Two simple reasons I'm against the death penalty

1) Inevitably innocent people are executed. We know for a fact it has already happened many times.

2) For the worst criminals, life in prison with no parole is worse than a quick and easy death.

simple as that.

I would have someone alive and thinking every day of what they did....and doesn't it cost more to have an inmate on death row then in the general population? I thought I had heard that a few times before..

Jesus was against it. Reference "those among you who are without sin..." And his interpretation of "an eye for an eye". Even the Catholic Church is against it.

And for a purely practical purpose: The death penalty has never proven to be a deterrent to murder. And it costs more to put a person to death than to incarcerate him for life.

My only doubt is if that person harms another while in prison.

or they would want to feed the hungry, tend to the sick, not judge one another and so on. He's a bit...well liberal.

But his dad, no wimp, the big guy God, set an example with the first murderer. When Cain killed Abel he exiled him, took away his profession (the land would be barren for him) and made sure no one would kill him
Gen 4:1 And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

Do they know better then the Father and the Son?

....remember what he did to two towns that were just getting their funk on!! Hate to loose any great US cities!!! ; )

S&G were leveled because the had people were inhospitable according to one Bible source.

people in my name....

gave me enough reason to side with life in prison. That possibility should never be taken away from any human being.

Therefore, the convicts themselves prefer LWOP to DP, therefore the DP IS a greater punishment.

PB

what is your definition on many?

The way we use it now, there is no doubt we will make a mistakes, but there are those that don't deserve to continue to suck-up O2. Gacey, Bundy, Smith, etc.

too many, but it is not many.

you will never know with any certainty how many innocent people are executed. There are *many* non-death-penalty cases in which people are convicted and then exonerated. with DNA evidence, people are being released from prison practically every day now. we don't know how many innocent people have been put to death and we never will. we know one thing, that the less fortunate people have less money to spend on a good lawyer, and the poor are more apt to be put to death wrongly. I don't want to go down any of these roads. It is better to protect the few people who would be wrongly put to death.

you said, "We know for a fact it has already happened many times." True for the entirety of history, but does it apply to the post '77 era? The Illinois exonerations indicate it might be true, but as a stand alone statement, it might not holdup.

What the hell difference does that make?! Pre-77, it didn't count?!

One. Is. Too. Many.

and Tookie is a waste of skin, and a waste of oxygen...a piece of sub-human garbage. Too bad they don't still have the 'lectric chair...would love to see an asshole like Tookie do the fucking airdance! sorry, but some folks plain deserve it, and Tookie is one of 'em.

Don't like my opinion, kiss my ass.

Generally, I don't like the death penalty either, but in Tookie's case, it's entirely justified.

nm

Or why don't you ask any member of The Crips that question.

What I want dead is a walking piece of shit. Not a human being.

nm

And what did their victims do to deserve to die? Let them answer THAT question, too.

Anyone who slaughters someone else, who has committed no crime...is a walking piece of shit.

And that means Tookie is a walking piece of shit...and so are most gang members, because most gang members have killed someone.

and having and exercising the death penalty are not really the same thing, so I'm not really clear about what your point is about not liking the death penalty.

"and Tookie is a waste of skin, and a waste of oxygen...a piece of sub-human garbage."

That may well be the case, and even if not, there are others who would qualify. but I do not think it is relevant to the discussion. I agree there are horrible people.

"Too bad they don't still have the 'lectric chair...would love to see an asshole like Tookie do the fucking airdance! sorry, but some folks plain deserve it, and Tookie is one of 'em."

I think you are assuming that you know he will suffer in his death. How do you know that? Virtually everyone who has had a near death experience has said it was tremendously pleasing. Even those who experienced tremendous pain generally say the pain was erased from their memory (they usually go unconscious)

"Don't like my opinion, kiss my ass."

I respect your opinion. I don't think I would kiss your ass, unless, are you really a mermaid? I don't think I ever kissed a mermaid's butt before.

"Generally, I don't like the death penalty either,"

Here I agree with you

" but in Tookie's case, it's entirely justified."

I don't see how your last two statements fit with each other.

1. I stand by my statement. Tookie is a walking piece of shit. He already will get more mercy than he deserves. Certainly, he will get more than he showed his victims.

2. I wish he would SUFFER in his death. He probably won't though...I understand lethal injection is quite painless. I'll just have to take pleasure from the fact that at least he will never again murder...and he will pay for what he has done. If only we could make ALL criminals pay for what they do. Not that I'm advocating D.P. on all criminals!! But, damn it, there are laws for a reason. someone who refuses to follow them should be punished.

