Taking the death penalty off the table and replacing it with Life-without-Parole (LWOP) means either clogging up overburdened courts with yet more trials or pleading out known murderers to straight Life sentences. What incentive does a murderer have to skip a trial and plead to LWOP if the death penality is gone?
Murderers who know they are, to use an expression, caught dead to rights and know a jury will find them guilty will no longer accept LWOP plea-bargains.
I believe it is much more expensive to execute a death row inmate than it is to LWOP them. Just from a budgetary standpoint it seems to be the better option. There is also the occasional innocent who is on DR who has been executed prior to the Innocence Project’s advent, which is certainly much more important.
As a Catholic, I oppose the death penalty. Governor Brown is a former seminarian. I imagine that also figures into his thinking on this matter.
leigh
what no one ever budgets is the cost of avoiding trials when murderers plead to LWOP because the DP is hanging out their in their sight.
Can you answer Prager’s question? Why should known heinous murderers be allowed to keep what they took from others?
btw leigh
who in California has been executed then found to have been innocent?
I can tell you of lifers who continue to murder WHILE they are in jail.
Prager and I differ on this issue. Most murders are one off affairs, not serial murders. The death penalty is about vengence and retribution and it won’t bring back the dead.
Innocents in California put to death? Recently? None, that I know of. 3 young men were freed a year ago in Arkansas after being wrongly convicted 20 years ago. If the DP were swift, they’d be dead.
I don’t trust the government to prove guilt. The narrator’s claim that DNA nails guilt is bullshit. There are too many crooked prosecutors and too many gullible juries to trust any part of the process, these days. There are people who should be put to death, but the bar should be set way beyond a reasonable doubt.
– Darleen, I believe in an eye for an eye, so that wouldn’t be my reasoning for eliminating the death penalty.
– Theres an argument to be made that sans that option courts might be forced to actually try murder cases instead of ramming them through with plea bargains and such.
– I’m not sure how to make the system follow its own rules, but plea bargains are a makeshift expedient at best. We seldom if ever get any improvement in law when we kick the can down the road, and if case load drives the whole system instead of justice, law, and order, then theres a systemic problem that needs solving that court games will never fix.
I don’t trust the government to prove guilt.
What about Major Hasan? He should get 3 squares, a tv, some exercise time, maybe study for another degree while his 13 vics are still dead?
BBH
You cannot CAN NOT try every case. And if someone is guilty beyond doubt, why should you?
BBH
Ever gotten a speeding ticket you actually deserved? Why shouldn’t you plead it out?
If the bar for a guilty verdict is beyond a reasonable doubt, then the bar for acquittal from guilt is quite low, being merely any reasonable doubt, and concomitantly the bar for conviction very high already. So the chances of convicting the innocent are well protected from commonplace error. And in addition, even in those cases where the jury finds it probable the accused is guilty of the crime yet has some teeny-tiny reserve, they have the choice to shrink back from the death penalty to life without parole, keeping the death penalty only for those instances where there is great certainty as to a proper finding of guilt at murder.
– Darleen, most minor offenses could be handled by a magistrate instead of the full up bs court settings they insist on using simply to maintain “appearences”.
– Actual full-up court settings should be reserved for felonies and above.
South Dakota just executed one.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
I think Tina Curl is entitled to a little vengeance myself.
– In the mean time our Golden Erkel “Celeb president” is out in Commiewood doing hid “Great technicolor Super Glam tour of 2012” to prove hes just a likable guy whos badly misunderstood.
– Its the campaigns last ditch effort to trade on his faux image, totally manufactured in tinseltown and by the whore media. Hes making the rounds of all the nighttime entertainment venues, banking on the gullibility of young impressionable minds to ignore the record and vote the opticals.
– If it works we deserve whatever we get.
What about Major Hasan?
He is by no means representative, and even if he is, there are still outliers, and how do you lump them?
Better a hundred Innocent men be executed after recieving due process than one murderer go free.
how do you lump them?
– A large cargo net should suffice, dipped in molten steel s-l-o-w-l-y.
KTAALGSTO it used to be said.
– Well, if you want to follow a moral based approach you could launch each one of them on a 10,000 foot trajectory and trust in G_d to save any he finds worthy.
– Call it “Launch and Savior” justice. Its low cost, fast, and you don’t run the risk of missing any football games.
Posted this on the wrong thread.
– CBS directly implicated in WH Benghazi coverup.
– Carney continues to underct Jug ears lies, but the WH gaggle STILL refuses to followup.
Q: Why did Sec. Clinton tell the same made up story over the coffins of 4 dead Americans that, in Mr. Carney words just today, “everyone at the WH knew was false immediately”,
Q: Why did you Mr. president go before the UN days after and apologize for somthing you knew had nothing to do with the attacks on the consulate?
