We hold our justice system to the standard of "proof beyond all REASONABLE doubt" not "proof beyond ALL doubt", and that judgment is passed by a jury of peers.

Considering that you cant get a half-dozen people to agree on what to have for lunch, getting 30+ people to agree that someone committed a capital crime and deserves to die for it is a pretty mean feat.

Our justice system is not expected to be correct 100 percent of the time. The fact that some people were exonerated is in fact proof of it working, but thats another issue.

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In case you were wondering, yes, there really ARE more idiots these days....technology has made natural selection obsolete.

Yes, thankfully some or even most of the mistakes are discovered, but DNA evidence isn't always available, witnesses don't always recant their testimony, and the person who is actually guilty doesn't always confess.

Anthony Porter was exonerated because the person who actually committed the crime Porter was convicted of confessed. Are we to rely on the confessions of the guilty to correct the errors that are made during the judicial process? That's just plain lucky.

Anthony Porter, Center on Wrongful Convictions

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"Some years ago I had a sobering realization about women, which was that there are just too many nice ones. One simply can't fall in love with, sleep with, or marry all the nice women...One of the saddening facts of life is that there is always going to be a delightful woman somewhere who, for whatever accident of timing or attraction, simply slips by and recedes to return only in a dream."
-Larry McMurtry in Roads

Except, of course, if they've already been executed, there is no exoneration.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

True, I guess all that is left at that point is being exonerated in the eyes of whatever god or gods they have.

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There can be no bystanders in the battle for survival. Anyone who will not fight by your side is an enemy you must crush.

We are at war with forces too terrible to comprehend. We cannot afford mercy for any of its victims too weak to take the correct course. Mercy destroys us; it weakens us and saps our resolve. Put aside all such thoughts. They are not worthy of those in the service of country.

The very fact that we cannot get "proof beyond ALL doubt" about innocence and guilt is the reason I think it's wrong to continue capital punishment in this country. I'd like to see us give the innocent every possible chance to set the record straight. I don't see how executing the guilty is worth it when some innocent people are the price.

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"Some years ago I had a sobering realization about women, which was that there are just too many nice ones. One simply can't fall in love with, sleep with, or marry all the nice women...One of the saddening facts of life is that there is always going to be a delightful woman somewhere who, for whatever accident of timing or attraction, simply slips by and recedes to return only in a dream."
-Larry McMurtry in Roads

not recently


I'm saying its working and addressing its ethical responsibility. Nohuman based system is never wrong.

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Hope is the opposite of audacity. It's passive, an excuse for inaction.

Socialism doesn't create a rising tide that lifts all boats. It drains the lake and teaches the boat riders not to help themselves by rowing.

“What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”

“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let's be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy.

“The other kills her own food.”

Based upon that logic, we should never even send someone to jail. Why should someone give up say, 5 years of their life for burglary unless we can be 100% positive they did it?
We do.
Again, there isn't a single person in jail who is innocent. They have ALL been found guilty of a crime.

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In case you were wondering, yes, there really ARE more idiots these days....technology has made natural selection obsolete.

Technically, in our system, they're either guilty or not guilty. Innocence, in this case, doesn't really apply.

However, many on death row have been wrongly convicted and, in the past 20 years or so since the Innocence Project has been in existance, together with advnaces in technology and understanding DNA, have been exonerated even thought they had originally been convicted and found 'guilty'.

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All things serve The Beam

All of which shows that the system is working.
Mistakes are being found and corrected.

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Hope is the opposite of audacity. It's passive, an excuse for inaction.

Socialism doesn't create a rising tide that lifts all boats. It drains the lake and teaches the boat riders not to help themselves by rowing.

“What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”

“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let's be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy.

“The other kills her own food.”

From my experience, the most common response to your question is the suggestion that the US justice system is infallible when it comes to capital crimes specifically, and that your question is therefore moot (frequently an argument from those who believe in gun ownership as a way to stop the government from oppressing them, which makes blind trust in the government both dubious and worth an ironic chuckle) I doubt people actually believe this, but it is more palatable than a statement that when making an omelet, you are bound to break some eggs.

Ironically enough, I think the best argument in favor of the death penalty should espouse just that - it's a bummer that a few innocents are executed, but the ostensible good outweighs the bad. After all, this is generally the case with things such as war when civilians get killed. I'm not sure what the difference is here.

I've gone back and forth in my own personal opinions of the death penalty (including giving a speech in high school speech class in favor of it), but I think that, at the end of the day, it isn't so much the barbarism involved in and of itself that is the problem, nor is it that a lot of supporters have a sense of justice-based bloodlust, but rather that it doesn't serve any practical purpose. In the end, it's really just about appealing to people's sense of right and wrong.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

It's happened more than once in the last ten years.




I understand that no human based system is never wrong. That's the basis of my argument. Give the innocent people their life to prove their innocence. I think it's wrong for the state to execute innocent people just so the guilty people die too.

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"Some years ago I had a sobering realization about women, which was that there are just too many nice ones. One simply can't fall in love with, sleep with, or marry all the nice women...One of the saddening facts of life is that there is always going to be a delightful woman somewhere who, for whatever accident of timing or attraction, simply slips by and recedes to return only in a dream."
-Larry McMurtry in Roads

What should the "practical purpose" be? Can't that be said of things like imprisonment?

Yes, but in the cases of the Innocence Project, the system had to be dragged by the nose to actually do the right thing, and the system is not the entity that actually began re-investigation of those cases.

This doesn't particularly show the system in a good light.

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All things serve The Beam

I would venture to say that the practical purpose of the government's justice system would be to prevent crime. I would also venture to say that imprisonment prevents crime.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

As would execution (as long as the person is actually guilty).