3. Generally, I don't like the death penalty, because it could be given to an innocent person. But in Tookie's case...HE IS NO INNOCENT!! Even if he DIDN'T kill the people he got the DP for (and I believe he did) he still founded the largest, the deadliest, nationwide gang that exists...The Crips. And for that alone, he deserves to die.

If I had my way, membership in any gang would, in and of itself, be a capital offense.

I feel literally ill.

where the fuck am I?

that is sick
:puke::puke::puke:

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

that's a little incongruous. And also sick.

it's cheaper to have them to serve life with no parole than to execute.

Death penalty is not a deterrent to murder or other crimes...

so what's the last logical reason to support the death penalty?

Prison is its own society.

High-profile and/or well-connected inmates are part of the hierarchy of that society. Why would an inmate like Tookie prefer life to the death penalty? Because he has his place in prison society. Given a choice between that and death, most people would fight like hell for a life sentence.

It costs $200,000 to put an average prisoner away for life. When you factor in the appeals, the elaborate expense of an execution, and everything else, it costs $1,800,000. For the price we pay to stick a poisoned needle in the arm of one person, we could box up nine equally bad guys forever. And it's not like they end up any less dead in the end.

I personally have no moral or ethical feeling for or against the death penalty. I accept the idea that some people need to die. But the reality that innocent people will be convicted is reason enough not to execute people. Innocent people being executed is unacceptable. Life in prison at least allows for such mistakes to be partially corrected.

We need to take the morally correct path. Not the cheapest.

I DO NOT want to see a heinous criminal get away w/ a quick death. Most of us non-heinous-criminals don't get that. I want the truly evil to be forced to live w/in their skin for the natural span of their lives in an 8x12 cell. I want them to live a nightmare of memories and confinement.

For those placed on death row (preferably LIFE W/O Parole) who are innocent - the time spent will not be as cruel - they have truth on their side. I can hope that the TRUTH exonerates them.

THE TRUTH has already exonerated quite a few who had already been executed.

E-nuf said.

would be that death row is disproportionately populated with racial minorities because they can't afford the slick lawyers to get them off that the more affluent white population can afford.

But I do think that #1 is the single strongest argument against the DP.

Today we have technology that can go along ways towards eliminating innocent people from being executed.

I would support amending the DP so that it only applies when:

1) 3 credible eyewitnesses to the crime
2) DNA evidence positively links perpetrator to the crime
3) Evidence that act was intentional and premeditated.

Do those things, and I believe you can bring the possibility of executing an innocent person to virtually 0%

Most crime does not have EYEWITNESSES!!!

I say if you can link 'em by DNA, and you can prove number 3...then the DP is warranted, justified, and almost certainly being administered to a truly guilty person.

I don't need eyewitnesses...DNA doesn't lie.

all of which I agree with...:)

You say yourself it's worth than a death penalty. So, if some poor innocent person is sentence to life in prison, how is that any better than being sentence to death?

the commandment is, in the original Hebrew, "No kill" (according to a Jewish friend of mine).

Nothing about a death penalty. No wiggle room at all.

What part of "Thou shalt not kill" (as it is normally rendered) is hard to understand?

There are two different Hebrew words for this. They correspond to "kill" and to "murder". The one used is the one for murder. If you will read the ENTIRE Bible, instead of cherry picking the parts you want, you would read, in both Testaments, that the state is given the power of capital punishment to protect the people.

the Hebrew word in the commandment is the word for kill.

And you're absolutely right. I'm not a religious person, nor a believer in the Bible, so I actually don't cherry-pick for my own purposes. I'm simply pointing out what one of the Commandments says.

In another thread on the Williams execution, someone said he (she maybe, I forget who the poster was) is an eye for an eye person himself (herself). Which is an Old Testament thing, and many sincere Christians have pointed out to me on numerous occasions that the whole point of the coming of Jesus and his message is to change from the vengeful, wrathful God of the Old Testament to the God of love and forgiveness of the New.

It is precisely all of those many contradictions that makes me prefer to think for myself.

And what I think is that capital punishment is wrong and has no place in a modern civilized society.

"...you would read, in both Testaments, that the state is given the power of capital punishment to protect the people."

Please. Show me where.

My grandma used to say that any person in error can find a Bible verse to back him/her up.

Whether done by Tookie Williams or the state.