Why do murders happen in Houston?

[VoodooAce]

I mean, come on.

They've executed 1 out of every 3 to be killed by the government since the Supreme Court determined that to kill is ok if the government does it. Were Houston a state they'd rank second in executions....to Texas.

Gee, you'd think they'd have one of the lowest murder rates in the nation rather than one of the highest.

I mean, you would think that somebody contemplating a capital murder would stop and think, "If I kill this guy, I might be executed. Unlike the good old days when I'd just get life without parole."

We've seen evidence recently prooving that everybody who comes out of Texas isn't exactly genius material. Maybe all the criminals in Houston are dumber than they are everywhere else?

 

[damunzy]

I say the problem is not that we executing bad guys in Houston but that we are not killing them fast enough! Line them up and let's get it over with.

Seriously, I have a guilty feeling over the death penalty b/c we can never be 100% sure, except in confessions that are not taken back, that we are killing the correct person. DNA tests have shown former deathrow inmates to be innocent....scary to think that they would have been killed for something they didn't do. Think about that next time you support the Death Penalty.

 

[VoodooAce]

Originally posted by PaleHorse76
I say the problem is not that we executing bad guys in Houston but that we are not killing them fast enough! Line them up and let's get it over with.

Seriously, I have a guilty feeling over the death penalty b/c we can never be 100% sure, except in confessions that are not taken back, that we are killing the correct person. DNA tests have shown former deathrow inmates to be innocent....scary to think that they would have been killed for something they didn't do. Think about that next time you support the Death Penalty.

What? You didn't believe Dubya when he said he's "sure" that Texas hasn't ever killed an innocent person?

What I didn't believe is that he had the brass ones to actually come out and say that and that nobody even noticed.

Of course he's not SURE, just as I of course can't say that I'm sure they have or that it has happened even once that's not been proven anywhere, and it speaks to the integrity of a man when he makes such a bogus claim.

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by VoodooAce


What? You didn't believe Dubya when he said he's "sure" that Texas hasn't ever killed an innocent person?
What I didn't believe is that he had the brass ones to actually come out and say that and that nobody even noticed.

What says a lot to me is the fact that he has been convicted of drunk driving in a court of law and was able to be elected to the position he is in. /rant

I have converted
FROM:
Pro-Death Penalty~if it makes financial sense
TO:
Anti-Death Penalty~since the court system and the people that run them aren't perfect.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Hmmm. I am of the philosophy that it is better to imprison an innocent man that to let a guilty one go free. I don't know whether I can logically apply that to next level (better to let an innocent man die than...etc, etc.), and I find this an odd weakness on my part, since I fully support capital punishment.

The point I wanted to make is that it's irrelevant as to whether the death penalty is an effective deterent. The justice system should exist to punish first, rehabilitate second. I don't care if it hasn't made even one single would-be killer stop and reconsider. If they kill, let them be killed in kind

 

[knowltok2]

Originally posted by PaleHorse76
What says a lot to me is the fact that he has been convicted of drunk driving in a court of law and was able to be elected to the position he is in. /rant

I have converted
FROM:
Pro-Death Penalty~if it makes financial sense
TO:
Anti-Death Penalty~since the court system and the people that run them aren't perfect.

I too have converted to Anti-death penalty. Not on certainty grounds or on any moral basis. I still feel that there are people that deserve to die. However, our current political and social environment cannot make the death penalty work, and it is costing too much in appeals, and international flack. I am not one to normally bow to international preasure, and it is not the deciding factor here, but it is a factor.

Simply put: The death penalty in its current form doesn't work, we cannot fix it, and it is costing us to keep it going.

dannyevilcat: I believe that the justice system should exist to reduce and prevent crime first and foremost. If they can do that through punishment, great; rehabilitation, great; cold freezing violent criminals and pumping their minds full of peaceful hypnotic suggestions, great (saw that in a stupid movie once).

 

[Ambrost]

Houston is so dangerous, even Mexico has considered a travel warning to its citizens on travel to Houston.

Link

 

[amadeus]

The death penalty isn't enough to deter crime. We have to make the criminals FEAR prison. That means no DirectTV or T-1 connections to the Internet.

These criminals are getting free shelter, food, weight rooms, etc. and are producing nothing.

