capital punishment? waht do u think?

[Sims2789]

delete post.

 

[Perfection]

Originally posted by sims2789
Darkshade is a Fascist, which is right-wing, by the way.

Pffft, extremists transcend simple right left definitions

 

[Sims2789]

Originally posted by Simon Darkshade
Give them a chance to recover from what and into what?
Also, yet another reference to a lot of innocent people being executed. Name 20.

oksy, here's a list of 23 innocent people who were killed:

"The 23 Innocent People Who Died
(From Michael L. Radelet, Hugo Adam Bedau, and Constance Putnam, In Spite of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992, and Bedau and Radelet, "Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases," Stanford Law Review 40:21-179 (1987))

"Thanks to Modern Politics 23 Innocent People Have been Removed from the Living." They are:

1. Adams, James. Florida. Adams was convicted of first-degree murder, sentenced to death, and executed in 1984. A witness identified Adams as driving the car away from the victim's home shortly after the crime. This witness, however, was driving a large truck in the direction opposite to that of Adams' car, and it was later discovered that this witness was angry with Adams for allegedly dating his wife. A second witness the day after the crime stated that the fleeing person was positively not Adams. A hair sample found clutched in the victim's hand, which in all likelihood had come from the assailant, did not match Adams’ hair.

2. Anderson, William Henry. Florida Anderson was convicted of the rape of a white woman, sentenced to death, and executed in 1945 without an appeal having been made. The victim had not resisted, screamed, or used an available pistol to resist Anderson's advances. Anderson and the victim had been consensually intimate for several months before rape charges were filed.

3. Applegate, Everett. New York. Applegate was convicted, with Francis Q. Creighton, of the murder of Applegate's wife; both were sentenced to death in 1936. Creighton had been tried and acquitted on two separate occasions for similar murders a dozen years before she met Applegate. In this case, she killed the victim (by arsenic poisoning) at Applegate's instigation. "Virtually no evidence against Applegate existed beyond Mrs. Creighton's unsupported word." Governor Herbert Lehman, who had doubts about Applegat's guilt, requested the prosecutor's support for clemency for Applegate; it was not forthcoming, and clemency was denied.

4. Bambrick, Thomas. New York. Bambrick was convicted of murder, and sentenced to death. Evidence was later discovered that convinced Warden Thomas Mott Osbourne and the prison chaplain that another man had committed the crime. Osbourne commented "It is almost as certain that Bambrick is innocent as that the sun will rise tomorrow."

5-6. Becker, Charles and Frank ("Dago") Cirofici. New York. Becker and Cirofici were convicted of murder; Cirofici was executed in 1914 and Becker in 1915. The victim, Rosenthal, was a gambling house owner. He was convicted largely on the testimony of gamblers and ex-convicts in the glare of extensive newspaper publicity about police corruption. Former Sing Sing warden, Thomas Mott Osbourne, who knew the closet friends of the gunmen, stated that these friends all agreed Cirofici had nothing to do with the murder and was not even present when it occurred. Warden Osbourne also believed that Becker was not guilty.

7. Collins, Roosevelt. Alabama. Collins was convicted of rape, sentenced to death, and executed in 1937. Collins testified that the victim the "victim" had consented, which caused a near-riot in the courtroom. The all-white jury deliberated for only four minutes. Subsequent interviews with several jurors revealed that although they believed the act was consensual, they also thought Collins deserved to death simply for "messin’ around" with a white woman. Even the judge, off the record, admitted his belief that Collins was telling the truth. "An innocent man went to his death."

8. Dawson, Sie. Florida. Dawson was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. The conviction by an all-white male jury was based on a confession obtained from Dawson after he had spent more then a week in custody without the assistance of counsel and on an accusation by the victim's husband. Dawson had an I.Q. of 64. At trial, Dawson repudiated his confession, claiming it was given only because "the white officers told him to say he killed Mrs. Clayton or they'd give him to "the mob’ outside." There were no eyewitnesses and the circumstantial evidence was slight and inconclusive.

9. Garner, Vance. Alabama. With Jack Hunter and Will Johnson, Garner was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. No appeals were undertaken. Garner had maintained his complete innocence, while Hunter admitted his own guilt and absolved both Garner and Johnson. Johnson's sentence was later commuted to life, but Garner was executed in 1905.

