Gaming World Forums
General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: The Ghost on September 10, 2009, 07:09:17 am
-
A 17 page article done by David Grann about an unemployed mechanic, Cameron Todd Willingham, who lost three children, two of them twins, to a house fire around Christmas (1991). After an investigation by the fire inspector it was later deemed that Cameron was the arson who allegedly started the fire. He was later put to death by lethal injection in 2004. Recently however, this conclusion was overturned by forensics. Some specialists even go as far as saying "They were 99% sure that Cameron was innocent". The title of the article is called "Trial By Fire" and the subheading is "Did Texas execute an innocent man?".
I'm under the impression that David brought the whole story to light as he kept up with the whole story, maybe wrong though (I haven't read the whole article). The article in the link is very descriptive and honestly I just feel that Cameron was wronged on so many occasions. He had no real motive, his actions spoke louder then words, the appeal process was often overlooked and updated appeal reports were not even fully reviewed (how can you not even have the time of day to look at an appeal when a MAN'S LIFE IS ON THE LINE?). Texas is one of the few states that actually pay up to $80,000 dollars a year for any person wrongfully excused for timed served and $20,000 dollars for the rest of the victim's life. With that aside, I think it's definitely not enough! Why? Because people who are dead cannot claim any money and most certainly cannot ressurected...
Honestly, even being wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years is too much and money will NEVER make up for lost time. Death sentences however is MUCH worst. Especially when some fucking slapnut is not even taking appeals seriously. Imagine being prosecuted for murdering your own 3 children... His wife also cursed him to death.
Well here is the article and here is a quick video I found.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=1
Here's a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYOSh9wpCkI
-
That's a sad story man. I've never ever been a fan of the death penalty no matter the crime. Also as it just so happens I was JUST reading these two articles that are pretty related and interesting..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8247319.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8243991.stm
-
i'd rather the government only had control over one of the things i was sure of. my guns.
-
With life imprisonment, if you're found innocent you lost a lot of time but at least you have the chance to GO ON LIVING afterwards. But you can't UNDO the death penalty if it turns out the guy was innocent. It's the simplest argument but man I think this is the only one you need to see that the death penalty is fucked up.
-
I think the best way to punish crimes would be to come up with a way to wipe out the criminal`s memories then they can start fresh,I know what you migth be thinking "What if they victims try to find him and kill him" well the criminal could choose a place to be dropped off after his memory is gone before they do it.
-
I think the death peanalty should be reserved for the most horific crimes, and even then only when ABSOLUTE proof that they are the culprits should it be carried out. I think its sad when some one innocent has there life taken and then afterwoulds it's found that there innocent.
My father was always saying that the death penalty should be abolished and instead put the bastards into a cell; never to come out untill there time is up with no chance of getting out early and ONLY living on the bear essentials.
personaly i'm not sure how its done in america but i think over here in England that there way, WAY to soft on criminals. I also think the justice system is flawed, its not about justice any more, its about who can tell the better story.
-
I think the death peanalty should be reserved for the most horific crimes
Is a case where a man supposedly murders his children not a horrific crime? If the man was guilty, surely death penalty supporters would have approved of it's use... as they did. The problem was that the man was not guilty and no one even really cared. You can see where reserving it for just the "most horrific crimes" doesn't even work... even under the circumstance when guilt was not even fully established they went ahead and carried out lethal injection on an innocent man. What if that innocent person was you? What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I understand you don't think this man should have been put to death but saying it should be reserved for the most horrific crimes doesn't change the fact that innocents get caught up in the system.
I will never live in Texas.
-
and even then only when ABSOLUTE proof that they are the culprits should it be carried out.
maybye i should have bolded the word absolute.
i understand what you are saying, but like i said, absolute proof that without a doubt they can say that this person is the culprate with 100% confidence.
-
I think that if you behave like a predator (in the lion, shark, etc sense) you should be treated like one (in the they get shot sense) but then the risks of killing an innocent blah blah blah so leave it for when there are videos or pictures that prove you're evil
-
Lethal injection is a bad way to go. It's like having a heart attack (literally, they stop your heart while you are fully awake).
