I find it to be irrational when someone proposes a blanket solution as a remedy of some kind for a previous blanket solution.

The abilities of law enforcement have changed drastically over the years, and advanced detective methods are NOT universally available to solve crimes. This is not an excuse to be lenient or strict; it is an observation that the only person sure of who the criminal is, is the intended victim, and then only during the commission of the crime.

So, say you don't want the dirty business of defending yourself, and/or you recognize that since you don't get to choose the moment you are attacked, you can be overwhelmed and you need the State to step in.

Yes, you want them to get the right criminal, because if they do not (and this is the part lost on people - get the wrong guy, the baddie is still out there) you can be a repeat customer.

Yet is IS possible to be CERTAIN you have the right heinous criminal, in which case there is only one solution which prevents a repeat crime.

Guess what that is.

There are those who say you should also not be permitted to use deadly force to defend yourself. Well, gee, if the State can't use it because of some blanket rule, then you should be prevented from deadly force, too. (Yes, that's a "slippery slope" fallacy, now at large with an activist near you.)

I lived in Richmond during several crime sprees having multiple people killed simply because the killer could (elderly women targeted by a single killer, the DC snipers, 2 killers on a killing spree starting in Pa? and heading South where they killed a family with children on New Years Day).

I disagree with those that say 'evil' does not exist as well as with those that oppose the death penalty by using the excuse that State may/has made mistakes.

The killers get decades of opportunity to reverse the sentence which is a pretty good advantage over those they have harmed.

At least start pushing for a better way to handle death penalty cases that is fair to all parties instead of yipping basically about how 'unfair' things are.

I see this in a different light. 70-79 guilty though innocent. Makes me question the evidence theshold needed for conviction in rape cases. I know all 70-79 are not rape but when talking DNA many are.

I am a huge fan of the death penalty. Mad dogs need to be put down. We can improve the process, though. Maybe keep beyond a reasonable doubt for conviction, but beyond a shadow of a doubt for the death penalty. And vastly lessen the time btwn conviction and carrying out.

If it's wrong to kill people, it's wrong to kill people even if you are the state. And Raddude an Mom? I used to work in a jail. I've served the mad dogs breakfast. And my position remains that the state ought not have the legal or physical tools to take someone out of existence.

If they can kill one of us, they can kill all of us.

Naivety isnt attractive in grown men Steve

I'll agree that the death penalty is improperty applied at times, but soem people are mosters, and as banishment is constitutionally banned . . .

As momof4 said mad dogs need to be put down

Here in California, the death penalty is a joke. Even when applied it still equates to a life sentence. I say we do not kill enough scum to make the crime a deterrent. And lets face it, if you are innocent today, you will have forensics to back you up, right OJ?

Quoth the unpronounceable:
"Naivety isnt attractive in grown men Steve"

After ten years of corrections work, I am probably the least naive commenter you know.

Banishment is done here. We call it Special Housing, and it's done at maximum security prisons like Pelican Bay. Twenty three hours a day in your cell, never transported without being restrained, all kinds of cool and groovy stuff. Now, whether or not this type of confinement is constitutional is a question, but I fail to see how it is different from banishment. Whatever that really is.

That the execution of a prisoner is hideously expensive, not a deterrent, and prone to error is reason enough to do away with it. I add that it is also morally repugnant. The state ought not have the power to remove people from existence. Most other countries find ways to protect themselves from violent criminals without resorting to killing them. We should too.

Lujlp,

I have to come in with Steve daniels. I was a policeman ten years, 4 of those years in a major urban jail. I am a career soldier. i am not naive, or a convincing candidate for a mincing, pantywaist liberal. I belive secure housing units (23 hours locked down by yourself, 1 hour out in a pen for exercise, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) is more than just punishment for anyone who commits a crime deserving of Life Without Parole or death under the present system. Even better. Oh, they may not think so now - give em 10 or 15 years of that lifestyle and Ill bet the will disagree. But in any case, the state - whose stupidity, venality and incompetence are so often railed against with world class articulation on this blog - the power to decide who lives and dies is cognitive dissonance writ large. It was just a few years ago my profile as a returning soldier and tea party supporter (not to mention gun owner,tobacco user and white male) was being put forth by the federal government as a profile of a domestic terrorist.
Really? You want to give Nancy Pelosi the power to decide life and death? Or the people who vote for these morons?
Well said Steve. if the government can kill one of us, they can kill all of us.

