First you need to update your vocabulary, according to Merriam-Webster, the definition of murder is:

Murder is the wrong term to be used for a legally applied death sentence. To do so only illustrates your unwillingness to accept that others may have an opinion other than your own.

As far as my personal thoughts on the death sentence, I have no problem with it when it is used on heinous criminals. The thought that a person who commits a murder(s) wantonly, with malice of forethought, without remorse against an innocent person, has forfeited his/her right to live.

While there is a chance that the person who is ultimately executed is not guilty of the crime that was committed, I believe that the justice system can and will find the truth through reasonable appeal processes. You all overlook the fact that those who have been remanded to new trial or re-sentencing had it happen due to the appeals process. It worked, for those who were sentenced before the appeals process was so well established, we can do nothing.

The reforms that I believe are needed in the judicial system have been discussed many times before, prosecution bears the burden to follow the established rules of law. Severe penalties for failing that should be handed down swiftly.

 

Here's the problem the the death penalty.

At face value it seems OK to most people, but when we look at the number of exonerations of people who have been condemned to be executed the laws of odds and probability force the inescapable conclusion that we have executed innocent people in the past and will execute more innocent people in the future.

Given the attitudes of revenge on the part of the public and especially family and friends of the victim, the execution of an innocent person rises to the level of "murder" and fits the definition perfectly.

This an unavoidable consequence of putting people to death and that should be obvious to anyone. First we have the fact that the most common reason innocent people are convicted of capital crimes and sentenced to death is because of eyewitness testimony and false identification. Next comes misconduct on the part of police and prosecutors, followed by incompetent defense which is only logical since most people facing the death penalty are represented by public defenders.

Now its nice for some people to believe that somehow all these problems can be overcome and we will magically be able to eliminate all these errors and stop executing innocent people. But is that realistic? Since when have we so imperfect humans archived perfection in anything?

It's patently ridiculous, in fact foolish, to try and believe that the more than 129 people who have been condemned to be executed only to be eventually exonerated later are the only ones who were actually innocent. Most if not all of these were eventually cleared by DNA evidence but in many cases either DNA evidence was not present or was actually destroyed by the state following the conviction. Most states are not required to keep this evidence.

Given the fact that not one credible study has ever shown that the death penalty acts as any kind of deterrent, and that humans are incapable of perfection, the fact that in some cases the state and thereby our society become the murderers we condemn is too great and counter productive to continue putting criminals to death.

 

Try to picture this scenario.

There's a man standing before the judge, and he's telling the judge yes I killed some people that deserved to die, and it turns out that in some cases I ended up killing the wrong guy. But it was only a few of them and I was killing these people to protect us all.

Is the judge going to say that's OK or is this man going to be charged with murder and possibly face the death penalty?

 

Your analogy is quite inane.

A person is not a social system. A social system evolves by it's people working out the practices that suit their needs and beliefs. Unless of course it is one that is established by totalitarian decree.

 

In a government that is established on the principle of We the people, for the people and by the people our individual responsibility for the collective wrong of executing innocent people cannot be escaped. We are all accomplices to what is nothing other than a premeditated act of revenge.

How completely asinine it seems to me that some people would think that is alright, or within the accepted range of human error.

 

Once again you are stating your opinion. There is no credible evidence that the people of the states that have the death penalty, think that it's wrong.

So if you want to change the laws, go for it.

To state that it is a premeditated act of vengence is also without substance. That is only your opinion. It is a legally devised sentence for certain criminal behavior.

 

I suppose there will always be those that will grasp at straws such as people who were exonerated from the death sentence were not necessarily innocent. Of the 129 exonerations I mentioned earlier on this thread that would not be the case.

Here is the criteria for the people on the list:

For Inclusion on DPIC's Innocence List:
Defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either-

a) their conviction was overturned AND
i) they were acquitted at re-trial or
ii) all charges were dropped


b) they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence.

The last person to be exonerated was in May 2008.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=110

 

I stand corrected.

However, I read your site with interest, the number of 129 overturned convictions were from the years 1973 to present, or 35 years. This tells me two things, one they were not executed. Two, they represent less than 1/2 of 1 % of those convicted in that period.