10-11. Grezchowiak, Stephen and Max Rybarczyk. New York. Grezchowiak and Rybarczyk were both convicted of felony murder and sentenced to death. Co-defendant Alexander Bogdanoff insisted that neither Grezchowiak nor Rybarczyk had been involved in the crime, and that each had been mistakenly identified by the eyewitnesses. He refused, however, to reveal the names of his true accomplices. In their final words, they maintained their innocence, and Bogdanoff again declared that the two were innocent.

12. Hauptmann, Bruno Richard. New Jersey. Hauptmann was convicted of felony-murder-burglary, sentenced to death, and executed in 1936. He was infamous as the ransom-kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby. Although Governor Hoffman believed that Hauptmann was framed, he chose not to halt the execution. There is no doubt that the conviction rested in part on corrupt prosecutorial practices, suppression of evidence, intimidation of witnesses, prejured testimony, and Hauptmann's prior record.

13. Hill, Joe. Utah. Hill was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of two storekeepers. The prosecution was based on sketchy circumstantial evidence and was in part the result of collusion between the prosecution and the trial judge in an atmosphere of anti-union hostility. Despite several appeals from President Woodrow Wilson to the Utah authorities for a reprieve, Hill was denied a new trial. Hill appears to have been an innocent victim of "politics, finance and organized religion, a powerful trinity"; his conviction and death are "one of the worst travesties of justice in American labor history."

14. Lamble, Harold. New Jersey. Lamble was convicted and sentenced to death. After the execution, Governor Edward Edwards refused requests to appoint a special counsel to investigate the case, despite what the New York Times called a "rather widespread fear that perhaps" Lamble was innocent. Lamble's attorney was disbarred for mishandling the defense.

15. Mays, Maurice F. Tennessee. Mays was convicted of murder in the killing of a white woman and sentenced to death. Mays’ conviction rested on the testimony of a police officer who had disliked him for years and on the testimony of an eyewitness who never got a clear look at the killer. On appeal, the conviction was reversed because the judge, rather than the jury, had fixed the penalty at death. Mays was retried, reconvicted, and resentenced to death. In 1922, Mays was executed, still maintaining his innocence. In 1926, the real killer confessed in a written statement that revealed she was a white woman who had dressed up as a black man to kill the woman with whom her husband was having an affair.

16. McGee, Willie. Mississippi. McGee was convicted of the rape of a white woman and sentenced to death by an all-white jury that deliberated for only two and a half minutes. the chief evidence against him was a coerced confession that he gave after being held incommunicado for thirty-two days after his arrest; the victim's husband and her two children, asleep in the next room, never heard any commotion from the alleged attack. The victim had been consorting with McGee for four years and was angry at his efforts to terminate their relationship. Nonetheless, local blacks were too intimidated to give this evidence in court, and local whites felt the woman's consent was impossible or irrelevant. McGee was executed in 1951.

17-18. Sacco, Nicola, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Massachusetts. Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted of murder in the course of armed robbery, sentenced to death, and executed in 1927. Their case is probably the most controversial death penalty case in this century. They were arrested and tired in an atmosphere dominated by "the Red Scare" of the early 1920s. In 1925, another man also under the death sentence in Massachusetts confessed to the crime. Extensive investigation of the confession convinced many that he was, indeed, telling the truth. In 1926, the trial judge denied motions for a retrial based on the confession. In 1977, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the executions, Governor Dukakis signed a carefully worded proclamation intended to remove "any stigma and disgrace" from their names.

19. Sanders, Albert. Alabama. Sanders was convicted with Fisher Brooks of murder and sentenced to death. Though he had nothing to gain by helping Sanders, Brooks testified at Sander's trial that Sanders was innocent. Another fellow prisoner testified that he had heard Sanders confess, however, and both Brooks and Sanders were executed in 1918. In a statement from the scaffold, Brooks again insisted on Sanders’ innocence.

20. Sberna, Charles. New York. Sberna was convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer. His codefendant, Salvatore Gati, testified at the trial that Sberna was innocent. Gati also said the head of the New York Homicide Bureau had told him that he knew Sberna was innocent, and would clear his name if Gati would reveal the name of his real accomplices. Gati refused to do this. Sberna and Gati were both wrongfully executed in 1938. The prison chaplain said of Sberna, "This is the first time I’ve ever been positive that an innocent man was going to the chair."

21. Shumway, R. Mead. Nebraska. Shumway was convicted of the first-degree murder of his employer's wife on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to death. One juror, the only one to hold out against the death penalty, told his friends he "had not slept well any night since the trial." He later left a note in which he expressed "great worry at the trial," and he then killed himself. In 1910, the victim's husband confessed on his deathbed that he had murdered his wife.

