How come some are for...

[Mole 0]

This is just a question I was thinking of the other day and I am not trying to step on anyone's feet. Of course that won't happen and this will turn into a big argument. And lets save the "I'd figure Mole would ask this" or "Oh GoD, not another question like this from Mole." It is just something I was curious about.

 

There are plenty of people, mostly Republicans, who are for the death penalty but are against abortion. One of the reason people are against abortion is because they don't want to take a human life; but isn't the death penalty the same thing? To me, it is like a oxymoron.

 

Yes you can say that people who are being killed from the death penalty did something wrong, but they still are being killed.

 

Why, for those who believe in it, why is this the case?

[Justice 0]

This is just a question I was thinking of the other day and I am not trying to step on anyone's feet. Of course that won't happen and this will turn into a big argument. And lets save the "I'd figure Mole would ask this" or "Oh GoD, not another question like this from Mole." It is just something I was curious about.

 

There are plenty of people, mostly Republicans, who are for the death penalty but are against abortion. One of the reason people are against abortion is because they don't want to take a human life; but isn't the death penalty the same thing? To me, it is like a oxymoron.

 

Yes you can say that people who are being killed from the death penalty did something wrong, but they still are being killed.

 

Why, for those who believe in it, why is this the case?

Well, one is tried by a jury of his or her peers, has gone through many levels of appeals and has still been declared guilty, while the other is a life in the making which has done nothing harmful to anyone or anything. If anything, you should be asking yourself "How can you be for abortions, which kills something that's completely innocent, but be against the Death Penalty, where you are killing convicted criminals who have been judged by a jury of their peers".

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

This is just a question I was thinking of the other day and I am not trying to step on anyone's feet. Of course that won't happen and this will turn into a big argument. And lets save the "I'd figure Mole would ask this" or "Oh GoD, not another question like this from Mole." It is just something I was curious about.

 

There are plenty of people, mostly Republicans, who are for the death penalty but are against abortion. One of the reason people are against abortion is because they don't want to take a human life; but isn't the death penalty the same thing? To me, it is like a oxymoron.

 

Yes you can say that people who are being killed from the death penalty did something wrong, but they still are being killed.

 

Why, for those who believe in it, why is this the case?

Well, one is tried by a jury of his or her peers, has gone through many levels of appeals and has still been declared guilty, while the other is a life in the making which has done nothing harmful to anyone or anything. If anything, you should be asking yourself "How can you be for abortions, which kills something that's completely innocent, but be against the Death Penalty, where you are killing convicted criminals who have been judged by a jury of their peers".

It depends on what you are using as a basis for your belief system.

 

I personally don't see a problem with people being anti-abortion, pro-death penalty if their rationale is something like you laid out. I do think it is strange if someone is against abortion for reasons straight out of the bible, then for the death penalty even though it flies totally in the face of Jesus' teachings.

[Justice 0]

It depends on what you are using as a basis for your belief system.

 

I personally don't see a problem with people being anti-abortion, pro-death penalty if their rationale is something like you laid out. I do think it is strange if someone is against abortion for reasons straight out of the bible, then for the death penalty even though it flies totally in the face of Jesus' teachings.

Well, the belief that life begins at conception isn't one that is just restricted to the Bible. I'm not a massive Christian, but Abortion has always felt wrong for the simple fact that you are ending a life before it even has a chance to start. I don't need the Bible to tell me that's wrong when I naturally feel that way.

[Guest hunger4unger]

Personally I think that the death penalty in certain states in the US is wrong as there is always the chance that the person sent to their death is actually innocent. You can argue about DNA evidence or someone admitting their guilt but in any case there is still the chance, albeit very slim, that they never actually did the crime.

 

On abortion and I think that aboriton should only be allowed in cases of rape.

[Firestarter 0]

Christ, another question like this. Figures it'd be molestomp... I'm just glad I've got a fresh pack of cigarettes and a full pot of coffee.

 

Well anyway, like Powerplay said, the foetus hasn't committed a crime and the murderer has. The guilty deserve death and the innocent deserve life. Pretty fucking obvious now, isn't it?

[2GOLD 0]

Only thing I ever wanted on abortion was a limit of at least 2-3. You got some females who are using it as a birth control pill which is exactly what it SHOULDN'T be used for cause if the doctor messes up and they are left unable to have a child after the fourth abortion, they sue.