We need to put these people to WORK. Everyone else has to work, so why shouldn't they?

The current prison system is contrary to the old "crime doesn't pay" idea.

 

[Franklyn]

To answer your original question, Voodoo Ace:

By watching the local teevee news, you'd think you were at risk of getting shot every time you left the house.
The murder rate in the Houston metro area in 1999, acc. to the feds, was 8.1 people per 100,000. New York City was lower; New Orleans, Miami, Milwaukee, L.A., Las Vegas and Atlanta, to name a few, had higher rates. Odds are, you could make it to the store and back and not get winged by some nut with a gun. (The odds are higher that you'll get offed by a family member or a buddy, but that's a whole 'nother topic.)

So why does Houston send so many to death row? During the early 90s, when I lived there, Harris Co. Texas had a hyper-aggressive D.A., Johnny Holmes (no, he's not the porn star) who routinely filed capital charges in murder cases and sought the death penalty nearly every time. Most defendants were black or Hispanic, and most times the juries had white majorities. Regardless of race, all defendants had something in common: They were poor, which mean they were unable in most cases to hire a decent lawyer. They got public defenders, who were (compared to the prosecutors) underskilled, underpaid and overwhelmed. They didn't put up much of a fight. And did I mention Texas judges are elected? A tough-on-crime platform plays well to voters down there, and judges did little to rein in Holmes & Co.

You put all that together, and you've got a lot of former Houston-area residents sitting on death row in Huntsville.

P.S. Ambrost -- Houston's really no more or less dangerous than any other place. (The traffic will get you before the bullets, btw.) But Houston seems to have more than its share of trigger-happy cops, and their favorite targets tend to be those folks from south of the border.

 

[VoodooAce]

Originally posted by dannyevilcat
Hmmm. I am of the philosophy that it is better to imprison an innocent man that to let a guilty one go free. I don't know whether I can logically apply that to next level (better to let an innocent man die than...etc, etc.), and I find this an odd weakness on my part, since I fully support capital punishment.

Do you have a son, Dannyevilcat? A brother?

Would you be willing to sacrifice them? Would you prefer to see one of them imprisoned?

Its easy to talk of such things if we're talking some faceless 'innocent'. I guarantee you that were it not some 'faceless innocent', but your son you'd feel different.

The notion that its better to imprison an innocent rather than let a guilty person go free is just not right, imho.

Maybe its because I've almost actually been there. I was busted while in the army in Germany for something I didn't do. Something very serious. Something for which I would still be locked up for sure 17 years later.

I was arrested and interrogated by German cops that didn't take to well to an American G.I. beating the hell out of, and raping, one of their women taxi drivers.

In fact, they interrogated me from 3AM to 9AM......if you call interogating taking turns beating the living daylights out of me.

You see, the victim actually picked me out of a lineup. And the guilty guy (something between a friend and an acquaintance with whom I shared a serious resemblance) was in the same lineup.

For a short time, I was scared quite sh!tless. But I began to realize that, despite being picked out fo the lineup, I was going to be ok. I had been out at the time of the crime with many, many friends that could all confirm without a doubt that I had been at one particular club all night. Even the guy I got in a fight with could testify to that, lol.

Still, things looked bad. I fit the description to a 'T'. The perp in this case wore levis and a blue polo shirt. I wore levis and a purple polo shirt.

I was cut up and bleeding in the face (you should've seen the other guy ) and was throwing my clothes in the washer when the MP's came and got me.

Anyway, what had happened was that the German cops had a description, which was given to the MP's, who staked out the front of our base and caught me after I went in.

I was lucky for the alibies. Or I might be one of those poor suckers begging for a DNA test.

 

[Franklyn]

So, Voodoo Ace, how does your story end? I'm assuming you got off -- unless, of course, German prisons have internet access.

 

[Vrylakas]

I guess this thread is turning into a CivFanatic referendum on the death penalty. My vote is against; I do not believe a state should be in the business of killing its citizens, even if they've committed attrocious crimes. Yes, if someone ever did anything to my wife I'd be a fount of rage and want unspeakable things to happen to the perpetrator - but that doesn't mean what I want is legal, morally right or most importantly what's best for all parties concerned.