22. Tucker, Charles Louis. Massachusetts. Tucker was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1905. More than 100,000 Massachusetts residents signed petitions on behalf of clemency. Among those convinced of his innocence was the county medical examiner and a clergyman who said a witness had told him she perjured herself at the original trial. Tucker was nonetheless executed in 1906.

23. Wing, George Chew. New York. Wing was convicted of first-degree murder (after a 30-minute trial) and sentenced to death. While he was in prison awaiting execution, Wing convinced several observers that he had been falsely identified by eyewitnesses and that perjured testimony had been used against him. Warden Lewis Lawes also questioned his guilt, but Wing was nonetheless executed in 1937. "

From http://archive.aclu.org/issues/death/23executed.html

 

[_Philospher_]

Murdering someone else for murdering someone else is pure hypocrisy. Besides I thought we were past such primitive and ancient laws such as "an eye for an eye".

 

[Sims2789]

i disagree, but i am against the death penalty since our judicial system is to flawed. but i would support the death if our judicial system was 100% accurate.

 

[amadeus]

Originally posted by Vietcong


what quat is that? i havenot seen it

My question was: if you were drafted into an army for a capitalist country, would you fight for that country? Yes or no.

 

[newfangle]

Originally posted by sims2789


Darkshade is a Fascist, which is right-wing, by the way.

Firstly, I disagree with this statement mostly because it comes from you. But that's beyond the point.

I was referring to VC's response to Cactus_Jack (whom I'm fairly sure is a leftist).

 

[Zarn]

Originally posted by sims2789


Darkshade is a Fascist, which is right-wing, by the way.

If he was right-winged, that would mean that he believes in an absolute free economy. Fascists are neither left or right, really, but this is something that should be discussed in another thread.

Going along with _Philospher_, I will never agree to you 'eye for an eye' approach.

 

[Sims2789]

Originally posted by newfangle


Firstly, I disagree with this statement mostly because it comes from you. But that's beyond the point.

I was referring to VC's response to Cactus_Jack (whom I'm fairly sure is a leftist).

he has said he is, and he said that he is more rightwing than the KKK. although not all Fascists are rascists. he is one of them. i have never heard him say anything that would link him to National Socialism(Nazisim).

BTW, describe to me why you disagree with something just because it comes from me.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

What a cute list! I particularly liked Joe Hill, Sacco and Vanzetti and Hauptmann making appearences; 'twas like a Joan Baez record. Going back to the dawn of the 20th century as well is quite a touch. I was a bit disappointed that the Rosenberg's didn't merit a mention.

There is a gulf of difference between persuading some people to have doubts, or that ye are innocent, and actually being declared innocent.
There are remarkably few guilty criminals in prison or on death row, it seems. Out of those 23, or 20 more properly excluding the political gestures, only two can come anywhere close to that, with the most recent being in the 1930s. The cases of inter racial carnal relations are in my view a different matter; one of social beliefs and attitudes. Effectively, the men were executed for 'reading poetry' with a white woman, rather than any flaw in the system; such was the tacit definition of rape. It may not be a crime now in some places, but was then.

The system and its capabilities have advanced just an ickle bit since the first half of the 20th century, and such situations can be averted.

As for the amusing side discussion about me, it is all very flattering. I am both right wing and a fascist, for want of a better term. Sims, my dear boy, you haven't heard anything because you haven't been listening enough.

 

[Sims2789]

even if there are very few innocent prisoners on death row, which i doubt, but lets just say there are, there is still more than 1 innocent people getting killed by the government. and by the way, #1, Adams, James was sentanced in 1984. i would only support the death pentaly if the system is 100% accurate, not 99%(it is probably much lower than this). even though it is expensive to keep prisoners, both innocent and guilty, alive, what is the price of an innocent human life?

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by _Philospher_
Murdering someone else for murdering someone else is pure hypocrisy. Besides I thought we were past such primitive and ancient laws such as "an eye for an eye".

Agreed. Like one of those "I can make fun of my family, but you cant sort of things"

 

[newfangle]

An "eye for an eye" is one of the few rational things ever to come from a Mystic.

Essentially, when use retaliatory violence it is NOT "lowering yourself to the level of a murderer." In fact, those who have been aggressive to you have chosen to turn you into a beast, just as they have for themselves. There is no comprimising, nor reasoning with a man that has chosen the state of the animal. He has evaded reason, and he has violently attacked the mind of another. His life is forfeit.

