Corey Hamilton's execution this week for the Lee's Famous Chicken slayings solved absolutely nothing other than alleviating Hamilton's pain of being confined to a cramped, dimly lit cell 23 hours a day on OSP's death row. The pain continues for the family's of his victims and will till their own dying day.
I'm a life-long Republican and as you all know, us Republicans are reputed to be pro-life until it comes to what we do with murderers.
As I get older, I fail to see the point in the death penalty. The death penalty is billed as a deterrent to violent crime. So far as I know, homicide rates have not gone down since capital punishment was re-instated so that pretty much de-bunks the deterrent theory. There are many sociopaths on death rows around the country to whom life has no meaning. So taking their own life is pretty much meaningless.
So far as I know, if a convicted criminal is handed a death sentence, they are also guaranteed legal representation throughout years and years of appeals, all at taxpayer expense if they cannot afford an attorney of their own.
Those handed a life sentence, are not afforded an extensive appeals process at taxpayer expense. Instead, they must file their own appeals pro-se, if they cannot afford an attorney.
To me, I would think of a life without parole term as basically a sentence in Hell. All putting criminals to death does is give them the easy way out after 10 to 15 years whilst dragging victim's families through a series of painful appeals and re-trials. We put our criminals to death with far more compassion than they showed their victims.
There is also no doubt that there have been innocent people put to death.
I recently read John Grisham's "The Innocent Man" and Dennis Fritz's "Journey Toward Justice". Both books offer a very good inside look at post-conviction relief and the appeals process. In Grisham's book, he intimates that the average cost to house inmates in general population in Oklahoma is about $20,000 per year.
However, most death row inmates with their use of the public defense system and additional security for death row can cost the state well over $1 million by the time they are executed, assuming it takes about 12 to 15 years to put someone to death in Oklahoma.
I believe the death penalty is an archaic form of punishment which might have been a deterrent back in the days when criminals were hung or shot in public, but that is no longer the case. I don't consider the need to abolish it to be compassionate toward criminals, quite the contrary. I believe a life behind bars and losing all freedom as we know it on the outside to be the ultimate punishment.
I agree.
At least 10 percent of Illinois' death-row inmates were exonerated -- before they were put to death, thankfully. That led to the governor doing the only sensible thing -- commuting all the death sentences to life in prison.
I'm no longer confident that the death penalty metes out genuine justice, especially when you have innocent people being executed.
I think the scum should be executed.As long as they are alive they present a danger to others around them whether it be guard,another inmate or to other people the rare chance they escape. Corey Hamilton is a rat who should have been executed within a few years after his conviction.When a judge is sentencing these vermin they should consider the victim and the victim's family.
The Bill of Rights is pretty clear.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
While I'd like to say I'm against the death penalty, I don't really like the idea of providing food, water, shelter, medical care, education and cable TV to people like Saddam Hussein or Timothy McVeigh. While many may be exonerated, I'd like to see how many of those were on a technicality, and not because they were actually innocent. Besides, commuting those to life sentences doesn't solve the problem of wrongful conviction.
Texas has the policy of death penalty crimes with multiple credible eye witnesses not being allowed extensive appeals. Pretty much takes care of the wrongful prosecution part. When a crack-addicted prostitute kills an 85yr old man with a lamp and silverware, I'm pretty okay with them being sentenced to death.
Torture is cruel and unusual. Placed in a room full of angry chickens is cruel and unusual. Lethal injection is painless and pretty common.
"Lethal injection is painless and pretty common." - sgrizzle
Yeah, nightly event over here.
jdb
All of us were in on the execution....I don't like being forced into participating.
Sure the death penatly is a deterrent. He won't be murdering anyone again.
The problem with the death penalty is the crawl at which it is carried out.
As for the prisons being cramped, dimply lit, etc.....when was the last time you were in one. I have a cousin who is a corrections officer and I've seen the inside of some of these places. Hell they are nicer than the dorm room I live in in college. Plus with all the places like Amnesty Intl and the ACLU forcing the prisoners to be made more and more comfortable the prisions are turning more and more hotel like.
It sickens me that criminals in prision have it better than many hard working people.
^now that's reducing our topic here significantly.
What do you think of rehabilitation?
How do you define cruel?
Who should be dehumanized for victimless crimes?
Do you believe in a woman's right to choose?
