Posted on 03/28/2013 12:38:59 PM PDT by beaversmom
DOVER, Del. — The state Senate on Tuesday narrowly approved a bill repealing Delaware's death penalty after removing a provision that would have spared the lives of 17 inmates currently awaiting execution.
The measure passed by a vote of 11-10, with five Democrats and five Republicans voting against it. Three Republicans sided with majority Democrats in voting for the bill after a lengthy and sometimes emotional debate.
The measure, opposed by Attorney General Beau Biden and several leaders of the law enforcement community, now goes to the state House for consideration. Democratic Gov. Jack Markell has refused to say whether he favors the legislation.
Supporters of the bill argue that the death penalty is morally wrong, racially discriminatory, ineffective as a deterrent to violent crime and far more costly than sentencing killers to life in prison without parole.
"I just believe that you don't teach people that killing is bad by killing them," Sen. Karen Peterson, chief sponsor of the bill, said after the vote.
"It is homicide, and it is wrong," Peterson, D-Stanton, said just before the vote, making a Holy Week reference to Jesus' crucifixion. "We can either do what Pontius Pilate did and wash our hands and say we take no responsibility for their deaths, or we can put an end to it in Delaware."
Peterson said her decision to remove the provision sparing the lives of current death row inmates was not an effort to ensure Senate passage of the bill. She instead said she wanted to remove confusion that might lead to arguments over the constitutionality of that provision.
"It's just not an argument that needs to be part of this effort," Peterson said, expressing confidence that the measure will also pass the House.
Opponents of repealing the death penalty argued that some murders are...
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Noticed most of the blue states getting rid of the death penalty, permitting same sex marriage, and enacting tough gun control laws.....meanwhile in the red states more right to work laws, many states lowering or getting rid of their state income taxes, and more expansion of oil drilling and hydraulic fracking. Is it any wonder that the red states are growing and thriving, and the blue stares are losing population and gowing bankrupt?
What are some of those red states? My state, CO, used to be fairly conservative red, but is getting more communist red by the day. :( I think they are going to recreate California here.
That qualifies as the stupidest thing I've read all week.
IMHO, Delaware is trying to recreate Colorado.
Indiana recently passed a RTW law (so did amazingly the union stronghold blue state of Michigan).
In Lousiana and NC there is momentum to eliminate the state income tax.
Is there anything out there more idiotic than a female Dem legislator? (That’s not really a question...more a statement of fact.)
No death penalty gets rid of those appeals which go on forever. Life without parole...and nothing less.
Hank “Guam will fall tip over” Johnson?
Additional food for thought:
If You’re Ever Murdered, Here’s an Idea
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
I’d like to offer a simple proposal that, if enacted, could generate a great deal of a most precious resource: moral clarity.
It concerns the death penalty.
(Read more at link)
Yeah, that's pretty darn stupid, but I can always counter with Sheila Jackson Lee and the flag on Mars.
Female dem actresses come pretty darned close ;-)
No mention of exempting unborn babies. This is a net gain then. Sure, young men who shoot a 1 year old in the face will live off the state in prison for the rest of their worthless lives, but at least there won’t be anymore legal baby executions.
LOL! And Ashley Judd considered doing both! :)
Delaware is a solid blue state with a bad economy and politicians who ‘feel’ their way along and do their best to appease their leftist base. Too many people moved over here from New Jersey and now they are trying to recreate it here with the willing help of the Democrats controlling the General Assembly and administration.
There are too many cases of the wrong guy locked up for years for murder and/or rape only to find out later it was the wrong person through a DNA Test. I trust neither the police nor politically connected DAs out to make a career for themselves enough with the lives of our fellow citizens.
Lock em up and keep them locked up until they die or evidence comes forth - REAL evidence - not courtroom attorney tricks - to prove the contrary.
taxpayers now forced to pay for criminals for the rest of their lives.
We need our old court systems back. One-two weeks between sentencing and carrying out the sentence. Death penalty back across the nation for capital crimes.