 

Mistakes happen, but the problem is lots of us were mistakes. How many of us can honestly say their parents planned out every detail on when to have us?

 

And really, should any woman NEED more than 2 abortions in their lifetime? I mean, seriously. Of course, you have exceptions to the rule such as rape and incest in which case they can have the abortion even if they have already had 2 or it doesn't count as one of the two.

 

Everything has limits, and this needs limits. I'm fine with abortion in a sense, but I've never been fine with married women having an abortion that never discuss it with their husband and then expect him to trust her when he finds out. That's just wrong on every level. I understand the "It's my body" but it's also his sperm and without it you aren't having the child.

 

As for the death penalty....I think it should only be used for the most extreme offenders. Child murders, serial killers, bombers, serial rapists, and someone who plans to kill for profit.

 

That's my thoughts. Nothing really extreme, I'm more a middle middle on most things. I can see both sides of the coin in these cases.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

*Yawn*

 

Ok, let me flip the script.

 

How come some people are all about the slaughter of an innocent life (abortion) but yet don't want to see convicted murders meet their Maker?...

[Firestarter 0]

Ditto 2GOLD on a number of things, surprisingly enough. I'm more on the middle ground on this issue than my last post might have made it sound like - I was answering molestomp's simplistic and submoronic question rather than expressing my own views. I don't like abortion, I don't want it to happen, but I think that sometimes it's necessary for the mother's welfare and in those cases I want it to be (in one of President Clinton's best lines) "safe, legal, and rare." After the point of viability I'm less comfortable still, and after that I'd like to see the child delivered if possible - it's out of the woman's body that way too - with an abortion performed only under the most extraordinary circumstances.

[Zorin Industries 0]

Heres a question, Is the death penalty still worth it if an innocent life is taken by mistake?

[Firestarter 0]

Heres a question, Is the death penalty still worth it if an innocent life is taken by mistake?

Document the last recorded instance of that happening in the United States, please.

[Zorin Industries 0]

Heres a question, Is the death penalty still worth it if an innocent life is taken by mistake?

Document the last recorded instance of that happening in the United States, please.

Can you prove they where all guilty?

 

And I can't point one out in the U.S. since I don't really know of any, living in the U.K I can give you plenty of instances where people would have been killed for a crimw they didn't commit, if we still had the death penalty.

[Firestarter 0]

Can you prove they where all guilty?

I don't have to; jury trials in our courts already did that. Try to keep up with the class here laddie.

 

And I can't point one out in the U.S. since I don't really know of any

That's because there are none. Not one. Zero. 895 wastes of skin sent to hell, no innocents harmed. Pretty good batting average, I'd say.

[Guest Ghettoman]

Cancer Marney do you actually have that much faith, in every states judicial system, that you'd believe an innoncent man has never been sent to his death?

[Firestarter 0]

do you actually have that much faith, in every states judicial system, that you'd believe an innoncent man has never been sent to his death?

It's not a matter of faith. It's a matter of facts. There are thousands of anti-death penalty lawyers and researchers poring over case files at any given time on any given day. If there were even ONE case of a genuinely innocent man being executed by any state or the federal government I guarantee you they wouldn't be reticent about trumpeting it from the rooftops. That no one ever has should tell you something.

[Guest Ghettoman]

But your acting like every single case is covered to the extent where a mistake can't possibly be made, and thats not the case.

 

If it's been discovered than innocent people have spent decades in jails and prisons, how are you so sure there's no way an innocent persons been put to death?

[Guest Ghettoman]

Found this after a quick search:

 

""I'M INNOCENT, and I've got peace in my heart, and I'm ready to go home." Those were among the last words uttered by Malcolm Rent Johnson before the state of Oklahoma took his life on January 6, 2000.

 

A year and a half later, his innocence is nearly proven. But it will come too late.

 

Johnson is one of 12 people executed in Oklahoma who were convicted on the basis of testimony by Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist. Gilchrist was exposed earlier this year for mishandling evidence and lying under oath in thousands of criminal cases over a 25-year period.

 

Johnson's case--and his near-certain innocence--came to light after state officials ordered a review of 1,700 convictions where Gilchrist's testimony played a part.

