Posted on 05/29/2003 4:59:23 PM PDT by rdb3
by _NONE
[posted online on December 18, 2002]
1. It is morally reprehensible to take a life, and it is especially reprehensible for the state to do so.
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." --Mahatma Gandhi
2. Executing innocent people outweighs any logic behind the death penalty.
Between 1973 and 2001, 89 death-row inmates were found to be innocent and subsequently were exonerated, escaping death by hours in some cases (The Nation, January 8-15, 2001).
3. Race is often a defining factor in death-penalty cases.
The United States favors prosecuting when the victim is white. More than 80 percent of completed capital cases involve a white victim, even though nationally 50 percent of murder victims are white (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org).
Jurors are far more likely to recommend the death penalty for people of color. Between 1995 and 2000, 75 percent of the federal cases in which juries recommended the death penalty involved black or Latino defendants (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org).
4. Whether or not the death penalty is applied depends largely on the quality of legal representation for the accused, and most death-row inmates cannot afford decent representation.
The Texas Defender Service concluded that defendants in that state have more than a one in three chance of being executed without benefit of competent appellate attorneys (Washington Post, January 4, 2002).
5. The death penalty does not deter crime.
The United States has a murder rate three times higher than that of European countries, all of whom have abolished capital punishment (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org).
There is no solid evidence that the death penalty decreases crime. Former Attorney General Janet Reno says, "I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point" (Reuters, January 21, 2000).
6. It is impossible for the death penalty to ever be administered fairly, given our legal system, and it is therefore unquestionably unconstitutional, because defendants often do not receive a fair trial.
Between 1973 and 1995, seven out of ten death-penalty cases were thrown out on appeal due to flaws in the trial (The Nation, January 8-15, 2001).
7. Administering the death penalty is far more expensive than imprisoning the offender for life.
Sending a killer to death row costs an average of $2.3 million (Dallas Morning News), three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for forty years (Jackson, Jackson Jr., Shapiro, Legal Lynching, The New Press).
Florida has spent more than $51 million a year more on state executions than it would have spent on punishing all first-degree murderers with life in prison without parole, according to the Palm Beach Post (Jackson, Jackson Jr., Shapiro, Legal Lynching, The New Press).
8. Capital punishment is administered cruelly, arbitrarily and unfairly.
Between 1982 and 2001, at least thirty-two executions went brutally awry. On April 22, 1983, it took fourteen minutes for the State of Alabama to electrocute John Evans. The executioner re-attached a burning electrode to Evans's leg twice, ignoring pleas from the defense lawyer, while the room filled with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. Evans's body was left charred and smoldering (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org).
Jeb and George W. Bush, among many others, have also expedited the appeals process, to execute as many prisoners in as short a period of time as possible, which increases the likelihood of error. As Governor of Texas, George W. Bush was the most active executioner in the nation, killing on average one prisoner every other week (The Nation, January 8-15, 2001).
9. The United States is one of the only First World country that still executes its citizens.
With its use of the death penalty, the United States is in league with Iraq, Yemen, Iran, China and Congo. Our continued use of the death penalty causes constant friction with US allies (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org).
10. The United States executes mentally retarded people and children.
Currently the state of Virginia is seeking to execute 17 year-old Lee Malvo. Iran and Nigeria are the only other countries who execute children, according to a 2001 Human Rights Watch Report on Children's Rights. Although a recent Supreme Court decision declared the execution of mentally retarded inmates unconstitutional (Atkins vs. Virginia), death row inmates who would be considered mentally retarded by the American Association on Mental Retardation may be executed, since states have the authority to define what constitutes mental retardation; while the AAMR defines mental retardation as having an IQ of 70 or below, states currently have the right to define mentally retardation differently. Thus, mentally retarded inmates are still at risk.
Compiled by Lisa Weinert
A lie? Or an inaccuracy?
What evidence counters the article in question? (Yes, I'm playing devil's advocate here, but with an issue like this, it is necessary. Too many times, "facts" are cited without support.)
If the anti-death penalty people are going to use Lee Malvo as some sort of "poster child" they are talking to a deaf audience.
There's also a misrepresentation of how many murders occur in Europe as compared to the US. You can make Europe look good by forgetting about the Balkans, and not too long ago they murdered several hundred thousand people in FYR (to say nothing of all the gun and bombing deaths that took place there earlier in the century. Tens of millions if I remember correctly)
Fair deal - as I said, yes, I'm playing devil's advocate, but what I didn't make clear is that BOTH sides are guilty (the libs moreso than us) of massaging the numbers when it suits...
(And I'd love nothing better than to see Mumia fry, but how soon do you think he'd become a progressive martyr?)
Is that about a week??