Q: Who authorized UN Amb. Rice to go on 5 Sunday news shows days later and insist on the same false story?
Q: Why did your press sec. Mr. Carney repeat the same known false story to the press for almost two weeks.
Q: Who in the administration decided to use this falsehood and directed all of your representatives to continue the weeks long deception of the American public, and for what purpose?
Q: Why did most of the national media go along with this charade and refuse to investigate or even publish accounts at all until now?
– If Bunnblefuck and the WH politiburo thinks this is going to go away, they’re not only duplicitous, but delusional fantasizing idiots.
Mike
So what if Hasan is an outlier? I’m saying we need to keep the DP precisely for outliers such as him.
otherwise you create the atmosphere for the insane farce of Anders Behring Breivik
So we need to maintain the government’s power to kill us, because otherwise it would be inconvenient for the
justicelawyer system?I’m not convinced. But then, I’m also not convinced that a lifetime in prison is better than a quick, clean death. Here’s one of those areas where the incompetence and mismanagement of your friends in the prison system works to mitigate the incompetence and mismanagement of your friends in the public defender’s office.
As I understand it, the Catholic Church divides political issues into “settled” and “prudential”. Settled issues involve rejecting an intrinsic evil, while prudential issues involve applying general principles to specific situations and thus there are a variety of valid conclusions.
Things like opposing abortion and euthanasia fall in the “settled” category, while supporting or opposing the death penalty falls in the “prudential” category.
As a (slowly returning) Roman Catholic, I am not opposed in principle to the death penalty, and I can understand and appreciate that leigh is opposed. But I think that’s a difference reached in good conscience.
So what if Hasan is an outlier?
So what? Outliers occur on both sides of the curve, Darleen. For every hundred perps your buddies put away on shortcut plea deals, they put away an innocent citizen who pleads to something he didn’t do, because he’s terrified of getting the death penalty. You wanna defend that? Fine, but you can forget about ever holding yourself up as a defender of morals around here.
I don’t give a shit if taking nukes away from the courts makes their job harder. How you get there matters.
The term you’re looking for Darth is “non negotiable,” as that’s what abortion and such issues are considered. Basically you are spot on. I’m a Roman Catholic who has alternately supported and opposed the death penalty. I’d probably lean anti- at this point, but often find myself agreeing more with the logic of those that support it.
I’m for keeping the death penalty, but with an elevated standard of evidence.
A guy walks into a public place and, in front of dozens of eyewitnesses, shoots a bunch of people, is captured and incarcerated. That guy is guilty. There’s no argument that goes counter to the truth of his guilt. That person should be eligible for death penalty.
It costs too damned much money to kill someone. Keep the death penalty, but use it only when you can be absolutely certain that person has deserved it. Not, certainly, to be used in cases like this one.
Leigh, you misunderstand the fundamental philosophy behind the death penalty.
The death penalty is the ultimate consequence for the ultimate act. It is not about retribution or vengeance, it is about consequences.
Removing the death penalty is definitely a bad idea.
Here, I will agree with Slart, but with significant differences in the end. That is, I agree with a very elevated standard of evidence, because I simply have learned, over the last several years, not to trust state prosecutors, who will lie, manipulate, and go out of their way to try to convict someone, regardless of whether or not they actually believe them guilty of the offense they’re trying to convict a person of.
But: In CO now, we have a case of an abducted 10-year-old girl who never made it home from school one afternoon. After the Amber Alerts and searches, etc., her body was eventually found, hacked to pieces and thrown in a meadow, parts of it unaccounted for.
The mother of the killer called police eventually; the killer, a 17-year-old community college student with an interest in mortuary science, confessed, and led police to additional of the girl’s remains he’d put in a crawl space in his house. He’d pulled her into his vehicle, strangled her, then, later cut up the body.
Prior to this, he had tried to abduct a jogger with a chemical soaked rag and had failed; she fought him off and got away.
Guilty. Confession. Clear evidence.
At which point, after his trial and conviction, he should be brought to the square in front of Colorado capitol building and hanged, publicly. It shouldn’t cost the state considerable money or time on feeding or clothing this guy while his lawyers make a living off appeals, etc. He should be put to death within a day of his conviction. Those are the consequences for the act. And putting the perpetrator to death is not the same as the act he committed which demanded the death penalty: instead, it is a reluctant civil society meting out the ultimate punishment for the ultimate betrayal of the rules of that civil society. Without the first, the second never happens. Which is why the two are not the same act. How you get there matters. Indeed.
That’s how I’d use the death penalty.
Keep the death penalty, but use it only when you can be absolutely certain that person has deserved it.
