Emptying of death row in Illinois stirs outrage

The Knox News Sentinel ^ | 1/12/03 | Don Babwin/AP

[mvpel]

The quickest way to bring about a police state is to treat criminals like citizens and citizens like criminals. Here in Illinois, the government is ever blurring the distinction between the two.

You don't have to kill someone to treat him like a criminal.

[FITZ]

That is a very impressive graph.

[Barnacle]

Let me put it this way. I presume that I’m corresponding with a Conservative until after a while, when things just ain’t adding up.

You might want to warn others up front. The least you could do is declare it on your home page like many others do. You are proud to be Libertarian, aren’t you?

[Barnacle]

That is a very impressive graph.

Thanks FITZ; it seems as if its meaning is lost on some here.

[Wolfstar]

No, it's about justice and punishment that fits the crime. Some crimes are so egregious that only an equally egregious punishment would constitute justice. Xthe17th's premise that lethal injection is nothing more than euthanasia is correct, in my opinion.

[mvpel]

Barnacle, are you suggesting that I need to be gung ho in my support of a system that condemns innocent people as often as it condemns the guilty in order to be considered "conservative?"

Again I ask, what do I have to think in order to be considered a "conservative" by you?

We're not Democratic Underground, we don't ban people here for failing to toe the party line.

The charter of Free Republic is to work to roll back decades of governmental largesse, and to root out political fraud and corruption.

I assume you agree that we are living under a government that has made mincemeat of our constitutional rights and has trampled well beyond its constitutional limits, since that's what FreeRepublic is working to correct.

Do you seriously want that kind of fraud-ridden, corrupt, fatted government, which actively works to stack the juries in its favor contrary to the spirit and intent of the jury system, to administer the death penalty?

I should clarify, though - I am not opposed to the death penalty per se, such as in cases where there is an eyewitness to murder. It's the shoddy circumstantial cases with gleaming facades, and the jury stacking involved in them, that I object to.

I really don't see what the L word has to do with that, or why it's inclining you to ignore my points.

[Barnacle]

[steve50]

Seems to be a touchy point with certain factions in the conservative camp. If given an oportunity, I think they would re-write the part about "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" to imply Christ was trying to get to the front of the line.

The Pharisees' liked their law to work in this selective manner, we know what was thought of them.