Death Penalty?

[euphoricism]

Because this forum needs more heated arguments!

Rules
--------------------
A) Cite. Cite. Cite. If you want to talk about the cost of the death penalty vs the cost of life without parol, youre going to need proof. There is a LOT of bullshit statistics floating around.

Thats it.




I believe that the Death Penalty is an excercise in futility. It has demonstrated no deterring effect (those that are going to kill people, kill people despite the consequences - the consequences are rarely thought about during a murder), has been shown to have intense racist undertones, and the idea of "the state" having the powers to take the life of someone because they deem it the right thing to do boils down to state-sanctioned murder. We can never know with 100% certainty of someones guilt or innocence, and in fact since 1973 over 120 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf)



"A recent study in California found that those who killed whites were over 3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks and over 4 times more likely than those who killed Latinos." (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf, citing Pierce & Radelet, Santa Clara Law Review 2005).


Agree or disagree?

[gabe]

If you want to talk about the cost of the death penalty vs the cost of life without parol, youre going to need proof. There is a LOT of bullshit statistics floating around.

i can kill someone pretty cheaply. the death penalty has only become expensive because liberals have added so much regulation to it.

i dont have any stats, i just figure that paying for someone to stay alive costs more than the money i would spend to kill them.

[Warpe]

Agree.

If the death penalty is any measure of a society's barbarity, the USA has a lot of civilizin' to do...and, no, I'm not forgetting China, etc...but, for a western "civilization", the USA is in the stone age here.

Then again, if its people didn't have so many guns and walk around shooting each other...(how's that for expanding the discussion?)

[a500lbgorilla]

LOL "if it's people didnt have blah blah"

I actually lol'ed at this.

Warped view on things, warpe?

You kill = you get killed.

Sounds like a fair policy to me.

[Pelion]

You black and in the same city as someone who gets killed = you get killed.

^^ thats where it starts to come unstuck.

[Warpe]

LOL "if it's people didnt have blah blah"

I actually lol'ed at this.

Warped view on things, warpe?

Just look at your murder by firearm stats compared to the rest of the western world. They're INSANE. Why do people get the death penalty? Murder maybe? Why do some states feel the death penalty is necessary? Too many murders, possibly? Any connection, ya think?

[a500lbgorilla]

LOL "if it's people didnt have blah blah"

I actually lol'ed at this.

Warped view on things, warpe?

Just look at your murder by firearm stats compared to the rest of the western world. They're INSANE. Why do people get the death penalty? Murder maybe? Why do some states feel the death penalty is necessary? Too many murders, possibly? Any connection, ya think?

linky plz?

[gabe]

You black and in the same city as someone who gets killed = you get killed.

^^ thats where it starts to come unstuck.

% wise, black people kill more than white people. thats a fact. liberals just like to look past that for some reason.

[gabe]

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

justice department holla

[Warpe]

LOL "if it's people didnt have blah blah"

I actually lol'ed at this.

Warped view on things, warpe?

Just look at your murder by firearm stats compared to the rest of the western world. They're INSANE. Why do people get the death penalty? Murder maybe? Why do some states feel the death penalty is necessary? Too many murders, possibly? Any connection, ya think?

linky plz?

http://www.guncite.com/cnngunde.html

http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/new/guns97.pdf

[bigred]

Using guns is our right!!!!

[euphoricism]

If you want to talk about the cost of the death penalty vs the cost of life without parol, youre going to need proof. There is a LOT of bullshit statistics floating around.

i can kill someone pretty cheaply. the death penalty has only become expensive because liberals have added so much regulation to it.

i dont have any stats, i just figure that paying for someone to stay alive costs more than the money i would spend to kill them.

Is the fact that "liberals have added so much regulation to it" inherently a BAD thing? Should we go back to the days of hangmans justice? "The state sentances you to death." and then walk outside to the nearest big tree and string em up by the neck?

Consider that people put on death row have automatic appeals, and private cells while waiting for those appeals (of which they spend 23/24 hours of the day in solitary confinement) ... well the costs can get surprisingly high. Those appeals, due to overload of the system, often take years -- the average length of a prison stay for a deathrow inmate is 8 years.(http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf)

But its not just about the costs of incarceration - note that there are no guilty pleas in capital murder cases (well, my wording sucks, but you can't plead guilty and get the death penalty. So if the prosecutor wants the death penalty there has to be a trial.) Trials are quite expensive.. Gotta pay a prosecutor, gotta pay a defender, gotta pay a judge, gotta pay a jury (and all THEIR expenses..)