The legal and penal systems are designed to deal with behavior that threatens society (either its individual members of as a whole), but some confuse this process with their emotional desire for revenge. If a person is completely beyond reform and will always pose a threat to society, then they indeed should be removed to a prison, for life if need be. I've heard the arguments of how much this would unfairly cost taxpayers, but finance isn't the point.

As for Texas, it is infamous in the U.S. for having the highest rate of executions, often based on the flimsiest evidence and (with Franklyn's excellent description of) the ramshackle "due process" accorded to poor defendents (i.e., the majority of them) and the fact that almost no execution in Texas has ever been reversed by the state appeals board. Both public and private studies have repeatedly shown that this marathon of executions has not put a dent in Texas' high rate of crime. Bush' disingenious statement about the likelihood of anyone innocent getting caught in the steamroller of Texan justice is not...encouraging...

The Illinois state governor (a Republican) issued a moratorium last year on all executions in his state when it was realized that a very large percentage of people on Illinois Death Row were being proven innocent of their charges, and this past week he has suggested a permanent ban on executions may be in the works in his state. In Europe, Poland just got rid of the death penalty last year (where the electorate was evenly split on this issue). New York and New Jersey have both recently reinstated the death penalty but both states are struggling with it and to some extent are having second thoughts. In the U.S. the death penalty becomes popular when crime is up, or you have some spectacular crime like the terrorist attacks in Oklahoma City and New York. Some are hoping new technologies (DNA testing, etc.) will clear up the innocence issue, but often DNA samples just aren't available at a crime scene; technology will only take us so far.

We will always have to deal with the question of whether it is legal, moral and practical to execute someone for a crime. Even looking beyond whether we can adequately prove every defendent guilty or innocent of a crime, there still are complex questions about whether killing them accomplishes anything positive or is Constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has historically wavered back and forth on this one.

 

[VoodooAce]

Originally posted by Franklyn
So, Voodoo Ace, how does your story end? I'm assuming you got off -- unless, of course, German prisons have internet access.

Lol. Yeah, I got off. I had the many an aliby, thank goodness. I was only locked up for around 10 hours.

By the time I sobered up, I was out of there.

 

[Stat Kat]

Edit: Never mind. I went back and re-read the post. We do have a high murder rate.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Originally posted by VoodooAce


Do you have a son, Dannyevilcat? A brother?

Would you be willing to sacrifice them? Would you prefer to see one of them imprisoned?

Its easy to talk of such things if we're talking some faceless 'innocent'. I guarantee you that were it not some 'faceless innocent', but your son you'd feel different.

The notion that its better to imprison an innocent rather than let a guilty person go free is just not right, imho.

Maybe its because I've almost actually been there. I was busted while in the army in Germany for something I didn't do. Something very serious. Something for which I would still be locked up for sure 17 years later.

I was arrested and interrogated by German cops that didn't take to well to an American G.I. beating the hell out of, and raping, one of their women taxi drivers.

In fact, they interrogated me from 3AM to 9AM......if you call interogating taking turns beating the living daylights out of me.

You see, the victim actually picked me out of a lineup. And the guilty guy (something between a friend and an acquaintance with whom I shared a serious resemblance) was in the same lineup.

For a short time, I was scared quite sh!tless. But I began to realize that, despite being picked out fo the lineup, I was going to be ok. I had been out at the time of the crime with many, many friends that could all confirm without a doubt that I had been at one particular club all night. Even the guy I got in a fight with could testify to that, lol.

Still, things looked bad. I fit the description to a 'T'. The perp in this case wore levis and a blue polo shirt. I wore levis and a purple polo shirt.

I was cut up and bleeding in the face (you should've seen the other guy ) and was throwing my clothes in the washer when the MP's came and got me.

Anyway, what had happened was that the German cops had a description, which was given to the MP's, who staked out the front of our base and caught me after I went in.

I was lucky for the alibies. Or I might be one of those poor suckers begging for a DNA test.

VoodooAce, I understand where you are coming from. I don't believe it is okay to send an innocent man or woman to prison, I certainly don't endorse it. But innocent men do end up in prison, so the current system would appear to be flawed as it is.

I just can't stand when guilty men go free. So there must be a trade off. The law holds that it is better to let a guilty man go free than to imprison the innocent. I, however, disagree. A guilty man set free will almost certainly continue his crimes, again victimizing innocent people.
I don't expect many to agree with me.