One of the big problems with the death penalty is that it is entirely dependent on human error. Human error runs rampant even in the DNA forensics labs, where certain pieces of evidence are overlooked, mistreated, or thrown away before the appeals case. In fact, in Texas there was a huge problem with DNA lab misconduct in 2006, as well as in other states. It stands to truth that even the most absolute indicator of crime -- DNA testing -- is flawed, and ill-suited to using the death penalty.
Not to mention that the costs necessary to maintain the death penalty often bankrupt the immediate area. In California, one of our districts underwent a series of death penalty cases which, in the end, cost the district upwards of 50 million dollars. The state pays a portion of it, yes, but this is the 50 million dollars -left over- to the city. Trial and appellate proceedings cost lots of money -- and some argue that maintaining a facility for lifers is cheaper than having the death penalty. What better way to invest that 50 million on the things that might actually help prevent crime? Public parks, for instance. A library. More police officers. Things that make a community better.
Proponents of the death penalty argue that it's the best way for a country to tell its citizens that if you do this, you will DIE. However, this 'deterrence factor' of the death penalty only goes as far as the murderer is sane (which isn't very far). Most murders are committed in crimes of passion where the murderer is not thinking "hey, if I do this, I might get the death penalty." And the serial killers obviously aren't deterred because they get a kick out of it. The only demographic the death penalty deters is the common person who would not ordinarily kill anyone in the first place!
The only reason people want the death penalty is because of a deep anger towards the people who kill our loved ones. We don't want to subject our mode of justice to the blind ideals of the lynch mob. Nor do we want to tout absolutism in the face of the blind inadequacies and injustices of the bureaucratic system. There are no absolutes.
But...suffice it to say, if guilt is proven beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt -- like if we find a murderer in the red-hot act of killing someone -- where human interpretation of the evidence is at its basal minimum (to the point where human error can be minimized as if you can SEE the act), then I've always been a fan of solitary confinement for life without parole. I'm aware that there's a major equity flaw here (OMG JON LOOK YOU AREn'T TREATING ALL CRIMINALS THE SAME), but let's face it, sometimes you need to do something extra special for all the David Westerfields and DC snipers of the world. And at least that can be taken back (and psychologically repaired).
-
If johnny was a mass murderer and killed a thousand children with a rusty spoon and ate their organs (and filmed and youtubed everything), would you really care if he had a heart attack?
I wouldn't. Throw him to the sharks.
-
Real cases are hardly ever that black and white, but if that ever happened my advocacy of life solitary without parole still stands. Every once in awhile some fucker gets caught bad so this actually allows society to slake its bloodthirst without spilling blood. My advocacy stands as an outlet for social structural violence without the obvious irrevocability of the death penalty. Note furthermore that this is only for people who beyond the shadow of a doubt committed these crimes (ie posting videos of themselves doing it). There will be cases of people who committed worse crimes being simply incarcerated, but at the very least the retributive sense of justice is fulfilled in that subjective manner somewhere in the world!
That's right, I'm calling out your premise of vigilantism and aff-turning it to my advo. You have the choice of attacking the previous statement, but in doing so you are forced to drop the argument for vigilante-style 'throw the fukr to the sharks' justice. Otherwise you contradict the idea of subjective (felt) justice.
You seem to be a life for a life guy yet you point out that he killed a thousand kids. Are you saying that his one life is going to cosmically equate the thousand kids he's killed? See, even something as basal as an eye for an eye is proven inadequate. Again though, we can mitigate the passion behind this sentiment through a totally nonviolent course of action.
-
This is not "life for a life" buddy, when a dog goes bad and kills people he's injected with poison. This isn't about abstract notions of justice and morals it's about whether it's convenient or not to keep alive a creature with no purpose other than to kill people for no reason
-
This is not "life for a life" buddy, when a dog goes bad and kills people he's injected with poison. This isn't about abstract notions of justice and morals it's about whether it's convenient or not to keep alive a creature with no purpose other than to kill people for no reason
But when you can't be 100% sure that the person is guilty, how can you justify that they need to be killed?