Any prosecutor who loses a capital case is put to death himself. Short of that safeguard, I simply don’t trust the bastards not to threaten anyone and everyone with every weapon in their arsenal. Any weapon used to beat a perp into taking a plea is a weapon that will be used to beat an innocent into doing the same thing.
As for an alternate, low-cost solution to some of the problems noted above: A guy walks into a public place and, in front of dozens of armed eyewitnesses, shoots a
bunchcouple of people, iscaptured and incarceratedshot and killed. That guy isguiltynot a burden on the courts or prisons.Blake, I understand what you are saying and that it is a position that many take, most often grieving family members and outraged citizens. It is still retribution and vengence in an old school Old Testament way.
Like paulzummo, I have both endorsed and opposed the death penalty.
I think Glenn Reynolds has suggested on occassion that in cases of police or prosecutor misconduct, the guilty should be exposed to the same legal jeopardy that their misconduct exposed an innocent defendant to.
Seems to me that in a LWOP situation, the prisoner is now effectively, and for all time the property of the state, having permanently lost the natural rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Might as well add “life” to the mix. I see no vital interest of the state that is served by keeping the convicted alive, housed, fed, and otherwise cared-for for another 50 years. Kill him then and there.
“We never promised you a long Life WithOut Parole — just that you wouldn’t be leaving.”
But I take a fairly liberal attitude towards killing criminals. Kill all you want, I’m pretty sure we won’t run out.
“It is still retribution and vengence in an old school Old Testament way.” Bulls**t, Bulls**t, Bulls**t, and you know it. Common practice for aggrieved groups to take suspects out to be hung, (or stoned) in other parts of the world. The process in the U.S. doesn’t even show up on that radar. May I remind you that without this process we would have NO choice but to return to this form of justice. Why do you always argue by assertion?
We are either a society of Laws or a society of men. I have seen both and please believe me when I say the second society is one of the underlying fundamental principals to third world status.
I thought I was stating my opinion, Gulermo. Really, aren’t you asserting that I am *always* (always and never are big words that shouldn’t be used often) asserting things with which you happen to take issue?
You say “bullshit”. I say you are entitled to your opinion and I to mine.
I live in an unusual State as Michigan has never executed anyone since becoming a State and outlawed the death penalty for all crimes except treason in 1846 and for even that in 1963.
I have noticed no difference in the court system or crime rates here as opposed to other States because of this. My own view is that this is up to each State and I’ll stick with mine.
We talked about this before, geoff. None of the Lake States have the DP, iirc.
Here in the wild west, we put people on death row rather willy-nilly and we are a raping, murderous state if one compares population.
New York?
Only if you kill a law enforcement officer, Ernst.
Really, aren’t you asserting that I am *always* (always and never are big words that shouldn’t be used often) Assertion. Sure, go ahead and hide behind that fig leaf. You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts. Fact: the U.S. does not practice Mosaic Law, your attempt at conflating the two notwithstanding.
Ohio has DP.
Gulermo, I was attempting to be humerous. Excuse me for cluttering up your blogging experience.
Darth, I had forgotten about Ohio. My apologies.
Ohio, Oiho, Iowa, China. Whatever.
:)
“I was attempting to be humerous.” Humor is where you find it, I suppose. Capital punishment humerous? That seems a stretch to me, YMMV. The last time we spoke you had gratuituosly slapped the Evangelicals, if memory serves, so to my understanding, (in this context), you are at least consistant.
“Excuse me for cluttering up your blogging experience.” vivo ut bona faciam /s
I never learned Latin.
My slapping of Evangelicals is not gratuitious, but a hard-earned dislike.
“I never learned Latin.” Repita despues de yo ; “Google is my friend.”
Don’t complain when the same animosity is directed at you and your beliefs. If you have a bone pick , then be specific, otherwise, you are being gratuitous.
I have been quite specific in the past and I don’t wish to revisit the topic as it is tedious. I am not going to convince you that my reasons are sound and, quite frankly, I’m not going to try.
I have long suspected that issues like the death penalty make hypocrites out of many of us.
I cannot answer Prager other than to say that life is ideally no one’s to take, at least in a civil society. Because you are a thief, it does not give another, more skilled thief the license to steal from you; it just means you should be caught and justice served by putting you away until you can presumably change your mind.
“Justice Served.” That’s a tricky two words there. Quite a summit to get there, and slippery slopes on both sides.
I vote for the amendment, metaphorically.
So, that’s a big yes, (yet again), for smug bigotry. And of course I won’t be convinced, because, shut up, she replied.
Bigotry? No. Prejudice, yes. I’ll own that.
I believe Illinois had the death penalty too until recently. What I was getting at is in the first sentence at the link.
We haven’t gone back and forth so if there is a comparison to be made between States. with and without. Michigan should be the best choice on the non-death penalty side to compare with a State that has always had it and used it too.