DNA testing has proven hundreds of inmates innocent in the last ten years. But if they're dead, you can't set them free. (argue against that statement - dare you.) But this case could turn public sentiment. It could be the first time DNA testing has proved a man killed by the govt., innocent. If he was. from www.cnn.com "If the tests show Roger Keith Coleman did not rape and murder his sister-in-law in 1981, it will mark the first time in the United States an executed person has been scientifically proved innocent, say death penalty opponents, who are keenly aware that such a result could have a powerful effect on public opinion. "I think it would be the final straw for a lot of people who are on the fence on the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. A Gallup poll in October found that 64 percent of Americans support the death penalty. That is the lowest level in 27 years, down from a high of 80 percent in 1994." The justice system is far too imperfect. The death penalty is barbaric. Question: would DNA - proof that an innocent man was executed change your opinion at all? (this is mainly posed to pro-death people)
This is inevitable, given the huge number of convicted persons on Death Row that were later exonerated by DNA evidence. Sooner or later the system will kill the person before they can be exonerated.
No. However I do support DNA evidence being a prerequisite to the death penalty as well as a review of anyone on death row today. Treason and acts of war would be the only exceptions. I am becoming a fan of the Dammit! position papers.
If this case is turned over because of DNA evidence, it will be a bigger inditement of the Virginia legal system than the death penalty as there was some good evidence supporting the verdict twenty plus years ago.
I'd rather let 100 murderers live than kill one innocent. Putting that innocent one behind bars is one thing. but killing him is a completely different one.
I signed many a petition to end the death penaility because if the murderer is in prison he has a chance to escape.
We know DNA can get people out of prison. Can a good lawyer get DNA thrown out as evidence during a murder trial?
It would be cheaper and a lot more entertaining to build a bunch of places that make Pelican Bay look like a Club Med. But that being said......
So you WANT people in prison to escape? That makes no sense. Is there a word missing from your post or something?
Roger Keith Coleman went to his death in 1992 proclaiming that “an innocent man is going to be murdered tonight.” If that was the case, that's damning. For me, though, that's not the reason to be against state killings. I'm against state killings because I don't want to be a murderer, particualrly when I don't have to be a murderer. When I have time, choices, options, all kinds of other ways to stand fast for justice...why would I rationally, calmly choose to be a murderer? The worse the crime, the clearer I want the distinction between myself, my state and that person to be. I want to BE the change I want to see in the world, to paraphrasea uotation often attributed to the 14th Buddha of Compassion. What kind of moral credibility do you think I bring to the table over issues concerning the value of life if I have played a role in standing fast for killings? None; none at ALL. You have no credibility. You stand fast, in such instances, only for being and becoming that which you claim is perfectly immoral. The killing society cannot last; I know that we're not really concenred with that here, and that we've got alot of bying to do between now and that sentiment, but it is, I think, accurate nonetheless. I for one would prefer the best aspects of the Great Experiement to be more than a Flasjh in the Historical Pan; commitment to such notions as state killing reduce the chance of that, and do not enhance it at all, imv.
Sorry, this is being Chicken Little. If you are opposed to the death penalty, you play no part in its administration, just as if you are a pacifist, you play no part in the decision to wage war. In a democracy, where majority rules (within certain limits), decisions on the death penalty are & should remain political, not judicial. If the Founding Fathers wanted to ban the death penalty (or slavery, as another example), they would have done so. If statutes or a Constitutional Amendment to ban the death penalty are enacted, then the political process has worked. People can respect your opposition to the death penalty or war, provided that you respect the right of the majority to outvote you on either through representative democracy. (QUOTE) The killing society cannot last (QUOTE) What is this supposed to mean?
I have to agree with Mel. The US' institutions do kill people with the death penalty in the name of all of the members of it's society. With each death penalty you are, from this point of view the 24 000 000th part of a murderer. You can not justify this if you don't want to be amurderer at all, imho. off course, as we are in a state of free speech, you are allowed to take a different point of view. But if Mel feels as a murderer because of the death penalty, he feels as a murderer and it is his duty do something about that. just my two €cents
Not true; If I pay taxes in MD, and MD kills people with that funding, however miniscule, I play a clear and direct role in the administration of such penalties. Furthermore, I recognize that I play a role to the extent that I have not dedicated mthe entirety of my existence, or even of my free time, to standing fast and producing protest to such barbarity; IOW< my own hypocrsiy in terms of what, to this, point, I have demonstrated I am willing to do to stand fast against such policies itself indicts me in terms of, as a result, contributing - or, rather, failing to contribute - as much as I can to the legitimate protest AGAINST such murder. In any cas,e how any of that, interpreted either the way you se it or the way I see it, is comparable to yelling "the sky is falling" is right now beyond me. Elucidate. Whether or not the decisions remains political or judicial has little to do with my describing it as amoral. ...therefore...what, exactly? I respect that right, but that doesn't mean I'll ever think that it IS right. I'lll always speak out against state killing, and I'll always call it what it clearly is: morally vacuousness draped in revenge-soaked illusions of "justice" that springs out of the sickly rational choice, among many, to kill whene we do not have to kill at all. (QUOTE) The killing society cannot last (QUOTE) What is this supposed to mean?[/QUOTE] The society that institutionalizes killing will not last. That's my view. I don't think that the USA will last as long as we all would like it to last giving certain things primacy, state killing among them. It would be a shame to have the things one might treasure fro mthe Great Experiment sentenced to the ignominy of empires gone before because we clung too tightly to things that generated the inevitable psychic and sociocultural brekas that come from trying to maintain mututally exclusive conceptions of self and nation.