-
Death Penatly is dumb. The peace group I am in at my school held an event ont his, a panel discussion with Illinois Coalition to End the Death Penalty, Gary Gauger (guy from a town in my county who was wrongfully accused of killing his parents (story (http://www.law.northwestern.edu/cwc/exonerations/ilGaugerSummary.html)) and a member of Murders Victims Families (an organization of people who have had murders in their families...etc that are still against the death penalty).
-
What's a peace group :)
-
What's a peace group :)
they sit around and don't start fights duh :welp:
-
We are a group of students promoting peace at our school. We've had many events so far and more planned this semester. We had one on the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the speaker was the politcal science teacher here (he's been to Gaza many times) and along with this we showcased the Eyes Wide Open (http://www.afsc.org/eyes/) exhibit. We had the death penalty one, we had one where some members of Iraq Veterans Against the War came and spoke (we had a lot of conservatives come holding signs it got out of hand but we made front page of the paper), we did a film showing of Invisible Children and Taxi on the Dark Side, we had Peace on the Green Fest (a festival with the environmental club) that had bands, noodles and company came out, amnesty international had a booth, an organic farm and vineyard around here had a booth, we did tye die, drum circle...etc.
-
But when you can't be 100% sure that the person is guilty, how can you justify that they need to be killed?
I think that if you behave like a predator (in the lion, shark, etc sense) you should be treated like one (in the they get shot sense) but then the risks of killing an innocent blah blah blah so leave it for when there are videos or pictures that prove you're evil
-
I only believe in the death penalty if there is 100% proof the culprit committed the crime. and then only in extreme cases.
-
I think that if you behave like a predator (in the lion, shark, etc sense) you should be treated like one (in the they get shot sense) but then the risks of killing an innocent blah blah blah so leave it for when there are videos or pictures that prove you're evil
this is just as dumb, pictures and video don't prove anything, they can be altered or you might just see PART of a video that leads it to seem like you're guilty, this isn't enough proof to kill someone over
-
this is just as dumb, pictures and video don't prove anything, they can be altered or you might just see PART of a video that leads it to seem like you're guilty, this isn't enough proof to kill someone over
"If you didn't kill mr. roberts then how do you explain this video we have of you killing mr. roberts and you don't have an alibi either and there are a thousand witnesses that say you killed mr. roberts with a spork?"
"It's photoshopped! Videos don't prove anything!"
"Ok, you're free to go!"
-
to allow death penalty means a moral justification for it on some level. i can't think of any justification for death penalties. the Gaming World, please help me. *on knees, hat crumpled in hands, bows head gently downwards, eyes close*
-
*LIGHT BEACONS TO THE SPOT FROM DARKNESS*
-
this is just as dumb, pictures and video don't prove anything, they can be altered or you might just see PART of a video that leads it to seem like you're guilty, this isn't enough proof to kill someone over
There was a guy who killed and chopped a girl and he took photos of it (they're on the internet) and sent them to his buddies
"Velfarre: It doesn't PROVE HE killed her! It's photoshopped! Pictures don't prove anything!"
Then there was another guy who ordered the deaths of several people, and there is a recording of him talking to someone who was being tortured (it's really shocking, the victim had his two feet cut and talked about how they tried to make him walk but he fell down) because he ordered so and then the evil guy tells the other criminal to shoot him and you can hear it all. (it's also in the internet! but it's in portuguese)
"Velfarre: IT doesn't PROVE anything! THE AUDIO obviously was edited from several other clips!"
Then there is that video which shows the kids killing an old man with a hammer and a screw driver. (it's in the internet too)
"Velfarre: It's obviously EDITED WITH photoshop!"
IF VIDEOS/PICS/AUDIO DON'T PROVE ANYTHING THEN HOW COME PEOPLE USE THEM EVERY DAY AS EVIDENCE IN COURT?
-
I used to be totally for the death penalty until I heard someone say "giving the death penalty to an innocent person is the same as murder." or something like that.
As far as our prisons being overcrowded/that sort of shit, we could easily make lots of room if the government just legalized marijuana.