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
^now that's reducing our topic here significantly.
What do you think of rehabilitation?
How do you define cruel?
Who should be dehumanized for victimless crimes?
Do you believe in a woman's right to choose?
There are no victimless crimes.
quote:
Originally posted by wavoka
Sure the death penatly is a deterrent. He won't be murdering anyone again.
By definition, the only way the death penalty could be considered a deterrent (//%22http://www.answers.com/deterrent&r=67%22) is if the homocide rate would be higher without the death penalty.
At best, the death penalty could be described as some form of punishment. Capital, I'd say.
At worst it is some version of state sanctioned homocide.
Maybe everyone should get a crystal in their hand. When they commit a capital crime, the crystal starts blinking and they are ordered to go to Carousel to "renew."
Heck, if we're going to keep up the executions, we might as well start a recycling program. We can call it Soylent Green, help feed the homeless.
quote:
Originally posted by MH2010
quote:
Originally posted by aoxamaxoa
^now that's reducing our topic here significantly.
What do you think of rehabilitation?
How do you define cruel?
Who should be dehumanized for victimless crimes?
Do you believe in a woman's right to choose?
There are no victimless crimes.
Cliche aside, there are.... just depends how you define the term.
quote:
Originally posted by deinstein
The Bill of Rights is pretty clear.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Considering the fact they were still executing criminals with firing squad,burning at the stake and other forms of execution back during when and after they wrote the 8th amendment lethal injection is not cruel nor is it unusual to execute anyone.
I didn't know burning at the stake was still a judicial penalty after the Constitution was enacted, james.
For lynch mobs, maybe. [:(!]
quote:
Originally posted by rwarn17588
I didn't know burning at the stake was still a judicial penalty after the Constitution was enacted, james.
For lynch mobs, maybe. [:(!]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States
Various methods have been used in the history of the American colonies and the United States but only five methods are currently used. Historically, burning, pressing, gibbeting or hanging in chains, breaking on wheel and bludgeoning were used for a small number of executions, while hanging was the most common method. The last person burned to death was a black slave in South Carolina in August 1825. The last person to be hung in chains was a murderer named John Marshall in West Virginia on April 4, 1913.
While I am not personally against the "death penalty"; it is not handed out on an even playing field......
The fact that some places have it, some do not, makes it a somewhat questionable "Law of Man".
This could be debated ad infinitum and the results would be the same....
Some see it as a cure all...
Others see it as a cure nothing....
Below is an article from today's news that tends to point out that there are many reasons for it to
go way......
most of them in Texas... wouldn't you know it..[}:)]
Convict is the 12th in Dallas County cleared by DNA
Inquiry urged into 'appalling' errors
By JEFF CARLTON
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DALLAS -- In a case that has renewed questions about the quality of Texas justice, a man who spent 10 years behind bars for the rape of a boy has become the 12th person in Dallas County to be cleared by DNA evidence.
That is more DNA exonerations than in all of California, and more than in Florida, too. In fact, Dallas County alone has more such cases than all but three states -- a situation one Texas lawmaker calls an "international embarrassment."
James Waller, 50, was exonerated by a judge earlier this week and received an apology from the District Attorney's Office after a new type of DNA testing on hair and semen showed he was not the rapist who attacked a 12-year-old boy living in Waller's apartment building in 1983. The boy had been the chief witness against him.
"It's been a long, horrible road," said Waller, who has been out on parole since 1993.
Only New York, Illinois and Texas have had more DNA exonerations than Dallas County, which has a population of 2.3 million, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions.
"These are appalling mistakes, and in the case of Dallas County, there have been so many," said Democratic state Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston, who is sponsoring a bill to create the Texas Innocence Commission to scrutinize the state's criminal justice system. Ellis serves as chairman of the board of directors for the Innocence Project.
A similar bill failed to reach the floor in the past two legislative sessions. But "my colleagues in the Senate, in particular, are beginning to see these are human lives we are talking about," Ellis said. "There are times when we make mistakes, and when we do, we ought to be big enough to admit it."
Since the nation's first DNA exoneration in 1989, 26 defendants have been cleared in Illinois, including 11 in Chicago's Cook County, according to the Innocence Project. There have been 21 exonerations each in Texas and New York, nine in California and six in Florida, the organization said.