The state CAN kill any of us. One reason to be vigilant and own firearms. If you think doing away with the death penalty is going to end that possibility you are naive.

Personally I would rather the state kill me than lock me up 23 hours a day. Humans are social creatures by design, solitary drives them insane. From a lifers first day or prison to his last, a lot can happen. The only way to ensure they don't get out is kill them.

Not to mention it is not the government sentencing them to die, it is their peers. Let's not act like congressmen get to decide that as a perk of the job.

Didn't say that would end the possibility, momof4. Just removes a mechanism that seems to be doing an awfully good job of doing an awfully bad job of seperating the innocent from the guilty.
Further, I pointed out in this sentence -

Or the people who vote for these morons?

That these are in fact the people who sit on the juries and carry out the policies these fools enact.The perk of the job that politicians have is to "wave the bloody shirt" in support of criminalizing ever greater swaths of thought and behavior and rally the bloody minded to roar for ever more onerous penalties for those thoughts and behaviors.

I am sure you would rather the state kill you than lock you up 23 hours out of the day. So would I. So would the murderers - if not at first, after a time, a very short time, they would.

So if there exists a more effective punishment for murder, a living death if you will, that also removes a mechanism from the state to decide who shall live and who shall die with the law's imprimatur and also removes the possibility of convicting innocent people to an irreversible sentence as well as removing the maryrdom club from people who wish no good thing to any productive person in this country, well, just not seeing the downside here.
And don't even get me started on expense - people routinely spend twenty years or more on death row soaking up taxpayers money with appeal after mandatory appeal to still slip through the cracks and be found innocent later.

But if it makes you feel better to call me naive, more power to you.

I think Bob in Texas has the best ever argument for the death penalty:

> The killers get decades of opportunity to
> reverse the sentence which is a pretty
> good advantage over those they have harmed.

The best opponents of CP, those with the most integrity, will concede that elimination of the death penalty will allow many criminals to eventually get out and do more harm.

I'm still against it, but sometimes when the wind's blowing in certain directions, you wouldn't be able to tell.

Again Bob is correct: There are some fantastically evil people out there, monsters who've surrendered title to their next breath of air.

> Most other countries find ways to protect
> themselves from violent criminals without
> resorting to killing them.

And yet you don't want to live in any of those countries... You want to live in this one.

Also, I've never understood why "we might make a mistake prosecution!" has so much more currency for execution than for a lifetime of embittering imprisonment. Asked to choose at age 20, sane and innocent men might well choose the scaffold.

I'll stipulate to the ridiculas expense and the inordenant time it take to pull off an execution, and the number of time they get it wrong and the DA's concern over convictions thn convicting the right person

I still beleive in the death penalty, but I think it should only be applided in cases where you have video of the murder or two eye witnesses.

And quite frankly I dont think we should house prisoners in cells across the country, I think we should take some of the islands america owns and covert it into a prison camp cut down on the escapes, plus being a few hunndered miles off shore thye wont get cable anymore

Oh, also once a sentance of death has been imposed they should be executed in the same manner they killed their victims

And there's Steve.

Steve, if the State should be forced to care for the animal for the rest of its natural life, what position do you have regarding self-defense? If that poor, misunderstood serial killer should be fed daily rather than die, is Amy now a criminal for killing him when he attacks?

Capital Punishment is expensive only because we allowed it to be. Its deterrent was lost because it was eliminated as a sure thing.

And the State fails again every time it takes action which does not protect the public. That happens when there is money to be made; GA just opened a prison for $57 million... to house 200 criminals. There will be 200 on the staff there.

Felons now in custody have killed more Americans than were lost in Vietnam. I am supposed to care about them how?

I could support applying the death penalty under a higher standard of evidence -- where, in order to apply that penalty, the evidence has to be overwhelming. But, given the horrendous expense and nuisance of multiple levels of appeals that Wolfman points out, maybe it's not worth the trouble. From what I've read, as far as deterrent effect, the certainty and swiftness of punishment matters more than the severity of punishment.

However, if life in solitary is that bad, then what's the diff, really, between that and the death penalty? If the guy who gets cleared 20 years later is in an asylum due to his confinement, then the only difference is that he can finally have visitors and be wheeled out in the courtyard on nice days. What we're really running into is an inescapable fact: some people are sociopaths. You can't let them out in society, ever, because they will commit more crimes. Because to them, rape and murder and robbery are fun.