/hippy
-
everybody should just move out of Texas
-
They should bring back the guillotine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine) --
Living heads
From its first use, there has been debate as to whether the guillotine always provided as swift a death as Guillotin hoped. With previous methods of execution, there was little concern about the suffering inflicted. As the guillotine was invented specifically to be "humane", however, the issue was seriously considered. Furthermore, there is the possibility that the very swiftness of the guillotine only prolonged the victim's suffering. The blade cuts quickly enough so that there is relatively little impact on the brain case, and perhaps less likelihood of immediate unconsciousness than with a more violent decapitation, or long-drop hanging.
Audiences to guillotinings told numerous stories of blinking eyelids, speaking, moving eyes, movement of the mouth, even an expression of "unequivocal indignation" on the face of the decapitated Charlotte Corday when her cheek was slapped. Anatomists and other scientists in several countries have tried to perform more definitive experiments on severed human heads as recently as 1956. Inevitably, the evidence is only anecdotal. What appears to be a head responding to the sound of its name, or to the pain of a pinprick, may be only random muscle twitching or automatic reflex action, with no awareness involved. At worst, it seems that the massive drop in cerebral blood pressure would cause a victim to lose consciousness in several seconds.[17]
The following report was written by a Dr. Beaurieux, who experimented with the head of a condemned prisoner by the name of Henri Languille, on 28 June 1905:
Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds. This phenomenon has been remarked by all those finding themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of the neck …
I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. […] It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: "Languille!" I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions – I insist advisedly on this peculiarity – but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.
Next Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. After several seconds, the eyelids closed again […].
It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. Then there was a further closing of the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement – and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.[18]
-
the death penalty is barbaric and anybody who thinks it's ok, good, justifyable or whatever is a total cunt.
Regardless of the innocent people factor (which is a pretty big one!) I can't see it as justifyable to kill people. I think yeah, keeping them away for general safety is good and the ideal thing to do (like that sex offenders prison in california I think).
-
i don't really support the death penalty at all. not even in the most extreme cases. i think it'd be better punishment to rot in jail than to just kill them. nobody can be absolutely sure what happens after death, so what if the criminal dies and goes to a wonderful place full of magic and love and unicorns? hah, but yeah i mean, sometimes criminals just WANT to die. plenty of them kill themselves while in prison. and why do you think people who shoot up places usually shoot themselves too? they know that being in jail for the rest of their life would be way worse than just ending it there. if you really wanted some sort of vengeance from a trial against someone who has wronged you or loved ones, wouldn't it be more satisfying to know that they're sitting in jail than being unsure of whether they are living some sort of fantastic life after death? sure, it might make them feel safer to know a criminal is totally gone from this world, so he can't escape or be released in order to kill them. but still... i think it'd be better for them to just be serving life in prison. plus, if the supposed bad guy is ever found innocent, they can be released.
-
btw, kinda topic related : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8247564.stm
Basically a public art piece (which is very good!) is going to be used to present the case of a woman on death row to the british public, kinda I dunno a plea for the PM to grow some balls and ask for her to be released.
-
i don't really support the death penalty at all. not even in the most extreme cases. i think it'd be better punishment to rot in jail than to just kill them. nobody can be absolutely sure what happens after death, so what if the criminal dies and goes to a wonderful place full of magic and love and unicorns? hah, but yeah i mean, sometimes criminals just WANT to die. plenty of them kill themselves while in prison. and why do you think people who shoot up places usually shoot themselves too? they know that being in jail for the rest of their life would be way worse than just ending it there. if you really wanted some sort of vengeance from a trial against someone who has wronged you or loved ones, wouldn't it be more satisfying to know that they're sitting in jail than being unsure of whether they are living some sort of fantastic life after death? sure, it might make them feel safer to know a criminal is totally gone from this world, so he can't escape or be released in order to kill them. but still... i think it'd be better for them to just be serving life in prison. plus, if the supposed bad guy is ever found innocent, they can be released.
Those damn criminals..... should suffer to pay for their crimes :fogetshakefist:
-
IF VIDEOS/PICS/AUDIO DON'T PROVE ANYTHING THEN HOW COME PEOPLE USE THEM EVERY DAY AS EVIDENCE IN COURT?