 

At Johnson's trial, Gilchrist testified that Johnson's blood type matched sperm collected from the apartment of Ura Thompson, a 76-year-old woman killed in 1981. But a reexamination last month of Gilchrist's "evidence" found that the slides she prepared contained no sperm at all!

 

The reexamination was conducted by Oklahoma City police DNA laboratory manager Laura Schile and endorsed by three other chemists. But after issuing the report, Schile resigned--following a confrontation with the lab's chief. "She was intimidated by the Oklahoma City Police Department and some of the lawyers involved in this case," said Schile's lawyer, Gavin Isaacs.

 

State officials are claiming that Johnson would have been convicted without Gilchrist's testimony. What garbage! The only other evidence against him was circumstantial.

 

Oklahoma authorities aren't willing to admit that they executed an innocent man. "We have used for the last 25 years bad science in this state to convict people, and we have stretched the truth," said James Bednar, head of Oklahoma's Indigent Defense System and a former assistant state attorney general. "It's got to stop."

 

Gilchrist's willingness to lie in order to get convictions is only the tip of the iceberg in the U.S. criminal injustice system. In West Virginia, forensic "specialist" Fred Zain is facing five felony fraud charges for false testimony. In Idaho, Charles Fain walked off death row last month after DNA tests proved that the forensic evidence used against him 17 years ago was faulty.

 

And in Illinois--in a case remarkably similar to Gilchrist's--officials are reopening at least nine cases in which police forensic scientist Pamela Fish gave either false or misleading testimony. The most stunning revelation so far is that Fish withheld evidence in a 1986 murder trial of four Black teenagers--who may now be released.

 

Every example of overzealous prosecutors and lying police scientists helps to make our case against the death penalty--and the rest of the rotten injustice system.

"

[Guest Ghettoman]

This one came up too:

 

"by Jonathan Wallace [email protected]

In March 1995 I published a piece entitled Texas Kills An Innocent Man, describing how Texas executed Jesse Dewayne Jacobs for firing a bullet that the state also convicted his sister of firing. Since they both could not have fired the same bullet, and the sister was convicted after him, I wrote that Texas had killed an innocent man.

 

I suggested in that article that convicting multiple people of the same act was probably business as usual for Texas prosecutors. In the New York Times for May 14, 2000, in an article on Texas executions, I found another example ("A Closer Look at Five Cases That Resulted in Executions of Texas Inmates," p. 30).

 

In 1984, a man named Gene Hathorn Jr. took a friend named James Lee Beathard to visit the Hathorn family. Hathorn's father, mother and brother ended up dead of shotgun blasts.

 

Beathard was tried first and Hathorn took the stand to testify that after Hathorn fired the initial blast through a window, Beathard went inside and finished the victims off. Beathard testified that he thought he was accompanying Hathorn on a drug deal and that when he fired into the house, Beathard ran away and hid in the woods. For the record, the name of the ingenious prosecutor in Beathard's case and Hathorn's was Joe L. Price, who told the jury:

 

"Hathorn might be a cold-blooded killer, but there hasn't been any evidence in this courtroom that says he is a liar. He is telling the truth."

 

Beathard was convicted and sentenced to die. There was no physical evidence connecting him to the crimes; he was sentenced entirely on Hathorn's testimony.

 

Several months later, the ingenious Joe L. Price tried Hathorn, who took the stand in the penalty phase of the trial and testified again that Beathard had finished off the victims. Now Price told the jurors, if Beathard was telling the truth, "then I'm a one-eyed hunting dog."

 

He cross-examined Hathorn with extreme sarcasm, attacking his story about Beathard: "Ok, and here was this ol' boy that had never shot that pistol before....going into a house he had never been in before in his life, to attack two people that had some advance warning he was coming....Does that seem a little bit strange to you, Gene?"

 

Hathorn was also convicted and sentenced to die. A year later he recanted and supported Beathard's account, that Beathard had run into the woods when the shooting started. But Beathard couldn't get a new trial because Texas has a rule that new evidence can only be introduced up to thirty days after the original conviction.

 

James Beathard was executed last December 9 and Hathorn remains on death row.

 

I find little moral distinction between the ingenious Joe L. Price and Gene Hathorn when it comes to their regard for the truth. Hathorn tossed Price a lie and Price ran it into the end zone. That Price knew it was a lie became evident at Hathorn's trial when he told the jury it was. Both Hathorn and Price killed people; Hathorn used a gun, Price used the state of Texas to do it.