The most comprehensive study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the
costs of sentencing murderers to life imprisonment. The majority of those costs occur at the trial level. (Duke University, May 1993).

And there is still the problems of inherent racism. In death penalty cases, 80% of the victims are white - even though nationwide only 50% of the murder victims are white. Don't kill whitey.

[shysti]

You black and in the same city as someone who gets killed = you get killed.

^^ thats where it starts to come unstuck.

% wise, black people kill more than white people. thats a fact. liberals just like to look past that for some reason.

I want to see proof of such an assasine comment

[Warpe]

Not to mention the potential settlement costs to the family when someone wrongly convicted is put to death. I don't know if such a settlement has ever been paid out in the US, but the Canadian justice system has paid out millions in recent years to a number of people later proven to be wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to life. You can bet those people were happy we don't have the death penalty.

[euphoricism]

You black and in the same city as someone who gets killed = you get killed.

^^ thats where it starts to come unstuck.

% wise, black people kill more than white people. thats a fact. liberals just like to look past that for some reason.

I want to see proof of such an assasine comment

To be fair, he is correct:

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks committed 51.5% of murders between 1976 and 1999, while whites committed 46.5%. ( http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/06-03-2002/)

[Lukie]

to those against the death penalty...

what do we do when (for argument's sake, assume we will) we catch OBL?

[euphoricism]

Let him rot in solitary confinement for the rest of his life, while making sure he lives a very long life.

I consider this a far greater punishment than being killed.

[bigred]

Let him rot in solitary confinement while being forced to watch The View for the rest of his life, while making sure he lives a very long life.

I consider this a far greater punishment than being killed.

'

fyp

[Warpe]

Let him rot in solitary confinement while being forced to watch The View for the rest of his life, while making sure he lives a very long life.

I consider this a far greater punishment than being killed.

'

fyp

Oof! Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.

[martindcx1e]

"A recent study in California found that those who killed whites were over 3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed blacks and over 4 times more likely than those who killed Latinos." (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf, citing Pierce & Radelet, Santa Clara Law Review 2005).

Is there a way to find out how many whites/blacks/latinos are murdered? If many more whites are killed than the other races then that would lead to more convictions. More convictions lead to more death sentences. If latinos are killed much less compared to other races then that there would be fewer convictions and fewer death sentecnes. Just a thought.

[gabe]

Is the fact that "liberals have added so much regulation to it" inherently a BAD thing?

nope, just saying !

I want to see proof of such an assasine comment

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
i already posted that link, but i think you were so offended you didn't care to read it

edit: ive never been called an assasine before

[DaNutsInYoEye]

You black and in the same city as someone who gets killed = you get killed.

^^ thats where it starts to come unstuck.

% wise, black people kill more than white people. thats a fact. liberals just like to look past that for some reason.

I want to see proof of such an assasine comment

To be fair, he is correct:

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks committed 51.5% of murders between 1976 and 1999, while whites committed 46.5%. ( http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/06-03-2002/)

At the same time they comprised less than 12.9% of the population. http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-5.pdf

[gabe]

At the same time they comprised less than 12.9% of the population. http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-5.pdf

actually that was what i was originally referring to, the fact that a black person is more likely to murder than a white person just because there are so many less black people. i didn't realize it was actually more without comparing the populations of the races.

[euphoricism]

Let him rot in solitary confinement while being forced to watch The View for the rest of his life, while making sure he lives a very long life.

I consider this a far greater punishment than being killed.

'

fyp

Oof! Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.

Yes, let's. Is the death penalty cruel and unusual? There are a lot of cases of botched executions -- people catching on fire, spraying blood, suffocating, etc that it does/can appear "cruel".

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/arti...scid=8&did=478

Please read that link.

[Greedo017]

accidents happen don't blame the system

and also, if you think life in prison is actually a worse punishment then why's it bad to execute a higher % of black people

[euphoricism]

Wha? Explain...

[bigred]

Family guy quote: Remember kids, guns don't kill people, dangerous minorities do.

[Pelion]

and also, if you think life in prison is actually a worse punishment then why's it bad to execute a higher % of black people

You can take someone out of prison once you realise you ballsed up the investigation. You wont give them back the years theyve spent there, but youll give them back more than you would if you executed them.

Im not sure I have a moral problem with the death penalty itself. I just have a prolem with the numbers of innocent working class people who get excecuted.