YES BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY COURTS ARE INFALLIBLE AND ALWAYS GETS THE RIGHT GUY PUNISHED
OH WAIT
it's not a matter of these things NEVER proving guilt, it's that they MIGHT be wrong. that's what i was saying, it's not 100%! you cannot take a human life on even 99.99% confidence, because you can't undo it. just throw 'im in jail, there might be evidence that proves them innocent later but until then they are safely behind bars where they can't hurt anyone. you didn't disprove shit, unless you have some way of showing that photos and videos are always, ALWAYS, 100% proof (which you can't because they're faked or misleading all the time)
-
Plus not to mention a death sentence costs more than life (money wise).
-
Don't get me wrong, and i think it's wrong but a friend pointed out that When slavery was around, human life had value, yes, it was only so much money and in some cases not much at all, but at least it was there, now days life is worth nothing, people kill and no one will protect becuase they hold no value, at least you might protect your slaves for there monatery value....
ok now that i think about it maybey it wasn't such a good point, but its still kinda valid.
-
YES BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY COURTS ARE INFALLIBLE AND ALWAYS GETS THE RIGHT GUY PUNISHED
OH WAIT
it's not a matter of these things NEVER proving guilt, it's that they MIGHT be wrong. that's what i was saying, it's not 100%! you cannot take a human life on even 99.99% confidence, because you can't undo it. just throw 'im in jail, there might be evidence that proves them innocent later but until then they are safely behind bars where they can't hurt anyone. you didn't disprove shit, unless you have some way of showing that photos and videos are always, ALWAYS, 100% proof (which you can't because they're faked or misleading all the time)
When something is faked there is evidence of it being faked
Also why are you doing this. So what if it's not 100%? Leave it for when they're 100% of it then (like I Said In ANother Post)
-
When something is faked there is evidence of it being faked
Also why are you doing this. So what if it's not 100%? Leave it for when they're 100% of it then (like I Said In ANother Post)
They thought they were 100% when they executed the guy in the main post. Turns out they were wrong. That's why I'm "doing this" (the fuck does that mean anyway), there are no 100% scenarios. Even events when people admit guilt have occasionally turned out that the 'guilty' part was innocent. There is no absolute way of knowing these things unless you are MAGICAL so the death penalty isn't excusable!
-
Some times people are 100% sure of something because they saw it and there are videos of it happening
(ps which is not necessarily the case when lawyers trade fallacies back and forth and then someone else decides what happened based on popular opinion)
-
shows what a flakey bitch his wife was. I mean she's going to fucking curse him to death when she'd had three fucking kids with the man and was married to him you think that would mean something.
oh wait
-
I don't really like the death penalty because of the whole "innocent people" thing. But what if a person really did do a horrible crime like mercilessly kill innocent people for fun? Why would you be against his death penalty?
-
I don't really like the death penalty because of the whole "innocent people" thing. But what if a person really did do a horrible crime like mercilessly kill innocent people for fun? Why would you be against his death penalty?
Because in some places it might cost more than tossing them in a dungeon for 40 years but then in some places all it costs is a bullet
-
I don't really like the death penalty because of the whole "innocent people" thing. But what if a person really did do a horrible crime like mercilessly kill innocent people for fun? Why would you be against his death penalty?
It's wrong to kill people yet it's ok to kill people who kill people?
Money reasons...etc
-
I think the best way to punish crimes would be to come up with a way to wipe out the criminal`s memories then they can start fresh,I know what you migth be thinking "What if they victims try to find him and kill him" well the criminal could choose a place to be dropped off after his memory is gone before they do it.
You should run for public office.
I think that if you behave like a predator (in the lion, shark, etc sense) you should be treated like one (in the they get shot sense) but then the risks of killing an innocent blah blah blah so leave it for when there are videos or pictures that prove you're evil
I think the death peanalty should be reserved for the most horific crimes, and even then only when ABSOLUTE proof that they are the culprits should it be carried out.
Only when there's absolute proof? You mean... like OJ?
