Posted on 12/20/2009 6:52:59 AM PST by La Lydia
Kansas will consider abolishing the death penalty next year as death sentences are declining across the United States. Fewer people were sentenced to death this year than any other year since 1976, according to a report released Friday by the Death Penalty Information Center...Sen. Tim Owens, R-Overland Park, has scheduled four days of hearings beginning Jan. 19 on a new bill that would eliminate the death penalty in Kansas...
But Kansas' top prosecutor said this week he wants to see the death penalty continue.
"I think it's a just punishment for what those folks did," Attorney General Steve Six told The Eagle.
More people were put to death nationwide this year (52) than last year (37), Friday's report said. The report attributed the increase to four months in 2008 when states halted executions while the U.S. Supreme Court weighed a challenge to lethal injection. The high court found the method was not cruel and unusual punishment, allowing executions to continue. The push against the death penalty, however, moved from the courthouse to the statehouse.
This year, 11 states considered bills to abolish the death penalty. New Mexico became the 15th state to repeal it, following an effort by a coalition of churches.
The high cost of the death penalty is often cited as the reason for dwindling support by lawmakers faced with tightening state budgets...
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Idiots.
I saw the original movie when I was a kid. All I could think of was, these guys need to be executed.
Another example of the success of Cloward-Piven once again. The pro-crime crowd has made it so difficult to execute a criminal that many states are simply giving up.
In theory at least I've got nothing against hanging somebody like Manson, Dennis Rader, Paul Bernardo, John Mohammed...
Here's the problem: I'd want several changes to the system before I could feel good about capital punishment anymore.
1. Guilt should be beyond any doubt whatsoever; the usual criteria of guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt" doesn't cut it for hanging somebody.
2. The person in question must represent a continuing threat to society should he ever escape or otherwise get loose. The "bird man" of Alcatraz would not qualify, John Mohammed clearly would.
3. I'd want all career/money incentives for convicting people of crimes gone which would mean scrapping the present "adversarial" system of justice in favor of something like the French "inquisitorial" system in which the common objective of all parties involved was a determination of facts.
4. I'd want there to be no societal benefit to keeping the person alive. Cases in which this criteria would prevent hanging somebody would include "Son of Sam" who we probably should want to study more than hang, or Timothy McVeigh who clearly knew more than the public ever was allowed to hear.
Given all of that I could feel very good about hanging Charles Manson, John Muhammed, or Paul Bernardo, but that's about what it would take.
In fact in a totally rational world the job of District Attorney as it is known in America would not exist. NOBODY should ever have any sort of a career or money incentive for sending people to prison, much less for executing people. The job of District Attorney in America seems to involve almost limitless power and very little resembling accountability and granted there is no shortage of good people who hold the job, the combination has to attract the wrong kinds of people as well.
They expected DNA testing to eliminate the prime suspect in felony cases in something like one or two percent of cases and many people were in states of shock when that number came back more like 33 or 35%. That translates into some fabulous number of people sitting around in prisons for stuff they don't know anything at all about since the prime suspect in a felony case usually goes to prison.
The Mike Nifongs and Ronnie Earles of the world are mainly democrats...
On the other hand, I'm also painfully aware of the fact that there is no way to reverse the death penalty, should it come out later that the convict is innocent. The case that made me rethink my views on the death penalty is that of Joseph Amrine (in fairness, I know the lawyer who argued the case before the MO Supreme Court). But this is an example of where the state would have murdered a man for a crime he didn't commit (and yes, I used the word "murdered" on purpose. The unlawful, premeditated taking of a life.)
I don't propose that the death penalty be banned. Just that it be applied in certain cases where there's absolutely NO doubt that the convict is guilty. There are plenty of those cases. It's the cases where the primary evidence is testimony where it should never be applied. There are just too many ways for a jury to reach the wrong conclusion. In those cases, life in prison is the way to go, because if the conviction is later proven to be wrong, the exonerated convict will still be alive.
Mark
Keep it. You’re gonna need it following our upcoming civil war. Besides, if we don’t kill the liberals, we’re gonna have a very expensive time keeping the progressives fed and clothed.
I agree. I am against the DP not because I am a bleeding heart with one ounce of pity for murderous thugs (especially ones who try to use "racial prejudice" as an excuse for their crimes)but because I have zero faith in our legal system, at ANY level. :-(
Here's what we do in Virginia ~ we have some pretty liberal juries in Northern Virginia and they hang murderers anyway.
It's not a political issue you see. It's a question of public safety. If you don't execute certain kinds of killers they end up killing somebody else in prison ~ a guard, a fellow nonviolent prisoner, a visitor ~ somebody. You just end up killing someone you don't know rather than the puke who is known to have killed the person identified in the trial.
We also know this keeps the pukes in DC and Maryland to stay there. You find a maddog DC killer running around in Northern Virginia you just know he's going to be executed as soon as possible. He won't kill anyone else for quite a while.
We don't want to check their entrails for "signs from God", or try to nurture their literary side ~ we just want them gone.
Here's an example ~ Jon Muhamad ~ he's dead now. If he were in Maryland or DC he'd be grinning at you from behind bars ~ but he'd be eligible for parole. That's something else we don't have ~ parole! Virginia has no parole. You have to break out to get out (if you want out early).
