Sure it does.

The "system" is not intended to be the entity that begins re-investigation. Its intended to provide a forum for re-examination of the facts to occur

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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.”

No, that's not the conclusion. My argument is specifically against capital punishment. I'm arguing for a life sentence instead of a death sentence.

No, we don't. Every possible chance would include the remainder of that person's natural life. Ending it prematurely eliminates the chance that something will prove their innocence in the future.

Ok, should I have said there are people in jail who did not commit the crimes they were convicted of? Do we want to continue to dance around the issue with word play?

I guess they're guilty by definition of the state, but that's nothing more than guilt by decree. I'm actually surprised to hear you argue that the state is always right in these cases.

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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

Execution doesn't prevent crime any better than incarceration and it generally costs more and clogs up the court system. Granted, some offender may eventually be paroled, but with offenders granted parole in the US, it's pretty unlikely that they would be up for the death penalty in the first place. And, if you listen to the tenor in threads discussing this, particularly by death penalty supporters, most of them support the punishment not for any practical reasons, but because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy to think that people are getting what they deserve. That isn't practical - it's do-nothing, feel good legislation, like upping the fines associated with DUI's or sentencing people to two years instead of one for having a couple of grams of coke.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the death penalty is dying its own death by neglect pretty much everywhere but Texas. People are infrequently tried in capital cases, jury's are more hesitant to use it, and inmates sit on death row for dozens upon dozens of years before being executed, if they ever actually are. So, even with the teeth there in the legal system through SCOTUS rulings, the people seldom seem to have the stomach to actually enforce it.

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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

So its just about the money for you ?

If capital charges are happening less frequently thats another sign the system is working. Prosecuters have a much higher bar to clear and they won't go there unless they know they can clear it.

Average time on death row is 10 years, we've turned them around in as few as 2 (these were open and shut cases) here.

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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.”

I think one of the few good things Governor George Ryan did in this state was to effectively end the death penalty. He wasn't the first governor to do it, but I know other states have done it since then.

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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

But see, here you're making a compromise and also playing with a person's life.

If you're certain enough they did it to put them in jail for the rest of their natural life, putting them to death shouldn't be any different. Otherwise, what you're REALLY saying is that you're not 100% sure they did the crime and you want a chance to maybe change your mind later. This is nothing but a capricious and emotional application of justice.

IMNSHO, those who oppose the death penalty for the reason you stated are basically just wishy-washy non-committal people. Either you stand by your decisions or you dont - life has no do-overs.

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

No. It's about money and effectiveness.

Or, to be more cynical, executing fewer people means a lower expected value of innocent people executed.

/shrug

Are you from Texas (I can't see your "from" while replying )?

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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

Si Modo's post concisely forms three of my strongest conclusions why I once favoured the DP but now am against it, although I won't lose any sleep over the DP where it is imposed upon people who commit premeditated murder with aggravating circumstances where guilt is beyond all doubt and not just a reasonable doubt and I believe as the courts did that they were properly convicted in accordance with the law:

I have a contingency, however. In cases of premeditated murder, the alternative sentence must be life imprisonment without parole. Just citing Ireland as an example, 'life' for such crimes still often doesn't mean life. In fact, some get out with less than 15-20 years incarceration. That's true in many countries that do not have the DP.

If premeditated murderers aren't going to be given life imprisonment without parole, then I'd rather see the DP imposed upon them. To not impose life without parole does not treat the crime with the severity it deserves, insults the victim and gives undue excuse to the murderer, creates a mathematical incentive for those willing to commit murder to attempt it via a cost/benefit analysis (i.e., the odds of getting caught, how much there is to gain by committing the murder versus the sanction of getting caught, etc), insults and causes undue pain to the living relatives and loved ones of the victim, and endangers the public by releasing known murderers back into society.

Going out in a blaze of lame-duckery (Ryan gave new meaning to the phrase, lol) and clearing your conscience, I suppose. Yeah, I had no real issue with what he did.

__________________
"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

Virginia

__________________
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.”

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

To convict a person the belief in guilt need not be 100%, but only beyond what the jury concludes is a reasonable doubt. To try to prove a person guilty beyond all doubt would free too many likely guilty people and make the prosecution of a person too hard. The lesser burden of 'reasonable doubt' instead of 'beyond all doubt,' however, leaves room for error by its own admission. It tries to work the system on the balance as effective as it can to let it work, but knows that it still might convict some innocent people. This is especially true in cases where juries must make credibility calls on different and even conflicting witness testimony, which jury instructions allow them to do.

Here is the introductory paragraph of the PA standard jury instruction on reasonable doubt, which is similar to that of every other state, and it comes right out and says so in the beginning of it:

PA Standard Criminal Jury Instructions, Volume I, Chapter VII, 7.01(3) & (4) (d)

And much room for error exists in that process, and not just with physical evidence and inferences. For example, making credibility calls on witness testimony is a big area of judgement error, never mind other things such as misidentification, etc.

Here is the opening paragraph of a standard federal jury instruction on credibility of witnesses:

(1 Devitt, Blackmar, Wolff and O’Malley, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions, §15.01 (4th ed. 1992).

This has nothing to do with playing with lives. It has everything to do with justice. What's the compromise? Humans make mistakes. Knowing this, I'm going to err on the side of life and liberty and give the innocent people a chance to clear their name. It's too late when they're dead.

There's no difference between life in prison and execution? If that's the case, what are we arguing about? Why bother risking the lives of innocent people?


We're never really 100 percent sure they did the crime. That's the point! Are you REALLY saying you are 100 percent sure of their guilt?

If the evidence changes or new evidence comes to light that makes the convicted person's guilt reasonably doubtful, then that person should go free. Believe it or not, my argument has no basis in emotion. It's based on justice alone. I think it's quite unjust for an innocent man to be put to death by the state for another's crime. Do you disagree?

What do you think of the appeals process? Do you think we should do away with appeals? If not, wouldn't that make you a wishy-washy non-committal person?

I don't believe I've introduced any emotionally based argument anywhere in this thread. Yet, you tell me I'm arguing for a "capricious and emotional application of justice." I've done nothing of the sort.

To the contrary, the emotional arguments have come from those in support of the death penalty. I need only reference Steve's post: Are you for or against the death penalty?

What is gained by applying capital punishment as opposed to life in prison? What is there besides the emotional 'thrill' of seeing a bad guy get his comeuppance?

__________________
"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

I'm for the death penalty when there is definite PROOF that a person is guilty. It can and often is obtained and there's no reason that someone should live if eyewitnesses watch him brutally kill someone in a robbery, mass murdering, etc.

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

I was looking through this thread yesterday and i thought it somewhat pointless bumping it up and saying that i supported the DP as everyone i'm sure, already knows that.

But without glossing back through the thread i think i remember somebody asking if say one per hundred executed was innocent could i live with that and that made me think....but ultimately yes, if an innocent person was executed that would be bearable, i would certainly not wanna the see the DP be stopped as a practise for an error or mistake.