Sorry guy but if there's one thing science literature agrees on, it's that justice doesn't always get things right. You can't really have "absolute proof". And I know now you're probably going to reply and say "what if he makes a full confession that agrees with all independently verified facts?" or "but what if there's a video that leaves no doubt?" In the first case, that confession may yet be a lie to cover someone else's involvement. In the second case, it's simple: if you can get a conviction for a crime that didn't have the so-called "absolute proof" by your standards, his punishment would be different from the one given to the person of which there is video proof, and yet to the law they should be equal.
Simply put, the question of whether someone is guilty or not is binary. You can't be more guilty than the other. To make an idea like yours work, you'd have to introduce a whole new concept to the justice system: different degrees of guilt. And that would be so fundamentally incompatible with what the justice system is that it's never going to happen.
-
i've never found myself particularly riveted by the death penalty debate. sure you've got the occasional fucker who is wrongly executed, but these cases are few and far between. the vast majority of people executed were going to rot in a jail the rest of their life.
as far as i'm concerned, there are more important injustices perpetuated in the world for me to give a shit about about the human rights of the most utterly despicable people on the planet.
-
i've never found myself particularly riveted by the death penalty debate. sure you've got the occasional fucker who is wrongly executed, but these cases are few and far between. the vast majority of people executed were going to rot in a jail the rest of their life.
as far as i'm concerned, there are more important injustices perpetuated in the world for me to give a shit about about the human rights of the most utterly despicable people on the planet.
Whether it's an engrossing debate or not, there are still plenty of valid reasons for abolishing the death penalty. It's not always a case of "pick your poison". If OJ could be acquitted then Joe Idiot could be sent to the chair because Joe Killer outsmarted him. This should be part of any debate pertaining to what's wrong with the justice system.
Here's one reason that's often overlooked: http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-and-race/page.do?id=1101091
-
Plus not to mention a death sentence costs more than life (money wise).
Why is this so? I'm not doubting it, I've heard the same from numerous sources, but what is it that makes a death sentence so costly?
-
They have to pay the lawyers
But then in China they actually profit from it
-
Why is this so? I'm not doubting it, I've heard the same from numerous sources, but what is it that makes a death sentence so costly?
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
I dunno has something to do with the trials I guess.
-
we had a class debate about this issue a couple of semesters ago in Criminology. Some interesting points were made on both sides. But I still have to side with life imprisonment. We watched a video with families of murdered relatives not comforted or relieved in any way by the fact that the murderer got the death penalty.
-
People will die in the end. If the person is really fucked up he'll probably get it in jail anyways. I just can't swallow the idea that some makeshift jury + judge is deciding whether people live or not. Just imagine being in the defendants shoes. Some fuckers definitely deserve to die in my opinion but a court isn't the place to be deciding things like that.
Btw to the people who like to past the innocent people getting killed through the court system as some sort of bureaucracy error then you're obviously NOT the person who is getting put to death! I would like to see how fast you pull a 180 once you get thrown into a situation like this.
-
Whether it's an engrossing debate or not, there are still plenty of valid reasons for abolishing the death penalty. It's not always a case of "pick your poison". If OJ could be acquitted then Joe Idiot could be sent to the chair because Joe Killer outsmarted him. This should be part of any debate pertaining to what's wrong with the justice system.
this is true. i'm not saying that it is an unimportant issue in the context of the integrity of contemporary justice systems. the problem is that this isn't often the context that people are viewing it from. a lot of people treat the death penalty as some very pressing social issue in itself, which i don't really believe is the case. i have a difficult time understanding how anybody could HONESTLY object to executing people that were running around eating small children or cutting apart their neighbors. inhumane sure, but who really gives a shit? these are not people legitimately worthy of any sort of social activism. in the context of the mountains of other problems in the world, i would rate that issue as being negligible in terms of its earthly importance.
objecting to the death penalty on the grounds that innocent people occasionally get executed is really more of an issue with how tragically imperfect and arbitrary legal systems are, and, in my mind, not quite as much an issue with the death penalty itself. i'm not saying the core of this is not a BIG PROBLEM, because it absolutely fucking is. i served on a jury that consisted of 8 people desperate to throw an 18 year old kid away for life for having a murderer for a friend. fortunately for the kid, i can be pretty damn persuasive when i get worked up enough, and after a week i was able to eventually sway the entire fucking jury away from destroying this kid's life simply because of his associations. there's an excellent chance that the kid would be looking at life imprisonment had i not served on that particular jury.
