August Spies

You are changing the groudn here Beyelzu. We are talking about abolishing the death penalty and having life in prison instead. No one is suggesting all death row inmates be allowed to "go free"

theyeti

Well, that's true, but to me the egregious nature of some of these cases has to be taken into account. For instance, a large percentage of overturned death penalty cases are not due to the actions of public defenders or district attorneys, but rather to pro bono work by private firms, or the action of various non-profit groups. There's a guy who teaches an undergraduate journalism class at Northwestern whose students have overturned at least 8 death penalty convictions, one of whom was only 2 days away from execution. What does this say when a journalism class is finding evidence of innocence when the courts aren't? It says to me that the system is broken.

And of course there's the question of why so many cases are getting overturned. If all of these people are later proven innocent, why weren't at least most of them found innocent at the first trial? I think a lot of it has to do with the politics of the death penalty. What bothers me most about it is how prosecutors and politicians have used it as a political weapon against their opponents. These guys often wrap themselves in pro-death penalty rhetoric, using this to appear "tough on crime", and accusing their opponents of being soft on criminals and insensitive to victims' families. With an attitude like this, it's easy to see how overzealousness leads to wrongfull convictions. This is far less likely to happen with non-capital cases.

And there's another, far more disturbing reason I think. (Warning: rant filled with personal bias) Death penalty advocates have always been stung by the inconvienient fact that there is no evidence that it deters crime, and that it's more expensive than simple life imprisonment. This seems to deflate the death penalty's rationale considerably, and is a difficult point to counter in debate. So many of them have invented the myth that all of the death penalty's failures are due to "liberal meddling" and that it would work as prescribed if only no one would stand in the way of "efficient" justice. So if we could only get rid of that lengthy appeals process, so the reasoning goes, we could cut down the costs and show that we were right all along. And if we could only increase the number of executions and make them faster, then the death penalty would really start acting like the deterant that our "common sense" tells us it should be. So there has been a trend in the last decade or so for legislatures to remove many of the safeguards that protect the accused in capital cases. For example, the amount of time that new evidence can be introduced has been cut down to as little as two weeks after conviction in some parts of Texas. This means that even if you have DNA evidence proving your innocence, too bad. Many places have cut back their funding for public defenders, or have left the appointment of public defenders in the hands of pro-DP judges, who often appoint friends of theirs who they know will process the cases quickly. In one notorious case (again in Texas) one frequenly appointed defender often slept through his trials, or would show up drunk. Clients of his were denied a retrial due to inadequate representation. Stories like this are common.

Given the kind of rationale that backers of the death penalty have invoked over the years, it doesn't surprise me much that we're in the current mess we're in. There is something unique to the politics of the death penalty.

theyeti

pug846

I�ve always been against the death penalty, but my reasons have changed over time.

I think one important aspect that at least some people overlook is that not only is it more expensive to eventually execute someone as opposed to keeping them in prison for life, but it is a lot more expensive to try someone for capital murder as opposed to non-capital murder. In my county, according to State prosecutors, it costs close to $500,000 more just to try someone for capital murder. Over 90% of cases that could be tried as capital murder cases aren�t tried because of the financial constraint. I was told by people who would know that one of the biggest factors in determining whether or not to try someone for capital murder is at one stage in the budget cycle the decision comes up. So, even if it were just as expensive to execute someone as to put them in jail for the rest of their life, you would still have to account for the extra expense at trial. Wouldn�t you rather that extra money go to some other cause, any other cause than executing someone?

For those that want to streamline the process, there is obviously a correlation between how many appeals we allow a death row inmate, the quality of representation we afford to him, etc. and how many innocent people or non-deserving guilty people get the death penalty. The process takes a long time because the Government doesn�t want to screw up and even with the lengthy appeals process, they still obviously make mistakes.

The death penalty isn�t a deterrent because of the nature of the crime it�s used for. Why would anyone think, well, I would commit this murder with these aggravating circumstances if I were only going to have to spend the rest of my life in prison, but since I�m going to be publicly executed, I�m not going to kidnap and kill this child.

The US has some of the toughest sentencing laws in the western world. We don�t rehabilitate here and if anyone believes most prisoners live a comfortable life style probably haven�t done much research on the issue. Most maximum-security prisons in the US force you to do hard time; you are much more restricted here as opposed to most other western nations.

Rusting Car Bumper

First, its most often the case that innocents are found to be innocent by help of outsiders. It would be unusual if this was NOT the case. Further, this has nothing to do with the death penalty. There isn't some magical element which says the problems which caused these death row inmates to be convicted as opposed to someone who merely got a 40 year sentence.

Thus, *if* what you say is the problem, then its not the death penalty thats the problem. Abolishing the death penalty will merely move the symptoms around.

That's what I find odd about people cheering Gov Ryan's decision. If indeed there are innocent people on death row then its quite likely he has merely sentenced innocent people to life and that some will never be overturned. He really didn't solve anything with the exception of the 4 he released.

That is mere comjecture. In fact one could reason that it might be MORE likely because nobody will raise a fuss if a guy gets sentenced to 5, 20 or 30 years. Its only when someone if going to be sentenced to die that everyone gets all hot and bothered.

OK. so? The only time I see this pointed out is by death penalty opponents. Those of the so called "tough on crime" group dont mind building more prisions so I don't thinkt hey really care that it costs more.