[boost]

when george bush was king of texas, some number of people got off death row. However plenty of people had been killed. When asked about innocent people getting killed, bush replied by saying that he is sure that everyone executed was guilty.

.... but there are several people that where to be executed and got off.

also Im breaking the rules here, but I believe I remember reading something about the % of convictions for the death penalty that have been soley based on eye witness testimonies. The problem is that studies have showed how increadibly easy it is for our memories to fill in blanks, be influenced by interviewers, ect ect.


I dont know the whole system is fucked up to me. I know a guy that just got picked up a week ago for, get this, the rape of a nun at knife point at like 5am. There is NO fucking way in hell, none, that this guy did it. Yet he spent 3 days in county. Hes out now, but what does he get for it? They dont give a fuck about him, they just let him go and tell him to get the fuck outta there.

[Pelion]

I dont know the whole system is fucked up to me. I know a guy that just got picked up a week ago for, get this, the rape of a nun at knife point at like 5am. There is NO fucking way in hell, none, that this guy did it.

How do you know?

[euphoricism]

.... but there are several people that where to be executed and got off.

There is a distinction between being innocent and "getting off". Technicalities, witnesses dying, pardons, etc are all reasons to get off, but they have nothing to do with the factuality of "Did this person commit this crime?"

[Phantaroth]

shrugshrug

I have no problem with it, the problem arises because there is no room for alternative justice systems as land is a limited resource and 99.9% of land is occupied by nations with set legal codes that do not allow for drastic structural deviations when it comes to social/government/justice arrangements.

So I don't care if they kill people, but I would like death penalty to be arranged by County levels or lower. The lower the better.

[boost]

.... but there are several people that where to be executed and got off.

There is a distinction between being innocent and "getting off". Technicalities, witnesses dying, pardons, etc are all reasons to get off, but they have nothing to do with the factuality of "Did this person commit this crime?"

right but the point is that it cant be proven without a doubt, however these people are on death row...

[boost]

I dont know the whole system is fucked up to me. I know a guy that just got picked up a week ago for, get this, the rape of a nun at knife point at like 5am. There is NO fucking way in hell, none, that this guy did it.

How do you know?

The poor lady was old.. and a nun...

for christ sake SHES MARRIED TO JESUS. YOU DONT FUCKING RAPE JESUS'S WIFE!

but seriously, its just not that guys m.o., and also they let him go, that doesnt mean he didnt do it but, well he didnt... The point of the story is that you can be not charged with anything and not do anything wrong but they can pick you up and hold you for 3 days then just kick you out. And you get nothing for your time.

Also my friends little brother picked up a freind, his freind lives in a not so good neihgborhood and is a minority. My freinds little brother is white and so was the other kid with him. He picks up his freinds, the dicks (detectives) pull them over for no reason, then search them all and serach the car. The kid who he picked up had a little bit of weed on him. On his person, not in the car, in the trunk or on my freinds little brother. They arrested all 3 of them, impounded the car, which cost like 1500 to get out because it was taken on a drug charge. Just another example of a fucked up retarded system. Oh and my freinds little brother got beat up by the cops. What can you do? Get a lawyer and go to trial for years. Hell those cops beat Rodney King on fucking videotape and were found not guilty.

[Aces]

Reasons I'm against the death penalty:

Cannot correct if a mistake is made - and mistakes are made. How would you feel if a friend or family memeber was killed and later deemed innocent. Would you still support the death penalty??

Studies have shown it does not serve as a deterent.

Death penalty sentences are not given fairly. Percentage-wise you are much more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime if you are poor or a minority. Yes this is true of other convictions as well, but death is permanent.

It's more expensive then life imprsonement. To those who think the appeals process is ridiculous: again think of someone you love who is innocent...would you not want every possible chance to prove this?

It's not civilized. Look at the list of countries that use the death penalty and those that don't. Japan and S.Korea are the only other democracies that use the death penalty. Shouldn't we be on the other list?
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-countries-eng

Regardless of your religion, but especially if you're Christian: what gives anybody the right to kill another human being? Yes, the accused(probably) did that, but an eye for an eye is not the way to dole out justice in a democratic country. Life without probation is sufficient.

Executions of children and those with mental defects - if you don't believe this is wrong there's not much more to say.

I'll see if I can add some links to some of these, but I don't think there's much dispute on these points(other than the moral issue). Any one of these points would be enough to persuade me, but all of them together - it's just wrong.