up. Now y'all tell me, with all the lawyers out there, how much is one wrong execution going to cost in a civil suit? I'm willing to bet it's more than keeping them locked up for 20 years. The costs of keeping them would even go down if we had a bit of reform in drug laws.
Simply put, there's more to lose than gain executing somebody.