We had a puke some years back who'd been picked up in DC for question regarding three shootings. He was back on the street on a personal recognizance bond and immediately went to Maryland where he, in fact, killed two people.
Well, thinking he could be in trouble for being a mass murderer (5 victims in less than a week) he decided he needed a vacation in Virginia so he drove over to Arlington. Driving down Arlington Blvd he saw an Ethiopian woman ~ a legal immigrant BTW ~ and stopped and murdered her for the contents of her purse. He was still at the Seven Eleven drinking a slurpy and shoplifting when the cops picked him up.
First thing DC wanted him back. So did Maryland. Virginia's prosecutor told them we'd try him firstr and they could pick up the body later.
They didn't bother.
All that need be done to clean up most of the problems you mention is to disestablish the state of Illinois, put all its current officeholders in prison, and then reestablish the state.
Remember the Clutter family you damned fools. If Kansas didn’t have the death penalty then Truman could have buggered Perry for years.
They will get rid of the Death Penalty for killers. But the Death Panel in the Obamacare shi& bill will apply to seniors.
Kansas? Great.
Another pass for the Carr brothers.
Not that time, but he certainly took note of how other NC DAs had operated when they were trying to hang someone. Nifong thought he could get away with what he did because other DAs escaped sanctions.
Folks knew what he was up to from the very beginning. I recall that FR had numerous multithousand post threads on the matter.
Not like there was anything being kept secret down there ~ we even had the test results from the perp's vaginal swabs before she did, and I don't know if the Prosecutor ever did get them (or if he cared).
When criminals feel they can get away with murder and live, nothing will stop them.
This is the kind of liberal philosophy that is clearly insane.
The rights of crime bictims over criminals are being thoroughly trashed. It is time for some real outrage in middle America.
Why is there prison overcrowding?
Why is there such an outcry about the rights of criminals because of prison overcrowding?
Wanna do something about prison overcrowding?
Start executing those criminals on DEATH ROW NOW!
When criminals feel they can get away with murder and live, nothing will stop them.
This is the kind of liberal philosophy that is clearly insane.
The rights of crime victims over criminals are being thoroughly trashed. It is time for some real outrage in middle America.
Why is there prison overcrowding?
Why is there such an outcry about the rights of criminals because of prison overcrowding?
Wanna do something about prison overcrowding?
Start executing those criminals on DEATH ROW NOW!
The Wichita Massacre, also known as The Wichita Horror,[1] was a murder/assault/rape/robbery spree perpetrated by brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr against several people in the city of Wichita, Kansas in the winter of 2000. The crimes shocked Wichitans, and purchases of guns, locks, and home security systems subsequently skyrocketed in the city.[2]
The brothers were tried, convicted and sentenced to death in October 2002.[3] Although it appeared that a 2004 decision by the Kansas Supreme Court overturning the state death penalty law was going to spare the Carrs, the decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the death penalty law and returned the Carrs and other condemned killers back to death row.
The Carr brothers, 22-year-old Reginald and 20-year-old Jonathan, already had serious criminal records when they began their spree.[4] On December 8, 2000, having recently arrived in Wichita, they committed armed robbery against 23-year-old assistant baseball coach, Andrew Schreiber. Three days later, they shot and mortally wounded 55-year-old cellist and librarian, Ann Walenta, as she tried to escape from them in her car.
Their crime spree culminated on December 14, when they invaded a home and subjected five young men and women to robbery, sexual abuse, and murder. The brothers broke into a house chosen nearly at random where Brad Heyka, Heather Muller, Aaron Sander, Jason Befort and a young woman identified as 'H.G.', all in their twenties, were spending the night. Initially scouring the house for valuables, they forced their hostages to strip naked, bound and detained them, and subjected them to various forms of sexual humiliation, including rape and oral sex.[4]
They also forced the men to engage in sexual acts with the women, and the women with each other. They then drove the victims to ATMs to empty their bank accounts, before finally bringing them to a snowy deserted soccer complex on the outskirts of town and shooting them execution-style in the backs of their heads, leaving them for dead. The Carr brothers then drove Befort's truck over the bodies.
They returned to the house to ransack it for more valuables. It was then they claimed their final victim, Nikki, H.G.'s muzzled dog who was beaten and stabbed to death.
H.G. survived (her plastic hairpin having deflected the bullet), after running naked for more than a mile in freezing weather to report the attack and seek medical attention. In a much-remarked point of tragedy, she had seen her boyfriend Befort shot, after having learned of his intention to propose marriage when the Carrs, by chance, discovered the engagement ring hidden in a can of popcorn.
The Carr brothers, who took few precautions, were captured by the police the next day, and Reginald was identified by Schreiber and the dying Walenta. Law enforcement officials ultimately decided that the Carrs' motive was robbery, despite the other aspects of the crime.
I absolutely agree, La Lydia. I thought of them immediately when I saw your thread.
They escaped death row on legal grounds once already, but were returned within a year.
Now it looks like they may have another chance.
This one sided crap is amazing. The BTK killer is from Kansas.
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