this issue extends far beyond the scope of death penalty. sure it's easy to get all worked up when you hear about an innocent person getting the death penalty, but lower profile versions of effectively the same thing happen every day. victims of circumstance who either don't have great lawyers, fair judges, or just get saddled with ignorant jurors. i seriously hope that people don't HONESTLY BELIEVE that this problem magically goes away if the death penalty is universally abolished. you just won't be hearing about it as often.
that kid i set free had an exceptionally poor family. there was no retrying this case. there was no conclusive evidence to otherwise prove that he was completely uninvolved in the case. and there's absolutely no reason to believe a higher court would have picked it up, as even the defense attorney portrayed the kid as idiotic and worthless. if i wasn't there, he'd be in jail until the end of his life. that's just fucking it. life ruined. period. if i wasn't on that jury, this kid would be locked up forever and nobody in the fucking world would know about it or particularly give a shit.
is an innocent person getting the death penalty really that much more tragic than an innocent person getting life in prison without parole?
-
and in lighter news...
:)
-
is an innocent person getting the death penalty really that much more tragic than an innocent person getting life in prison without parole?
You have a peculiar gift for wording the more disheartening facts of society and making me depressed.
I've changed my mind. If I ever kill someone I want Peter Cook to be my judge. And EXECUTE ME ON THE SPOT.
-
and in lighter news...
:)
never heard of peter cook before beyond a white noise reference. thanks.
-
man hundley you are the best poster ever
but basically i agree with you! this topic was about the death penalty so that's what i stuck to but i think it's just as bad when innocent people end up in jail, i saw some thing on tv recently about this guy who spent god knows how many years in jail for molesting children, but then as it turns out almost all of those children were interrogated in a way that led THEM to believe they were molested, and after many years they realized WHOOPS THIS GUY NEVER DID ANYTHING. even though he was completely innocent he lost a huge chunk of his life sitting in jail for no reason.
i think the defining factor with the death penalty though is that at least this guy got to go out and enjoy what was left of his life. sure, it was essentially RUINED but it wasn't gone, him and another guy he met in jail got a farm together and went fishing and just sort of went on living. the difference with the death penalty is that someone wrongly accused doesn't get shit. they're dead, game over, you can't even make an attempt at having a life when you're dead. that is why the death penalty is sort of the deep end of the debate, but i do think that it is a part of a bigger thing dealing with the entire system.
-
You have a peculiar gift for wording the more disheartening facts of society and making me depressed.
This is my power... This is my curse...
never heard of peter cook before beyond a white noise reference. thanks.
Yeah you always ask me WHAT COMEDIANS ARE GOOD and I have recently discovered that the ultimate, final answer to this question is probably PETER COOK. I've been too lazy to PM you directly and been hoping you would bump into one of my posts on the subject. He probably is the funniest person who has ever lived. I didn't think I'd ever say that about somebody, but I've really never seen someone cover as much comedic range as Peter Cook could effortlessly cover.
The huge tragedy is that he had a lot of personal problems, and battled with various addictions and shit all his life, so he never was really able to create the lasting creative body of work that he was capable of creating. He should be a household name right now, and it's deeply saddening that our generation has no idea who he is.
When I am less lazy I will make a Peter Cook topic so I don't start derailing random topics with the guy.
-
I'm all for the death penalty when it comes to counterrevolutionary elements of society
-
"who decides that?"
THE MASSES
-
I don't think anyone's legal system is trustworthy enough to feel comfortable with something like the death penalty. Really, it just seems uncivilized and barbaric for us to be killing people off for crimes, even if they did kill someone else. The best thing to do, in my view, is to keep that person locked away and try to get them to achieve some productive work in a setting where they can't hurt others in society. Even violent sadistic killers, I'd rather see them locked up rather than killed by the state. We should see ourselves as above killing our fellow humans, even if we abhor who they are and what they've done.