1. 1965 - The influx of new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe had reached a saturation level by 1920 where they were not being readily assimilated into American culture and Americans expressed their dissatisfaction. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act, INS, Act of 1965, Pub.L. 89–236) abolished the National Origins Formula that had been in place in the U.S. since the Emergency Quota Act of 1920. It was proposed by U.S. Representative Emanuel Celler (D-NY), co-sponsored by U.S. Senator Philip Hart (D-MI) and heavily supported by U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA). The Hart-Celler Act replaced the EQA with a preference system that focused on immigrants' skills and family relationships with citizens or U.S. residents. It marked a radical break from the immigration policies of the past. The law as it stood then excluded Asians and Africans and preferred northern and western Europeans over southern and eastern ones. At the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s the law was seen as an embarrassment by, among others, POTUS #35 JFK, who called the then-quota-system "nearly intolerable". Some historians thought that JFK saw a chance for retaliation in response to the anti-Irish Catholic bigotry by WASPs he encountered as a younger man. After Kennedy's assassination, POTUS #36 LBJ signed the bill at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic gesture. In order to convince the American populace - the majority of who were opposed to the act - of the legislation's merits, its liberal proponents assured that passage would not influence America's culture significantly. POTUS #36 LBJ called the bill "not revolutionary", SoS Dean Rusk estimated only a few thousand Indian immigrants over the next 5 years, and other politicians, including Senator Ted Kennedy, hastened to reassure the populace that the demographic mix would not be affected; these assertions would later prove wildly inaccurate. In line with earlier immigration law, the bill also prohibited the entry into the country of "sexual deviants", including homosexuals. By doing so it crystallized the policy of the INS that had previously been rejecting homosexual immigrants on the grounds that they were "mentally defective" or had a "constitutional psychopathic inferiority". After ethnic quotas on immigration were removed in 1965, the number of actual 1st generation immigrants living in the U.S. eventually quadrupled from 9.6 million in 1970 to about 38 million in 2007. Over 1 million persons were naturalized as U.S. citizens in 2008. The leading countries of origin of immigrants to the U.S. were Mexico, India, the Philippines, and China. Nearly 14 million immigrants entered the U.S. from 2000 to 2010. Family reunification accounts for approximately two-thirds of legal immigration to the U.S. every year. The number of foreign nationals who became legal permanent residents (LPRs) of the U.S. in 2009 as a result of family reunification (66%) exceeded those who became LPRs on the basis of employment skills (13%) and for humanitarian reasons (17%).
2. 1965 – U.S. population was 87.8% white and 10.5% black.
3. 2012 – More U.S. babies were born to minorities than whites.
4. 2012 - D.C., HI, CA, NM, and TX had minority populations >50%.
5. 2012 - U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began issuing green cards (permanent legal resident) to same sex spouses.
6. 2013 – U.S. population is 63% white and 13% black. (a 24.8% decrease of whites over 48 years since the passage of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act)
7. 2013 - >45% of students in K-12 are minorities.
8. 2013 – Democrats in Congress are attempting to reform U.S. immigration law so that it covers homosexuals illegally in the U.S. and provide them a path to full citizenship.
9. 2018 - U.S. Census Bureau projects the number of non-white children in K-12 will be >50%.
10. 2020 - 8 more states (AZ, FL, GA, MD, MS, NV, NJ, and NY) are projected to become minority majority.
11. 2024 - The white population is projected to peak at 200 million before entering a steady decline in absolute numbers.
12. 2039 - Racial and ethnic minorities will make up a majority of the U.S. work-age population. They will be helping to support a disproportionately elderly white population through Social Security and other payroll taxes. More than 1 in 4 people ages 18-64 will be latino.
13. 2043 – Whites are projected to decline to <50% of the population. Racial and ethnic minorities will collectively become a U.S. majority. Hispanics will drive most of the minority growth, due mostly to high birth rates, jumping in share from 17 % (2013) to 26%.
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