This link is for the last quote I pasted, it got pasted in Stumblers quote by mistake

http://www.thejusticeproject.org/reports/wrongful-convictions-reform-is-critical/

 

Here's something else you can see right here on this thread. How people make emphatic statements, but then when confronted with evidence that proves them wrong they cannot admit that and cling to their previous positions.

That's one of the things that makes false convictions so easy. Many people are not capable of objectively weighing evidence that goes against their preconceptions.

That's one thing I like about you. The ability to question yourself and what you believe.

 

I pretty much hated that lifestyle. I had more personal responsibility before entering. I often likened it to being raised by sadistic nuns. One of my pastimes at work would be to see how many rules I could break each day. One of my favorites was setting up things to happen that one of my dickhead flight chiefs would get bitched out about because it was costing the squadron money. The only piece of discipline that ever stuck was two LOCs, which were pretty much the smallest possible slap on the wrist you could get; it is just a record that something happened and it stays in your file for something like 5 months. The only reason that one stuck of those stuck was because i didn't think it worth the time to fight it.

The more prisoners you force into the military, probably the more people who will think like I did. That really doesn't make a good military.

When I joking supported putting prisoners on the front line, I was thinking just give them guns and ammo and drop them in a hot zone.

 

In all honesty I do like being proven wrong. I don't accept it lightly, but when it happens I have to think I am a better person after for knowing different.

 

Here's something I don't understand Perv, and it get's back to people not just being ignorant but preferring to hang on to their ignorance no matter what.

What gets me is with the internet it is just so easy to check your facts, look things up, find information, and actually see if you know what you are talking about or not. But its not just that most people don't bother to do that out or laziness. I think they are afraid to. And if you look up the facts and present them they resent it.

I really don't understand why that is, because walking around believing your own bullshit or relying on false but deeply cherished notions is to me at least no way to go through life.

 

In this thread, you and I posted links to sites that had reports on why convictions are overturned or otherwise invalidated. You had made a statement saying that it was attributed to two main factors, poor reliability in eyewitness accounts and juries who are highly motivated to render guilty verdicts.

My contention that the number one reason was the "stacking" of evidence and improper disclosure by the prosecution. The links that I posted supported that contention.

Since we both used the internet to research our positions and since we both produced links and text supporting our position, who is wrong?

The use of information gathered on the internet in support of, or in challenge to, a particular argument does not result in a conclusive victory or defeat. It is far too easy to dismiss what evidence is brought forward as being from a less than credible source, while touting your source as unimpeachable.

A civil discussion of the posters diverse opinions and an examination of the evidence presented is the only rational way to get your point across, this is the way I learn every day.

There are core beliefs in everyone of us, they do die hard, as they should. These core beliefs are the fabric of our society, to think that they can be changed on what someone posts on an internet forum is a bit insane.

 

This is from the Justice project that was quoted earlier.

"Faulty eyewitness identification, a primary factor in each of the aforementioned cases, is one of the leading causes of wrongful conviction and has been a factor in approximately 75% of the DNA exonerations in capital and noncapital cases."

http://www.thejusticeproject.org/reports/wrongful-convictions-reform-is-critical/

This is a story that sites the Justice Project but makes no mention of what is the leading causes of false convictions. It deals only with procedural errors on the part of the police and court officers looked at upon appeal.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jun2000/dp-j22.shtml

As I was saying earlier it amazes me with such easy access to information in this day and age people would still rather cling to their ignorance.

 

Yet in the links I posted, the support for my contention was clearly stated.

My point is not to argue this particular point, but to merely illustrate that more than one view can be obtained from similarly credible sources. To make the statement that you keep making about peoples ignorance, perhaps you need to look at a mirror. It is not necessarily, a case of ignorance, but rather one of differered interpretations of various sources of information.

 

Everyone here should realize, Im talking about Murderers and the sort that are guilty beyond question. That mean 100%, nothing less....

 

I wonder who said this:

In the face of this from the link he posted:

And then would still claim this:

Oh never mind its not worth my time anymore.

Bullshit, you started out talking about murders, violent criminals and thieves.

But double bullshit because if you'd bothered to read your own thread you'd know there are lots of questions and nothing is 100% sure and even with all the safe guards the claim are in place innocent people still get convicted and even executed.

Fuck we've got people on this thread saying its ok to execute a certain amount of innocent people just so they can enjoy killing some of the guilty ones even though there is not one bit of credible evidence that killing people reduces the murder rate and keeping them in prison for life is actually cheaper than killing them.

But oh no you and your god like powers can determine someone needs to be executed in a week whether they are guilty or not because there is plenty of evidence on this thread that innocent people are found guilty lots of times.

PS Not all views are equally valid especially when they are based on incorrect information or personal prejudices.

 

Tenguy, I will leave aside the religious aspect (because I could easily make a very good argument that the insistence for the death penalty is deeply rooted in religion) and ask why is it so important to have the death penalty when we know it doesn't deter crime? Why has a person who has committed a murder forfeited their rights? Furthermore, since it is so fraught with errors and so many innocents are killed, on that basis alone, how can anyone in good conscience defend it when we know there is a good chance that the wrong person could be killed?

-S-

 

The premise that the death penalty is religiously based is flawed. The death penalty is enforced in countries where the government is clearly not run by religious factions is carried out much quicker than in the US. If anything the religious community is opposed to the death penalty, with the exception of some fundimentalists.