 

I guess I'll never understand how some people can go on and on about how terrible it is for innocent people to be killed by someone, and then go ahead and say its OK or at least acceptable if their government kills innocent people through capital punishment. That just seem very hypocritical to me.

 

Believe me when I say that I do understand your position. Also please believe me that I wish that we never put another human being to death.

However, I have been on this earth way too long to believe that everything is fair and equal, it ain't. Sometimes mistakes happen, they happen on the operating table, they happen when a soldier fires his weapon, they happen when a killer misses his target and kills a two year old child standing nearby. This stuff does happen, as does when a trial goes wrong, there is one huge difference. The patient, the civilian and the toddler get no appeal, it's over.

On the other hand the guy who is convicted and sentenced has many appeals open to him, other courts look at the transcripts and examine the evidence. If they find one tiny error which could have caused a different verdict, the verdict is overturned and the convicted gets another chance.

To me this is how our system should work and it does. Is it possible that an innocent person gets executed, yes. It is something other than a rarity, no I really don't think so.

If the people of the juridiction think that the death penalty is just and warranted, then they have that right to choose it. Just like Roe v Wade there are a lot of us who think it's wrong, but it is the law, we either live with it or change it the legal way.

I suggest you do the same.

 

What's really ironic is if an individual killed 129 innocent people, tenguy would say yes, they deserve to die. But if the states do it those innocent people are reduced to a statistic and an acceptable loss, at that.

Tenguy, you've suddenly started treating statistical analysis as you do religious discussions as in there is no truth, only opinion and that all opinions are equally valid. It's only the internet, huh.

-S-

 

More than that. According to his logic if someone kills an innocent person they should be put to death by execution. But if the person executed turns out to be innocent that's just a little old accident, that can be easily overlooked. He also seems to be contending it is just a jurisdictional little thing instead of something that has been ruled in a very close vote on the supreme court and now even president Bush has signed an execution order for the first soldier to be executed since World War II.

And I am so glad you noticed that all opinions, and all statistical findings and all points of view are supposed to be equally valid, no matter how many facts to the contrary are presented. Whether or not killing innocent people if a good or bad thing is just a matter of opinion.

PS In researching this topic I also ran on to a study that does make a connection between religious beliefs and support for the death penalty and statistics showing the more secular a person is the more likely they are to oppose the death penalty.

 

Something I find interesting that relates here. Check out the thread on the horrible beheading murder on a Canadian bus. I've been following it closely on the news up here. One of the first wittinesses they interviewed was a guy that was sitting in front of the incident, in fact he ran up and told the driver what was going on and to stop the bus and get everybody off. This wittiness described the killer as very big,"over 6 feet tall and weighing at least 200 lbs" The perpetrator was locked into the bus from the outside by the driver until the RCMP got there and arrested him. I saw him on TV last night. he is nowhere near 6 feet tall and certainly does not weigh 200 pounds. Eye wittiness accounts are often very unreliable.

 

The 129 weren't executed, try to catch up here Shake.

 

And I would say that I could understand that you think that way. Also it makes sense that other who are like minded would as well.

 

Yes I would imagine that if you were looking at a guy who is repeatedly stabbing someone, then beheading him, then starting to field dress him, you might think he was 10 feet tall and weighed 400#.





At least that is how you would justify standing by while he does it.

 

Thats the point! But a lot of people are convicted on eyewitness testimony.

 

How unreliable eyewitness testimony can be has been an experiment in colleges and other places for decades now. The scenario goes something like this. They are in a lecture, someone runs in an shoots another student and then the other students are asked to describe the shooter. Not only do they get several different physical descriptions of what the shooter looked like and was wearing, it is also not uncommon for students to get the shooters race wrong.

As has already been proven on this thread, eyewitness testimony is the leading cause for sentencing innocent people to death.

But even so you will find people who support the death penalty while saying things like this: "Absolutely, we have executed innocents and we probably will in the future."

They also, however, tend to make the illogical and contradictory assumption that if 129 people have been sentenced to death and then later exonerated that must mean the appeals process is working and these must be the only innocent people on death row or in prison for that matter.

 

And the eye witness who described the assailant on the bus will be credible in court, right?