In Dallas County, about 400 prisoners have filed applications to receive DNA testing, leading to the 12 exonerations, said Trista Allen, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.
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Nine were confirmed guilty, six tests were inconclusive and six more are still in progress, said Lori Ordiway, the chief of the appellate division for the Dallas County district attorney. The rest had their applications for DNA testing rejected.
"DNA testing is to make sure innocent folks are not in jail," Allen said. "If you are not guilty, we want to get you out of jail. We're not going to be the DA that stands in the way."
Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, said the number of exonerations in Dallas County "demands a closer look and statewide action." He said there is no clear reason there have been so many wrongful convictions in Dallas, but "many of the cases have to do with eyewitness identification."
That was true with Waller. A day after the rape, the boy was at a convenience store when he heard Waller's voice and became convinced Waller was the man who attacked him in his apartment.
Earlier, the boy had told police that he never saw the attacker face-to-face and that the man had worn a bandanna covering most of his face.
Waller was also heavier and taller than the man described by the youngster.
Waller and his family were the only black residents of the apartment complex, according to the Innocence Project.
The bill of rights was added years after the constitution was written. The 12 was reduce to 10 before presented. The 10 have required millions of words to define what they meant. It requires half of the worlds attorneys to explain them. The jails have many convicted of victimless crimes. Those incarcerated, men and women, because they had drugs in their possession would not presumed to be a victim. These persons make up a majority of the inmates I am told.
The death penalty can and in the past has been used to remove from the class society those that are considered as undesirable and rebellious. It is said that no wealthy person has been executed.
Saddam is said to have been a very evil man. He killed hundreds of his people. We are not evil people; we are only killing thousands of his country men to save them from evil.
In the past years some historian wrote that the great oak tree in downtown was used as a place where the Indians allowed those to be executed to sit down at its base to be executed by a firing squad.
"The jails have many convicted of victimless crimes. Those incarcerated, men and women, because they had drugs in their possession would not presumed to be a victim. These persons make up a majority of the inmates I am told. "
Spoken like someone who has never been personally affected by addiction. How did you manage to get so old and stay so ignorant?
Age does not always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone."
Garrison Keillor
I'm personally proud of shadows for his ability to survive and grow old. I'm especially happy that he's around to give us a first hand perspective on the War of 1812.
I have not used drugs but can write volumes on them. The ignorance lies with the average person as by name the drugs can be distributed through the druggist A formulated drug can be the same drug by another name after the patent rights have expired. The experience I have had begins in the Tulsa School System, where drugs are very easy to obtain; to the medicine cabinet in my home. Denial from your children opens a long line of drug usage.
I have spent thousands of dollars on trying to help a drug user. I recently did 4 two hour sessions with a physiologist
which ended with "I cannot help you because my training does not embrace your questions".
Meth was given to the Japanese, German and US troops in he last wars. If you have a valid need for it then they can be obtain at your drug store through your doctor. Any druggist will tell you that meth is top line drugs in mind control. But because it is so easily made it cannot be controlled since it was made synthetic in 1880. China discovered its use as a mind stabilizer 5,000 years ago.
Age is only a asset acquired by an unknown process. As the doctor said "When you have teens dying on the football fields with heart attacks you wonder who is in control of the host of the spirits we are all in".
quote:
Originally posted by shadows
I have not used drugs but can write volumes on them. The ignorance lies with the average person as by name the drugs can be distributed through the druggist A formulated drug can be the same drug by another name after the patent rights have expired. The experience I have had begins in the Tulsa School System, where drugs are very easy to obtain; to the medicine cabinet in my home. Denial from your children opens a long line of drug usage.
I have spent thousands of dollars on trying to help a drug user. I recently did 4 two hour sessions with a physiologist
which ended with "I cannot help you because my training does not embrace your questions".
Meth was given to the Japanese, German and US troops in he last wars. If you have a valid need for it then they can be obtain at your drug store through your doctor. Any druggist will tell you that meth is top line drugs in mind control. But because it is so easily made it cannot be controlled since it was made synthetic in 1880. China discovered its use as a mind stabilizer 5,000 years ago.
Age is only a asset acquired by an unknown process. As the doctor said "When you have teens dying on the football fields with heart attacks you wonder who is in control of the host of the spirits we are all in".
Getting someone hooked on a addictive drug and black mailing them into doing what you want for a fix doesn't really seem like mind control.