The only other possible approach would be involuntary, mind-altering drug or surgery treatment. And that's a direction that I would be absolutely opposed to, even more than the death penalty.

I'm of the idea -- Charles Manson should be dead. Jared Lee Loughner should be dead. John Allen Muhammad should be dead. Lee Boyd Malvo is questionable, bit should also qualify.

What do they all have in common --essentially confessions and/or incontrovertible proof.

Then you have the Ryan Widmer's of the world. Should he be in jail? Probably. Death penalty, highly doubtful.

I don't need a full CSI analysis if I was on a jury, but I want more that the guy's cell phone ping shows that he was driving by Philly and that he was arrested at 18 for having a pistol and that was 18 years ago.

Crid:

> Most other countries find ways to protect
> themselves from violent criminals without
> resorting to killing them.

And yet you don't want to live in any of those countries... You want to live in this one.

---
The DP isn't a deal killer for retaining my citizenship. I guess you're right (if I'm assuming correctly), I'd rather improve this country then go live in another one.

RadDude:

Steve, if the State should be forced to care for the animal for the rest of its natural life, what position do you have regarding self-defense? If that poor, misunderstood serial killer should be fed daily rather than die, is Amy now a criminal for killing him when he attacks?

---
Shirley you can see the difference between using approperiate force in the defence of your life and the premeditated, rehearsed, deliberate killing of another human being. If someone tries to hurt you, feel free to try to hurt them back.

Shouldn't prosecutors, police investigators, crime lab technicians, etc. who conceal exculpating evidence, fabricate evidence or falsify laboratory results be prosecuted and punished?

Shirley you can see the difference between using approperiate force in the defence of your life and the premeditated, rehearsed, deliberate killing of another human being

You'd think so, but givn how often people defeing themselves are charged with murder, its obvious those in power dont

Shouldn't prosecutors, police investigators, crime lab technicians, etc. who conceal exculpating evidence, fabricate evidence or falsify laboratory results be prosecuted and punished?

Yes. Although I don't see what that has to do with the death penalty.

"Shirley you can see the difference between using approperiate force in the defence of your life and the premeditated, rehearsed, deliberate killing of another human being."

Sure. The latter is what the criminal did - and will do again, merely for his own benefit. Now, if you can't see the difference between three hots and a cot for the rest of the criminal's life and the tombstone of his victim, you're lost.

If you let him out to prey again, someone should come after you for doing that.

Shirley you can see the difference between using approperiate force in the defence of your life and the premeditated, rehearsed, deliberate killing of another human being

You'd think so, but givn how often people defeing themselves are charged with murder, its obvious those in power dont

Posted by: lujlp at March 14, 2012 2:44 PM

Agreed. Now... why is it a good idea to give those same people the power to seek the death penalty for murder?

If you let him out to prey again, someone should come after you for doing that.

Please to be pointing out where I said they should ever be released. Oh, and the next time you put words into my mouth, could you possibly flavor them with chocolate? Thank you.

Ken R: "Shouldn't prosecutors, police investigators, crime lab technicians, etc. who conceal exculpating evidence, fabricate evidence or falsify laboratory results be prosecuted and punished?"

Steve Daniels: "Yes. Although I don't see what that has to do with the death penalty."

Another Reason to Be Against the Death Penalty:

Too many members of the criminal justice system have proven themselves untrustworthy. Some notorious examples were prosecutors in the Casey Anthony case who misrepresented evidence, and detectives in the O.J. Simpson case who planted evidence. These cases in which they were caught may have resulted in murderers going free. Many other cases in which they were not caught have resulted in innocent people going to prison, or worse.

In some cases the death penalty is just. But as long as dishonest, ambitious, incompetent or lazy prosecutors, police investigators and crime lab technicians can conceal, fabricate or falsify evidence, sometimes in collusion, with no risk for severe consequences, then the state cannot be trusted to justly impose the death penalty.

"Thou shalt not bear false witness..." The penalty for intentionally falsifying evidence or concealing exculpatory evidence should be the same as the penalty for the crime being investigated.

However miserable a sentence of life in prison may be, if it's unjustly imposed there is the remote possibility that it can be reversed. But an unjustly imposed execution is irreversible. And the state criminal "justice" system has not exactly shown itself to be a paragon of justice.