 

[bobgote]

maybe keep death penalty for crimes like treason, regicide and tampering with the royal mail

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Originally posted by sims2789
even if there are very few innocent prisoners on death row, which i doubt, but lets just say there are, there is still more than 1 innocent people getting killed by the government.

and by the way, #1, Adams, James was sentanced in 1984.

i would only support the death pentaly if the system is 100% accurate, not 99%(it is probably much lower than this).

even though it is expensive to keep prisoners, both innocent and guilty, alive, what is the price of an innocent human life?

Being on death row is very different from actually taking the long drop. As one said previously, those exonerated on death row are proof that the system works. It is those executed and subsequently found to be innocent and proclaimed as such who present a little problem. They can be fixed by fixing the system; that the overwhelming majority of the cases sited were over 60 years old says that problems are being fixed, and can be even more so. Cases like Bentley, Timothy Evans and even Ruth Ellis - these would be approached differently in this day and age.

Yes, and he was not one that I included. All that was raised was some conflicting witness reports, and some hair found that may have belonged to the assailant. It does not mention the other evidence or details involved with the offence. Based upon what was put forth, there are no grounds for proclaiming his innocence in the absolute manner that ye do.

All well and good. I would support life imprisonment if it were 100% accurate, and stopped murderers, rapists and other serious offenders getting out and repeating their offences. But it doesn't. As time goes on, there is more pressure from the bleeding hearts to release those imprisoned for life, or even for long periods. There are those who think that anything more than 30 years is a horrific assault on the human rights of the convicted, and there is the cases of challenging the total life tariffs of UK prisoners such as the unmourned Myra Hindley.
Twenty or thirty years can erode a lot of memories, and lead to release.
There is also the chance of escape, or of killing a guard, prison worker or other inmate. Not a 100% chance, but still there.
And what of the likes of Bin Laden, Hussein, Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer, Martin Bryant and other monstrous figures. There ain't any doubt about them, but should they get out after 30 years? Should they be allowed to get bed and breakfast for life, after handing out death sentences to their victims, and life sentences to the victims families. In for a penny, in for a pound.

It cannot be guaranteed that prisoners will serve life. It is guaranteed that when someone is killed, they do not return. I can only think of two occasions where there have been comebacks, and the last one of those was about nineteen hundred and seventy years ago.
There are a number of issues at play, but relevant to this point are the ideas of retribution and punishment, and preventing reoffence.

Now, there are a few cases where there is some doubt over a man executed being guilty as charged. The incidence of total and utter miscarriages of justice, though, is rather rare, and much rarer than ye suggest.

But there are 100% documented cases of released murderers killing again when under a death penalty system, they would have gone for the chop. Those are the innocent deaths that concern me, and it we don't need to go back to the 1920s to get the details. According to the British Home Office, there have been 71 murders committed by criminals released after serving 'life sentences'. That's 71 people who are most definitely dead because of the system buggering up. You will find similar cases in the United States, and in many, many other countries.
Where is the outrage about their unnecessary deaths? Where is the outrage about the total miscarriages of justice that lead to the slaying of innocents? Where are their organisations, and their websites? Where is the clamour for justice on their behalf?

What price on their lives? Those are the innocent lives I am concerned about, not ephemeral possibilities.

 

[CruddyLeper]

I think anyone who supports capital punishment should be shot.

Not fatally, but enough to give them a taste of what it's like.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

You are welcome to try, but it is my policy to fire back with battleships.

Anyway, a wounding shot is hardly a taste of what capital punishment is like. A firing squad hardly aims to wound. It aims to please.

 

[Turner]

For it. There must be some ultimate punishment, and life in prison just doesn't cut it.

 

[CruddyLeper]

Originally posted by Simon Darkshade
You are welcome to try, but it is my policy to fire back with battleships.

Anyway, a wounding shot is hardly a taste of what capital punishment is like. A firing squad hardly aims to wound. It aims to please.

You woudn't beleive the loss of bottle that goes with a gun shot - but hey, why take my word for it?

 

[Simon Darkshade]

It is a most irrelevant, crude and pointless excuse for an argument - the cave dwelling, fur clad, fire fearing, Neanderthal banging predecessor 'You wouldn't like it to happen to you, would you?'
Although not opposed to summarily shooting people, even as part of an exhibition of challenging new art, it still has to have some point.

One has got to love the caring, humanitarian argument - 'They don't agree with me, so we should shoot them. That'll teach them to be compassionate.'