To say that the death penalty is not a deterent is also flawed, the murder rate has gone up in the US since the death penalty has been restricted, banned or otherwise subverted. As I have said several times, please show me where an executed murderer has repeated his crime.

In regard tot he innocent being executed, this is not a rampant situation, in cases where the convicted party has been found to have been deprived of a fair trial, justice largely has prevailed. Appeal courts and higher courts have reversed the sentences and have ordered retrials. This is how the system works. However, to have endless appeals does tend to dilute the chances that the guilty serves his sentence. Present day evidence gathering, technologies such as DNA matching has made the risk of error much, much smaller.

Now maybe we should actually reform the system by making the investigators share evidence with both sides, from the git-go. The thought that the prosecution has to produce convictions is causing many of the wrongful verdicts. Overzealous DA's, with political motivation, are a huge part of the problem.

So the reform needed, in my opinion, is not by abolishing the death penalty, but rather to make the system serve the people, not an individuals career goals.

Persons who commit a felony should lose their rights as freemen while they are incarcerated, why should they have the same priviledges as those that they preyed on? Not inhumane treatment but not country club either. Rehabilitating prisoners usually starts with discipline, something that many prisoners are unfamiliar with. Learning to obey laws and societies rules is the whole idea of criminal rehabilitation. Self-esteem comes from knowing that one can fit in and function with society.

 

Not rampant? How do you know? How many death row inmates have been freed over the last few decades due to new evidence and how many before them were killed before such evidence came to light? And, how many is too many? How many innocent men and every so often women, have to die to slake your over-inflated thirst for medieval justice?

But you still didn't answer the question of why should a person loose their life? What purpose does it serve? Out of one side of your mouth you speak of rehabilitation, out of the other you speak of death. And you throw out the ridiculous question of how many crimes does a dead man commit. Here's one for you: how many chances does the dead man get to lead a better life? You can't show him discipline and rehabilitate him if he's dead, can you.

Your argument, in a nutshell, is we shouldn't stop state-sanctioned murder, we should just do it more efficiently.

By the way, the states that you see carrying out executions are either religiously driven (our friends in the middle-east and Africa for instance) or dictatorships (China, North Korea, etc) The U.S. being the exception. Communism is a form of religion in that it worships not a god, but the State. In North Korea, there is a bit of a twist on that in that it is communism but they also worship Kim Jung Il as a god.

On paper we aren't a religious state, but you wouldn't know that to look at the rhetoric from both sides in Washington. Last I checked, we were the only "Western" nation (meaning North America and most of Europe) to have a death penalty. And we have the highest crime rates, violent crimes especially. So, when examining this seeming paradox, one looks at the differences between to two groups to try and identify causes for this imbalance. Perhaps the starkest difference is the religiousity of the two. Europe is growing increasingly more secular, despite the fact that each country has a state-sanctioned religion and the U.S. has vast armies of evangelicals.(You can also draw another parallel in that the most "red" states (typically identified as republican and heavily Christian for you folks on the outside) have some of the highest crime rates.) You are content to write that off as coincidental but, especially in light of certain bible verses posted above that show how such things are justified if one believes in the bible, that would appear to not be the case.

With so many pitfalls and ways to abuse, manipulate or cheat the system, wouldn't it be better for humanity to simply error on the side of caution and not kill a man?

-S-

 

Your rhetoric is getting more ridiculous.

The idea that the deathpenalty is not a deterant is seriously flawed, there is no evidence that this is true. On the contrary, there is evidence that in those places where the death penalty is carried ot, the murder rate has dropped.

The number of repeat offenders is testimony that some criminals are not rehabilitated. What would you have done with them? If someone has murdered without remorse and repeats that act again, how can you say that society was well served by allowing that to happen??

Life in prison, without parole, is a reasonable substitute for the death sentence only when it is administered properly. However, there are those who contine their killing even when incarcerated, what would have done with them??

Those prisoners convicted of non-capital crimes, who are successfully rehabilitated have earned the right to reenter society as equals.

 

I'd be willing to bet no one can put up a credible study that says the death penalty acts as a deterrent.

While a life sentence without the possibility of parole does two things. Protects society from repeat offenders and insures that society is not an offender by wrongly executing innocent people.

However, that would also entail that we improve our prisons to safe and effective places to rehabilitate people, instead of unsafe warehouses where offenders come out much more violent and dangerous than before they went into prison.

 

So if the prisons are unhealthy places that develop more criminal behavior, maybe the death sentence makes even more sense.

 

Here's a thought that might please some on this forum we could execute all death row inmates after a week, and then once a month hold a lottery to execute thousands of other prisoners just to ease over crowding, and then harvest their organs to meet the increasing demand for organ transplants and make a buck or two on the deal.

Now that would put us more in line with the Nazis I think but hell it would work and who cares how many innocent people we happen to kill. After all they are not us now are they?I

 

Hell, Stumbler, run on that plarform, you might get elected.

 

We have a guy here in Texas thats been on death row for 10yrs now, and next week is scheduled to die. Why was he there so long? I cant even imagine how much this one guy has cost the tax payers. Now maybe you dont mind taking care of these people for years and then eventually
killing them, but it just doesnt make sense to me