Posted on 09/24/2011 7:15:03 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’m not a fan of the death penalty but its not a do or die issue for me in the voting booth. I’m sure as hell not going to protest it if it were an option in my own state, let alone other states.
Guess I’m more of a (((Shrug))) on the whole issue.
How that is dealt with will be determined by the new world law and Sharia.
The death penalty proponents (such as myself) need to focus though on setting the standards so that no one who’s innocent gets executed. The standards are already skewed in that direction, but it would take only one such case to bring a swift end to the death penalty, I think. They need to get these “petitions” out of the process, and similar kibitzing by the other side. It doesn’t matter how many “supporters” there are. What matters is whether there is evidence that might exonerate the defendant. Let the libs argue about whether the degree of the crime justifies the death penalty. That’s not going to be a convincing anti-death penalty argument. But if an innocent person gets executed... that would be a disaster.
A quick search on Wikipedia.org shows 139 death-row inmates exonerated in this country.
Maybe that list isn't perfectly accurate, but even one misplaced execution is too many.
I still don’t understand why the left is against the death penalty for people tried and convicted by a jury, but is not opposed to the death penalty for innocent children.
Good article.
What was not heard was the Davis was one of three men who executed the off-duty cop (shot once in the head, twice on the ground). That he was one of three is not in dispute. Also not in dispute is that the shooter was wearing the same t-shirt seen on Davis earlier that evening. Everything I heard last week was noise and obfuscation.
How about 50 million or more misplaced executions? That is what the Supreme Court has legally allowed since 1973. Where is Amnesty International and their ilk on those executions?
Excellent point.
It’s because they are libocrites.
Look into the souls of those who lead the non death penalty and euthanasia; not the followers. This is about neither. It is about power of the sick minds who want to solely decide who lives or dies.
The people must retain the right to choose; not a few.
I agree 100%.
Opposition to the death penalty is all about the race of the perpetrator. Nothing else.
Christopher Newsom, 23, and Channon Christian, 21, murders.
...even one misplaced execution is too many.
But one misplaced life sentence isn't?
I do not believe that the death penalty is a deterrent (evil people are evil and not swayed by the laws of man), but I do support it.
I believe that the death penalty represents a price. If you take an innocent human life, the price for that action is your own life. To not have the death penalty diminishes the value of the individual human life.
But I agree - we MUST be SURE. And we do try to be. That’s why it takes 20 years and dozens of appeals before we put someone down. Our society does not take the responsibility of execution lightly. In other places, there is no such system. What we have is not be perfect, but it is the best system in the world.
I believe each of those people was exonerated while on death row. IOW, they weren’t executed, so the system actually worked.
AFAIK, nobody has conclusively demonstrated an “actually innocent” person has been executed in this country in the modern era. And I’m sure we’d all have heard about it if someone had.
I’d also like to point out a couple of problems with your terminology. “Exonerated” in the sense you used it does not necessarily mean it was proven they didn’t actually commit the crime of which they were convicted, only that new evidence invalidated some of the evidence originally used to convict them. Sufficiently so to either get them a new trial or at least a commutation to a prison term rather than execution.
That’s very different from the common use of the term “exoneration” to mean “proven innocent.” Death penalty opponents do all they can, dishonestly IMO, to obscure the difference between the two meanings. I don’t include you in this group, BTW.
When it comes to the morality of executing a given person, there is also a difference between executing a person who never committed a crime deserving of execution (or possibly any crime at all) and executing a career criminal who had committed at least one and possibly many capital crimes of which he was not convicted.
Person A would have suffered a truly great injustice. Person B would have no right to claim he suffered any injustice in an existential sense, although he could certainly object to irony taking such a whack at him.
But one misplaced life sentence isn't?If you find that someone has been imprisoned unjustly, you can give them the rest of their life back (along with compensation for false imprisonment).
Once you've executed them, there is no recourse.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.