 

The governor of Illinois recently declared a moratorium on executions, though he is not against the death penalty. He saw too many flaws in his state's process, too many innocents convicted. Contrast Governor Bush, who says, "I'm confident that every person that has been put to death in Texas, under my watch"--that's an incredible 127--"has been guilty of the crime charged, and has had full access to the courts." But in his great state, the death penalty resource center was defunded by the Republican congress in 1996 and never replaced with anything by the state. Few Texas counties have public defenders; instead, defense attorneys are local lawyers, often inexperienced and incompetent, who are appointed on a patronage basis by the judge. Such lawyers rarely give the accused an aggressive defense. On three occasions, Texas courts have refused to grant death row inmates a new trial even when it was proved that their attorneys slept through the proceedings. Last year, Governor Bush vetoed a bill which would have given counties authority to set up public defender offices and would have curtailed the patronage system of appointments. On a recent episode of Meet the Press, the governor said he did not remember vetoing the bill and said he was for public defenders.

 

Texas specializes in killing marginal people who get themselves into ambiguous circumstances. And it does so with little regard for the truth.

"

[Zorin Industries 0]

But your acting like every single case is covered to the extent where a mistake can't possibly be made, and thats not the case.

 

If it's been discovered than innocent people have spent decades in jails and prisons, how are you so sure there's no way an innocent persons been put to death?

Thats it exactly, not to mention the number of people who would have been liable for the death sentence, who were sent down from forced confessions and manipulated evidence ( i.e: Birmingham Six and the Guilford Four)

[Justice 0]

Question: Source, please? Anything that calls the Judicial System "The American System of Injustice" doesn't seem like they'd produce very unbiased material.

[2GOLD 0]

do you actually have that much faith, in every states judicial system, that you'd believe an innoncent man has never been sent to his death?

It's not a matter of faith. It's a matter of facts. There are thousands of anti-death penalty lawyers and researchers poring over case files at any given time on any given day. If there were even ONE case of a genuinely innocent man being executed by any state or the federal government I guarantee you they wouldn't be reticent about trumpeting it from the rooftops. That no one ever has should tell you something.

 

I'll say maybe during the early days in the deep south, I'm sure there was one or two trumped up charges.

 

But nowadays, I doubt that since so many watchdog groups are checking every last detail to make sure things fit into place.

 

I still hold the death penatly should be held exclusive to our most sick crimes. I don't want some guy who killed 20 people getting 3 life sentences, watching cable and maybe even starting to like the BUTT rapes he receives in prison while 20 families have to live with the fact their child/parent/sibling is in the ground while the man/woman is alive and well.

 

If one life sentence does not cover it, kill them. Serial killers should NOT be allowed to live. Sadistic killers should NOT be allowed to live. Child murders should NOT be allowed to live. These are the crimes were I know some people who would gladly take a rifle and a box of bullets and shoot them one by one.

 

Oh and I have the perfect way to end that, "IT'S GOD'S CHOICE! NOT YOURS!"

We tie them to a metal pole in a thunderstorm, if God doesn't strike the pole with a bolt then they get life in prison. We give god three chances to strike them dead, three storms. If it doesn't, they can spend 50 years in prison. See? God makes the decision and decides whether to fry them or not. Or, place them in the path of a Twister, if it turns before striking them then they get life in prison.

 

I've got a million of these and you can't call them cruel since it's possible to live through them. Tornados turn, storms end and it gives them a better chance than a lethal injection.

[Firestarter 0]

Question: Source, please? Anything that calls the Judicial System "The American System of Injustice" doesn't seem like they'd produce very unbiased material.

Ditto. I'm not going to respond to Just So stories.

[Guest Ghettoman]

Got it off google, the site underneath the link is www.socialistworker.com.

 

And Cancer Marney your saying because so many people on death row have been proven to be innoncent there's no way one slipped by?

[Firestarter 0]

not to mention the number of people who would have been liable for the death sentence, who were sent down from forced confessions and manipulated evidence ( i.e: Birmingham Six and the Guilford Four)

Ignorant bullshit. In the United States, at least, any death sentence is far more extensively reviewed than any LWOP and has wholly separate sentencing appeals procedures. You actually have better chances of getting a substantially reduced sentence if you're eligible for the death penalty.