Actually it sounds like a straw man. I have never met personally a death penalty proponent who argued to me that the death penalty deters crime.

You really didn't focus on my points. My points were that the rhetoric on either side is inflated. For example, when Gary Graham was executed in texas there was all this furor from death penalty proponents and opponents alike about getting an unfair trial and the like. However, when I looked at what evidence was available to me (albeit from afar) I had to conclude that the guy was very probably guilty as hell. Yet, he is still listed on death penalty opponent websites as possibly innocent.

There is another case (where I forget the names) that a friend of mine pointed me to and passionately argued that an innocent was going to be executed. He of course pointed me to a website that described the case where it wasn't Y that murdered the victim but it was X and yet Y was sentenced to death! How horrible! When I search around and what the anti-death penalty website didn't say was that X and Y were probably both there when the trigger was pulled and that the argument is really only about which one pulled the trigger while both were participating in a crime! So here is rhetoric that made the guy out to be an innocent victim when in fact he was a partner in crime and his only "saving grace" was that it was his buddy who happened to be holding the gun.

DC

theyeti

Many death penalty advocates argue that it deters crime. Dubya did this very thing either shortly before or after getting elected, basically saying that if it's not doing its basic job of detering crime, then there's no real reason for it. Apparently he's oblivious to the evidence that shows that it's not an effective deterrent. This is the frustrating thing about many death penalty advocates; they simply will not accept the possibility that it doesn't deter crime. They've convinced themselves that it does, so therefore it must. IMO this is the whole genesis of the "liberal meddling" myth that I mentioned.

I wasn't trying to. I merely used one of your comments as a jumping off place for some points I wanted to make. You should not have thought that my last post was intended as a counter to yours, nor that I disagreed with everything you said.

theyeti

FoE

You'd think people in a country where when the magical words "Enemy Combatant" can strip a citizen of many of their legal rights people would be a little bit nervous about the death penalty. /end cheapshot

Aerion

Not that I disagree with you on the subject of the death penalty, but I've never seen any evidence that the death penalty does NOT deter crime.

Whether or not executions are morally right is a different issue but it is nearly impossible to subjectively state that the death penalty deters crime or not. It's like proving God does not exist.

How many times are prosecutors able to get defendents to testify against other defendents because they have the death penalty to use as a bargaining chip?



Actually, I think our penal system is based on retribution. Prison sentences are purely punative and very little real effort is made to reform criminals. I know that in the past, attempts have been made (during the '70s if memory serves) to actually and actively reform criminals in prisons but the programs have all been abandoned. I don't have time to research this right now, but I'm thinking they were abandoned because they were extremely costly and only marginally effective.



The Death Penalty is a purely moral issue. It really boils down to what individuals believe is just retribution for a crime committed and asking 100 different people will yeild you 100 different answers. None of the answers are really wrong.

beyelzu

august spies,

my statement about the thousand murderers was based on

melkor's assertions
"I would think it a far better thing to allow a thousand guilty murderers go free than to put one innocent human being on the lethal injection table. To me, there is no worse crime than a government depriving a citizen of all rights entirely, including the right to live, in particular when that citizen has in fact done nothing wrong."


i do realize that on the whole the debate has not been about this premise.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by DigitalChicken
I voted for undecided.

The problem I have is that most information on the topic is emotionally laden one sided crap from either side.

For example, people opposed to the death penatly state supposed cases where innocent people were executed or sentenced to death but later release. This is accompanied by URLs.

My comment about the latter category is that this shows the system "works."

No. Most of those released are because of the efforts of those outside the system or by new technology (lots of them are from DNA testing). They aren't the result of the system itself figuring out they are innocent.

Thus it's not evidence that the system works.

However, I fail to see any real moral difference between locking up an innocent person for life and executing an innocent person. No doubt if someone was executed who was innocent then there is little doubt that some lifers died in prison who were also innocent.

If something clears a guy with a life w/o parole sentance you can at least release him.

The problem with claiming some innocent people were executed is not that its not true in principle. The problem is that the bias in this information is often obviouis when one does any level of research. The bias makes for such confusing "evidence" that its hard to know who to believe.

In some areas more people have been released than executed. That says to me something is *VERY* wrong with the system.

When I point these two things out, I often get a response that "Well the death penalty is just immoral!" If that's the case then launching a discussion about innocents being executed is really secondary.

I don't think it is inherently so. Given the way our justice system works, though, I find it immoral. The problem is the crimes that generally get the death penalty are something shocking that has the community up in arms to catch the guy. The system obliges--with more emphasis on speed than accuracy.

I do find the case of the West Memphis 3 (or whatever they are called) extremely disturbing because it appears to be a case of a prosecutor rail roading an innocent person. Of course we will need to see where it goes.

Unfortunately, common. If there isn't something absolutely obvious clearing the guy he doesn't want to face the voters for not convicting the bad guy.

Thieving Magpie

I know the prison system here in Canada actively tries to reform criminals, I would assume that it is the same in the U.S. as we both have very similar legal systems.

And I certainly would not think that jail-terms are entirely meant as punishment. If we did not believe that someone could reform, we would not release them - but if we did, we'd just ship them off to Australia, or cut off their hands or something. I believe rehabilitation is the core of our penal systems.