lunachick

LadyShea:

I'm sorry, I suddenly feel like I'm derailing your thread. That is truly some fucked up shit, and something needs to be done. The mother also needs to be prosecuted for criminal negligence - (among other things, probably).

It is an absolute disaster and a mindnumbing tragedy that these things happen - or even CAN happen.

So much for evolution, huh?

:banghead:

viscousmemories

This statistic is questionable because it compares Canada (which has no DP at all) to the States (as a whole), not all of which endorse the DP. IMHO such a comparison leaves too many variables unaddressed.


Here again is the argument that the DP is not an effective deterrent (on which we agree) and then a correlation is implied that isn't adequately justified. There could be any number of factors involved in the increase in violent crime here, and it may be just a coincidence that the DP was reinstated.


Again, DP is not an effective deterrent. The correlation that's drawn here makes me wonder if maybe the counties in this study which have the DP have it because of a history of having more violent crime than the other counties.


The argument is persuasive, but IMHO not conclusive. I don't know how it could ever be said with certainty that one facet of the legal system (i.e. the DP) could be proven to be responsible for an increase (or decrease, for that matter) of violent crimes.

viscousmemories

Ditto. Didn't mean to turn your opportunity to express your disgust with this situation into a debate about the DP.

Viti

I don't think the thread has been derailed at all. These kinds of cases bring up so many questions and surface so many problems that need to be discussed.

I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around all of the societal ills that led up to this tragedy...drug abuse, violent teens (and THEIR background/childhood which led to this seeming lack of conscience), negligent mothers (sorry, the only word that comes to mind with this woman is "trash". The girls were from 2 different fathers, she's living with some other guy in a cheap trailer, leaves her girls alone to gamble and possibly deals drugs), and now the death penalty and whether it is ever justified.

So much bullshit and conjecture and I can't wait for the trial where we'll hear about abuse and gawd knows what, but little Kristyanna is dead, and Brittney may never walk again and all we can do is try to figure out WHY?

Arvel Joffi

The death penalty might work for black and white cases, but there are far too many cases where the conviction is not 100% sound. Exactly how black and white does a case need to be? Is 99.99999% certainty good enough? How 95%? How do you measure it? You cannot draw a line for an irreversible punishment except by denying that punishment.

If even one person, one person in the whole of the history of humanity has wrongly gone to their death, especially at the hands of the state, then it is not worth the deaths of ten thousand murderers. Yet how many times has it happened?

You think of the pain and the grief a parent will suffer at the loss of a child murdered, but think of the lives of the families that had their husbands and sons and brothers and lovers ripped away from them for a crime they didn't commit.

There was a case of four men on death row for the rape and murder of a woman. More than a decade after they were sentenced to death row, two law interns discovered that they were innocent. It was proven beyond the shadow of a doubt with DNA evidence. The men were released with no compensation, with years of their lives stolen, and an apology from the state. Imagine if they had been killed! There is the danger, for every citizen in the world, that any us of might spend the rest of our lives rotting in prison for a crime that we did not commit. I accept that. I do not accept that we should die for it.

Supporting the death penalty is making a choice that I think is a simple one. Either you get the revenge you want for the murder of that 3 year old girl AND the four innocent men I mentioned above die, OR, the innocent men live AND the murderers spend the rest of their lives in prison. Yes, we have to keep them alive for the rest of their natural lives. No, we do not get closure. It's more hardship to deal with, but life is goddamned hard, isn't it?

I have no pity for murderers. I don't care what happens to them. I care that innocents might persih, no matter how small the probability, and I care for the mental and emotional health of a society as a whole that yearns for revenge.

Personally, if someone commits a homicide, my general feeling is that I just want to see them jail for life. I don't want the most heinous to die and the ones that are just "minorities killing each other for drugs" to get out in a few years. No parole. There would be obvious exceptions what is sometimes deemed "justifiable homicide," the treatable mentally disturbed, and others.

And as lunachick has stated again and again: prevention. A healthy society is the only way to minimize the terrible crimes we see and hear about every day. It'll take a couple of million years to get it right, but we may as well get started. I just don't think that calling for the deaths of people every time we read a terrible news story is the way to go about it.

viscousmemories

I disagree. I believe that the death of one innocent is a small price to pay for ridding the world of 10,000 violent criminals. Think of all the innocents that would be spared future harm.

Celsus

We already tried that 2000 years ago, and it didn't work.

Huginn

:notworthy

pz

Are you volunteering?

Do you have some evidence that executing you would somehow inhibit 10000 violent criminals?

wildernesse

Justice is never served by perpetuating injustice. Allowing innocent people to get caught up in an unfair system and robbing them of their lives is not made ok by the 3 other people who "deserve" death.

--tibac