I'm not miserable, I'm disappointed and outraged, and a bit hurt; I don't lack hope, only optimism. I'm a blues man, informed by Monk/Coltrane jazz, well-written, deeply felt (EWF-like) R&B, with a splash of consicous hip-hop. 38a, man...the unexamined life is not worth living. More accurately the unexamined life is not a life of the human. I'm working to be fully human, man...everyday. You begrudge me that, or marginalize such efforts as a pursuit of misery? That is instructive. Imagine if the nation's wider cultural senisibility sprung fro msuch thinking...to avoid pain, and, I guess, focus on pleasure. Or, rather,a construction of pleasure defined suitably as, simply, "not pain." Man, we'd have nothing but soma-esque reality television all day, and never get any real, actionable information - be it "miserable" or no -by which we could fulfill our responsibilities as citizens by producing educated decisions that manifest in ways that contributed to the extenstion of the Constitutional franchise... Oops...
I feel that before the Death Penalty is invoked that the person accused has to be found guilty beyond any doubt. I also feel though that people like John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, etc... are prime examples of why the Death Penalty should remain in place. This does not mean that all have to be executed, but there certainly are examples of people who should be put to death.
Abolish the Death Penalty. 1.) The costs of incarceration are expensive (about $20,000 per year per inmate), that amounts to $600,000 to $800,000 depending on whether a person lives 30 or 40 years after their sentencing. The death penalty, on the other hand, costs about $2 million per execution Facts 2.) The homicide rate in those states with the death penalty is almost double the rate in states without the death penalty. Facts 3.) Relatively few other developed countries in the world impose the death penalty. Japan and South Korea are the only established democracies in the world, other than the U.S., which still conduct executions. The execution rate in Japan is a small fraction of that in the U.S. Facts 4.) The homicide rate in Canada has been gradually dropping since executions were stopped. This phenomenon has been observed in many other countries who have abandoned the death penalty. Facts
(1) OK, then, wallow in your disappointment & outrage! (2) Of course not, it's made you the cheerful poster that you are! P.S. Do you actually live in a state that imposes the death penalty?
These may all be good arguments, but they have been rejected by the elected representatives of several states. That's democracy.
I agree with Mel on aalmost nothing. Yet I appreciate that he attempts to live by ideals. It's hard because you never can reach them, but sometimes, we get much closer than we think. I should take that back. I don't know how much I really agree with Mel because I don't understand half of the stuff he writes. It's like Charlie Brown's mom to me. But I appreciate arguments based on ideals more than the ones about how much it costs to pay for death-row appeals... Also, isn't one of the arguments for the death penalty that it has an effect on crime? And, as pointed out above, doesn't that just not pan out?
and segregationists were voted into office all throughout the south during the 40s,50s and 60s. i guess that's just democracy too right?
Actually, yes. It was flawed democracy, because large numbers of potential voters were disenfranchised, in violation of constitutional amendments. The federal government enacted the Voting Rights Act, which enforced & broadened the electoral base. IIRC, George Wallace began as a segregationist, but in later years won the support of many African-American voters, because he reacted to that now larger number. We're supporting democracy in Iraq. If the Shiite majority elect an Iran-friendly religious party, that's democracy, provided that there continue to be fair elections, where the reverse could occur. AMENDMENT XIII Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865. Note: A portion of Article IV, section 2, of the Constitution was superseded by the 13th amendment. Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. --------------------------------------------------- AMENDMENT XIV Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868. Note: Article I, section 2, of the Constitution was modified by section 2 of the 14th amendment. Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,* and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. Section 5. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. *Changed by section 1 of the 26th amendment. ----------------------------------------------- AMENDMENT XV Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February 3, 1870. Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude-- Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.