I stand by my position that anti-death penalty is a conservative principle. The State should never have this much power and the fact that innocents have been executed should be enough to stop this practice.
And yes. I prosecuted my fair share of death penalty cases. But the power to the State AND killing the innocent is not overcome by the horror perpetrated by some of these Defendants.
You can’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Basically it was everyones fault but his.
On 11/29/98, Jasper and two co-defendants were responsible for the death of a 33-year old white male, which took place during a robbery. The victim was a musical engineer who owned a recording studio in San Antonio. Jasper had created his own record label and had his own rap group. Jasper went to the recording studio of the victim. He walked up behind the victim and grabbed him by the hair and slit his throat. The victim was then stabbed to death. Jasper covered the victim with a black sheet in order to "not have to look at him." Jasper then began loading vehicles with the equipment inside the studio, estimated to be worth between $10,000 and $30,000. Jasper and his codefendants made several trips taking the property from the studio, and upon returning to the scene of the crime, he was observed to be suspicious, and eventually apprehended by police.
Name one.
How many innocents have died because they were murdered by those who were undeterred due to the uncertainty of execution?
It is, however, the only deterrent that NEVER fails. None of them commit additional crimes - and that can't be said about ANY other sentence that has been passed!
I stand by my position that anti-death penalty is a conservative principle.
Who chose you as our spokesman?
Anti-Death Penalty is YOUR principle. You don’t dictate our beliefs.
........I recently wrote on FR about how I had been pro death penalty all my life without reservation. Now, I do not think our courts are competent to put people to death in situations where there is “circumstantial evidence” and/or testimony from witnesses that are less than reliable.
In this guys case, there is apparently no doubt he did what he was convicted of so, that being true, I would load the needle myself.
But, with all due respect, I want to question that there is some absolute bullet proof evidence that someone has been executed mistakenly. I am not saying your wrong. I’m just saying ‘is there any proof’ you can cite as I can’t recall any such proof ever being laid on the table.
I am a total conservative, and I used to work at San Quentin, so you might guess where I stand on the issue.
Even given my mistrust of our legal system, I stand by my contention that the death penalty is life affirming. Anything less devalues the life of the victim. Unless the ultimate penalty is applied for the cold blooded, premeditated taking of an innocent life, one embarks on a slippery slope of assessing how much less than the ultimate penalty should be applied for the taking of the victim's life. In some European countries 15 years is deemed the "ultimate penalty." Once you start accepting or negotiating it down to something less, you start playing with the relative worth of the victim.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that the death penalty ought to be on the table for any crime in which the victim would have been justified resisting with lethal force. In such cases, it is the criminal who decided the fruits of the crime were worth more than his or her life. I'm not saying it should be applied in all such cases, but it should certainly be an option, particularly in the case of repeat violent offenders.
I do agree that there are problems with wrongful prosecutions, and the easy remedy to that is that prosecutors who are found to have covered up exculpatory evidence, suborned perjury or exercised any other type of bad faith be automatically subject to the same penalty they sought upon their conviction...
These are your words, sir: “the fact that innocents have been executed should be enough to stop this practice.”
DuncanWaring in post 26 asks that you name one person who has been put to death and who was not guilty. It’s time to tell us where we went wrong, just once.
Still waiting for the name of one “executed innocent”.