1. It is morally reprehensible to take a life, and it is especially reprehensible for the state to do so.
This is like saying, "due process means nothing."
2. Executing innocent people outweighs any logic behind the death penalty.
That's like saying, motor vehicle accidents outweigh any logic in using motor cars.
3. Race is often a defining factor in death-penalty cases.
The only "proof" for this is statistical, which is kind of unfortunate, because for these statistics to be valid, you need to take a look at the statistics of people committing crime. It should not be news to anyone that hardly any East Asians are on death row. What would Weinert do, have us "draft" innocent whites and asian americans so that black monsters can be "put to sleep" in "balanced" company? An automatic death penalty for first-degree murderers (and I'd zap rapists too, if I was king) would certainly take race out of the equation, but liberal lawyers fought to overturn those laws where they existed in the fifties and sixties. So much for fairness.
4. Whether or not the death penalty is applied depends largely on the quality of legal representation for the accused, and most death-row inmates cannot afford decent representation.
This is a whole other issue -- criminal-loving attorneys (all of whom are very careful not to live in the neighbourhoods where they turn these crumbs loose, I've noticed) want more money for failing to get their fave skells off. Why do "death-row inmates" need representation anyway? They're already convicted and on the way to the Frank Perdue Processing Plant of Justice. Sayonara, creeps.
If what they're saying is that all the army of ACLU lawyers who will slave away for the sheer joy of helping criminals are no good, well maybe they should give up law and go do something productive for a change.
5. The death penalty does not deter crime.
This statement is probably true. Look, the sort of skell that kills people for ****s and grins knows he's in DEEP FRAGRANT STUFF if he gets caught. He does it anyway. The rest of us don't sit around going, "Dang, my girlfriend really is annoying me today. I's choke her if I didn't think I'd hang for it." I don'ty think the death penalty does deter anybody: honest people don't need it, and criminals don't care.
But, so what? The death penalty is not a deterrent, so what. It's society's way of telling the creeps of the world, "Uh-uh-uh, there, we strongly disapprove."
6. It is impossible for the death penalty to ever be administered fairly, given our legal system,
Not if we execute a few lawyers....
... and it is therefore unquestionably unconstitutional, because defendants often do not receive a fair trial.
Nonsense. Defendants in capital cases get a legal system that bends over backwards to give them every opportunity to beat the system and kill again.
7. Administering the death penalty is far more expensive than imprisoning the offender for life.
I agree. Costs have been driven up by criminal coddlers like Weinert, who never met a sociopath they didn't want get out of jail and into public office. However, the fact that she and her criminal pals have impeded justice does not equal a reason to reject justice.
8. Capital punishment is administered cruelly, arbitrarily and unfairly.
Sometimes execution hurts. Too bad. I would actually agree on the arbitrarily, but that's a product of liberal courts that chiseled away at the wider death penalty laws of the 1960s. Now, in order to be executed, you must be a murderer who did multiple people, or killed a member of a special class of citizen whose life is worth more than the average Joe and Jane, or killed in a particularly gruesome way, in a state that doesn't have a critical mass of ACLU liberals. How much more arbitrary can you get? If I was king, some crimes would be an automatic trip to the power grid, like child rape.
9. The United States is one of the only First World country that still executes its citizens.
One word: Japan.
10. The United States executes mentally retarded people and children.
Hey, you can vote with an IQ of 65. The standard is, can the person form the will to do wrong, and understand that he's doing wrong? But the supreme cort has ruled that if your IQ is under a certain threshold (70? 75?) then you are immune from execution. This steams me, as most criminals are stupid, anyway, so this will probably save over half of all murderers. F'r crying out loud, that's less than 1 SD below the black median. And... people have no control over whether they are bright or not. But even the dumbest people, even retarded people, can form the idea of right and wrong. To say that stupid people are automatically immoral and that immoral, stupid people ought to get a "pass" on crime is an insult to those that are not bright, but are still decent people.
But that's the ACLU for you... they want to fuzz out the line between good and evil, because deep down they know what side of the line they're on, and it makes them nervous.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Well said! Deterrence cannot be the main reason for punishment, because if it were we could just take an innocent person off the street and punish him in order to deter others. Proportionate punishment of the guilty upholds not only the human dignity of the victim, but of the criminal as well, by holding him responsible for his actions.
Cordially,
Why should the survivors have to be burdoned with the anger of injustice as well as sorrow?
And why punish only the body for something the 'will' did? 'Re-educate' the 'will' as well, or punishment will be incomplete and the gene/'will' pool will remain polluted. Time to break the cycle of violence, mayhem and murder.
Banish the perps to 'Hell Island' where those fitted to the task of 're-education' reside. To comtemplate being sent to such a place should put mental restraints on even the most vicious among us.
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