Death Penalty

Here's something I was thinking about and thought I would throw it out for discussion to see how others feel about it.

While I was in the process of finding out about ordering a book abour John Wesley Hardin from the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville, I got to thinking about the fact that Texas leads the USA in executions and they take place in Huntsville I believe. And so I went to another website to see about upcoming executions and was reading about a fellow named Derrick Sonnier, who's going to be executed on June 3rd for stabbing a woman to death, throwing her body in the bathtub and then going to the child's room and stabbing her 2 year old little daughter to death and tossing her body in the bathtub with her mother.

Personally, I believe that this guy is a "poster boy" for the death penalty and I honestly believe that the moment he's pronounced dead, the world is going to be a slightly brighter and better place to live.

I know that there are alot of people that look at the United States and wonder how they can continue to impose this "barbaric" penalty, but I'm not one of them. Personally, I think there are people who are so evil and their crimes so heinous that somebody has to say to them "you've forfeited the right to live".

And for those who say that the death penalty is not a deterrent, I would ask you "how many people has Ted Bundy, for example, killed lately"..??

I think 50,000 volts surging through his body for a minute or so was a hell of a deterrent..!!

Quote from Jay J. Foraker

Saddle Tramp - I think the reasoning is that if someone is willing to kill a law enforcement officer, that person would NOT have any deterent in killing a civilian which would make them all that more dangerous!
As for the executions with the needle, these criminals are getting off lightly since the cocktail they receive just puts them asleep. I agree - HANG THE BUMS!
Cheers - Jay

Jay:

You know what really gets to me as well.??

When you see these organizations like Amnesty International or so many of the well-intentioned groups doing everything in their power on behalf of the crimanls, you rarely hear word-one about the victims of the crime.

I've seen and heard so many of these people in interviews and they prattle on and on about the terrible upbringing the killer had - or his lack of education - or a thousand other excuses and yet you never hear them talk about the terror and pain and anquish the poor victims and the families have suffered.

If I was the Attorney-general of the United States, the very first thing I would do is change the term from the "criminal justice" system to the "victim justice" system becasue right now it seems like the deck is stacked so much in favour of the criminal...

And I fully agree with your comment about lethal injection - right now courts are discussing several motions about it being a "cruel and unusual" punishment. Give me a break..!!

Strangling somebody to death - or plunging a 10 inch knife into their chest - that's cruel..! Putting somebody to sleep is a joke in my opinion..!

Quote from DukePilgrim

Shame they can't fast track the "Final" results for these murderers rather than having them with us for years if not decades. Highly unlikely that any European country will reintroduce death penalty so our best hopes would be life imprisonment on some desolate
island preferably the one they did the chemical weapons testing on in the 1950s.

Mike

\Mike:

I suspect that Europe might be like Canada in some ways.

I remember when I moved here up many years ago - late 70's - there was, of course, no death penalty in Canada, However, i remember seeing a poll at the time that if they put it to a popular vote, something like about 68% of the people would have voted in favor of re-instating it again. And I remember thinking at the time that it was probably the purest example of how a democracy doesn't serve the will of the majority at times.

That an elite group of left wing liberal types dictated the law and government at the time.

Quote from Emmanuel

Hi all,

Although I can understand that it's easy
to jump on the bandwagon and say hang
them all. I must disagree. Back in the early
70's 4 young people, 2 Irish and 2 English,
were convicted in a court of bombing pubs
and killing innocent people. The judge told
them that he wished that the death penalty
was still in force because he would have no
hesitation in having them all hanged. It turned
out that these 4 young people were also innocent.

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The finality of the death penalty, of course, is always the best argument put forth by the anti-death penalty voices. You execute the wrong person and there's no way to correct the error.

I find it interesting, however, that those groups, who speak out most vocally about the death penalty can't present one factual example of an innocent, who was actually executed in the USA.

I've read about people, who were on death row, who were later proven to be innocent of the crime and the anti-death penalty people will say "you see, the death penalty is wrong - this person could have been executed".

But to me, it's just proof that the system does work. The fact is that the person who was on death row was found innocent and pardoned. Nobody was executed.

The example yho gave is just another case in point.

I think the length of time it takes to execute a person, coupled with the countless appeals processes and scientific advancements that are being made i.e. DNA make it less and less likely that an innocent person is going to be executed. it won't completely elimintae the possibility of a mistake, but it certainly minimizes the likelihood that it's going to happen.

Mark

Quote from may2

Since 1977, in Illinois, 13 men on Death Row have been exonerated for various reasons, including new DNA evidence and recanted testimony by prosecution witnesses.

In 2007 the US ranked 4th in the world in executions, coming in behind China, Iran, Saudia Arabia and Pakistan and just ahead of Iraq, Not very good company to be in.

Again, doesn't the fact that they were exonerated prior to the needle being put in their arm provide some credibility to the argument that the system is working. yes - people, unfortunately, have been wrongly imprisoned, but I don't think there's a single anti-death penalty group who can conclusively point to s a single individual in the United States, who has been executed by mistake and say "see - the system doesn't work".

As for the list of countries you referred to, I wonder how many countries would have a death penalty IF the government of the country put it to a popular vote..??

As I mentioned in a previous post here, when I emigrated to Canada, back in the late 70's, polls continually showed that a majority of Canadians were in favour of capital punishment for the worst criminals. But the government continually refused to re-open the issue and/or put it to a popular vote. I find this of interest:


All of Canada's national political parties formally oppose the reintroduction of the death penalty, with the exception of the Reform Party which supports a binding national referendum on the issue.

A motion to reintroduce capital punishment was debated in the House of Commons in 1987. On June 30, the motion was soundly defeated on a free vote (148-127), despite public opinion polls indicating majority support for the death penalty.
A national poll conducted in June, 1995 found that 69% of Canadians moderately or strongly favoured the return of the death penalty, exactly the same level of support as 20 years ago. However, other surveys suggest that this abstract support is 'a mile wide and an inch deep'. In 1996, a cross-section of 1500 Canadians were asked to name the major concerns and issues facing the country; not one named reinstatement of the death penalty as a priority. (For comparison, a similar sample in the USA would be 15,000 individuals; polls of this size are considered to be accurate within 2.5 percentage points 95% of the time). When the motion to reintroduce capital punishment was announced in February of 1987, popular support for reintroduction stood at 73% . By June (when the parliamentary vote was taken), popular support had slipped to an all-time low of 61%, following widespread discussion of death penalty issues in the media.

Even the "all-time low" of 61%, if my math is correct, still represents a majority.

I have no idea how Canadians feel about it today, but it's clear to me that the wishes of the majority - at least as evidenced by the polls I saw and read about - were ignored.