 

As for Europe, spare me, okay? If you cretins ever decide to listen to your citizens (roughly two-thirds to three-fourths of whom want to reinstate the death penalty) - y'know, like you're supposed to, in democracies? - you can preach to us. As long as you continue to deny them the right to govern themselves and establish their own systems of justice, I don't really give a shit what you have to say.

[Firestarter 0]

Got it off google, the site underneath the link is www.socialistworker.com.

Fantastic. Google, the first resort of the uneducated. I'm sure you can pull up a thousand other sites which will state that the death penalty in the United States is unfair, racist, or what have you, but I'm not going to respond to any of it. Make a substantive argument and back it up with reliable sources or stop yipping.

 

your saying because so many people on death row have been proven to be innoncent there's no way one slipped by?

When the hell did I ever say anything of the sort? A lot of the people on death row whom liberals claim were "proven to be innoncent [sic]" were "proven" so on legal technicalities. They were still factually guilty, but they couldn't be proven personally and directly guilty beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt. That we observe such niceties even when the preponderant evidence for complicity and criminal responsibility (at the very least) is clear and undeniable is proof that our death penalty system is too lenient, not too harsh.

 

Kill them all and let God sort them out.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

She's right. So far we do not know of any innocents dying on death row. There are cases where innocents are convicted, but you have to remember that the burden of proof in say a rape is much different than that of a death penality case. Not to mention there are more crimes cases compared to just 1st degree murder. In a rape case, a jury hears the case, and decides the verdict. The punishment is meted out at that point. In a 1st degree murder case *the only crime punishable by death* the jury must return a guilty verdict and then must deliberate again to decide whether life or death is appropriate. We can also add in that not every state has the death penalty, which further reduces the odds.

 

I hope that answers the question. It better, or my employer will be very unhappy

[Guest Ghettoman]

If there such weak examples wouldn't it be better for your point to actually cover what they say rather than write them off because of where they came from?

 

I'm not arguing for any side, I'm simply questioning your logic.

 

I just don't see how you believe there is no possibility someone has ever been wrongfully executed. We've been executing people for a long time, and it hasn't been an issue like it is now for as long as it's been around, to suggest in the history of America our justice system has never wrongfully put someone to death seems a like a leap of faith.

[Firestarter 0]

If there such weak examples wouldn't it be better for your point to actually cover what they say rather than write them off because of where they came from?

No, because I don't know the cases and I don't know if what is reported in them is accurate. I'm not going to read up on EVERY DAMN CASE you can find on Google just to refute www.socialistworker.com. (Incidentally, isn't that a bit of a fucking oxymoron? socialistworker.COM?) I've got sixteen papers to read this morning and I've only made it through three so far, so don't waste my time with this garbage.

 

I'm not arguing for any side, I'm simply questioning your logic.

Poorly and illogically.

 

I just don't see how you believe there is no possibility someone has ever been wrongfully executed.

There is a possibility. I have never denied that possibility. I have said that it has not been PROVEN that we have ever done anything of the sort. And the possibility, given the checks and balances, as well as the research (valid and otherwise) of the countless anti-death penalty advocates, is EXTREMELY slim. Vanishingly so.

 

We've been executing people for a long time

Under our current statutes, since 1976.

 

and it hasn't been an issue like it is now for as long as it's been around, to suggest in the history of America our justice system has never wrongfully put someone to death seems a like a leap of faith

To suggest that we HAVE wrongfully put someone to death when all available evidence clearly says that we have NOT is a leap of lunacy.

[Guest BDC]

As has been pointed out, there are watchdog groups all over that scour cases that are brought up on the death penalty. Tell me what good it does to say "well before that" in trying to argue against the death penalty NOW.

[Guest Ghettoman]

Cancer, it was two articles, not very long, and only one was from socialistworker.com. If it's garbage, wouldn't it be very easy to simply prove what it says is wrong?

 

And yes, there are watchdog groups, but to suggest there so good at what they do that an innocent man has never been put to death sounds like having a lot of faith in something you don't participate in. All available evidence tells me there's still a big chance an innocent man or woman has been put to death before. Between the amount of people found to be not guilty and the steps taken in DNA evidence I just can't believe we've got a perfect record in terms of killing people.