Let us unleashe hordes of sociologists against the battling youth!
I'm against capital punishment, so I don't agree, but having said that - gangs suck pretty much all the way around. Except for my gang of course. The Thrips.
Best FPP of 2005!
Quiet, you.
A gang leader who was never responsible for killing anybody and who spends his time telling other people not to get involved in gangs because they might wind up killing somebody if they do.
Hmmm.
You forgot the sub-plot
A governer who is lost in the polls waiting until the last minute to pardon him as to revive the standings in the polls.
Heh, the anti-deathpenalty advocates will have short memories, if he pardons Tookie, they'll be back demanding he pardon everyone else before they'll be in his pocket.
Er, make that "grant clemancy", not pardon.
A guy convicted of killing just a few people, boasted about his status and spent his latter days writing childrens books. Because shit, what else was he going to do?
Regardless of where you stand on the death penalty, his case is an example of someone who, in later years as he sensed the scale of his life growing palpably shorter, sought to perform work that would relieve him from his sentence. His ultimate motivation is unknown to all but him.
Is Williams doing these things specifically in order to make a case for clemency? Is he truly reformed? I don't know his thoughts, and cannot say. One camp says that he's reformed, and others claim that he continues to call shots in some factions of the crips gang.
But I do believe that granting clemency would convey the message that if someone were to make a lot of noise about rehabilitation and working for the good of society that they can evade or partially circumvent the just punishment assigned in a court of law.
Because of this I don't support clemency.
I find it kind of odd that, in this day and age, there's any argument at all for capital punishment. To me, it's bizarre that people don't feel a visceral distaste to the notion of taking another's life. Killing, whether by an individual or the state, has to be wrong. I believe that capital punishment is the primacy of vengeance over justice, and who, in all honesty, would want to live in a place where vengeance is the prime motivator of those who are placed in authority to protect us?
My tuppence. I'll shut up now.
It is generally considered Bad Form to execute people who have been nominated for a Nobel Prize. But then it's a New Age in America!
No, I agree. However, this is the one time I feel it's justified. Not to Godwin, but he's a horrible, horrible human being. This man is worth the death penalty. After him, it'll be tough to justify it. Who's as bad as Tookie?
A gang leader who was never responsible for killing anybody...
You mean like this guy?
My comment was in response to Some wander by mistake.
I'll go nominate mercurious for a Nobel Prize now. Or shall I fax you the form and you can nominate me?
or partially circumvent the just punishment
I disagree that the punishment was just. There are myriad arguments against capital punishment, but I'd take any of them. Not that vengance isn't totally understandable as an emotion. I'd want it too, i suppose, but I wish state sanctioned killing wasn't allowed still.
I'll start a can of worms: who does deserve death?
Amended to say: state-sanctioned death.
caveat: death penalty supporter, for reasons that have already been mentioned, here and elsewhere. That hasn't changed.
But I think what we're dealing with here is the idea that there is a level of expiation that a man can perform that would preclude eventual punishment, or more to the point: has Tookie earned the right to live? Those who believe capital punishment is inherently wrong are immediately swayed affirmatively. But the question remains, I think: even if a murderer has done much in service to humanity, is it *ever* enough to make up for the crimes he has perpetrated? One could make the argument, after all, that in this case, had Tookie never been caught, convicted and sentenced to die, he would have never done those things that now we promote as rehabilitation. And there is the idea of an eternal debt - by the same token that some decry Tookie's eventual execution as overarchingly final, can we not make the same case that those he murdered, or had murdered by others, as similarly final? The point being: is *any* expiation sufficient to make up for the crimes he has committed?
As for vengeance, I can't help but think that all justice, from a speeding fine to the electric chair, is simply vengeance depersonalized. The state, after all, does not implement any punishment except in our collective name. It is the instrument, not the hand that wields it, although the vast machinery of that intrument often obscures the hand of society that sets it in motion. We as a society allow this machinery to exact punishments as part of the social contract that we hold not with the machinery but with each other. I owe you the surety that a Tookie, that all Tookies, are never again allowed to commit the most heinous of crimes. To ensure fairness and expertise, I discharge that obligation to you by allowing the machinery fo justice to perform the ugly, but in my opinion necessary, details.
I'm against capital punishment, but Californians aren't, and this is their jurisdiction.
It would be wrong to grant clemency just because Williams had an (apparent) change of heart *after* being condemned.
The point being: is *any* expiation sufficient to make up for the crimes he has committed?
Good question. And isn't the death penalty the ultimate non-answer to that question?
It would be wrong to grant clemency just because Williams had an (apparent) change of heart *after* being condemned.
Is that only because it's the death penalty sentence, or are you saying that there should never be any reduction of sentence for perceived change of heart?
petebest, I used the term "just punishment" not in the universal, holistic sense of justice, but just under the law of California. Regardless of where you stand on the penalty itself (personally, I'm against it for various and sundry reasons), this is still a case of someone seeking to evade their punishment.
And picking a convicted quadruple murderer who happens to have been a founding member of one of the most violent street gangs (and who doubts that during his involvement with the crips that he has been convicted of far fewer crimes than he has actually committed?) to be the anti-death penalty movement's poster boy is not exactly a good way to get the undecideds on your side.
And isn't the death penalty the ultimate non-answer to that question?
Not if, as I believe, the answer to the question I posed is "no."
To add, I'm not vehemently against it, though my opinions on the matter have been in flux in recent years.
Is that only because it's the death penalty sentence, or are you saying that there should never be any reduction of sentence for perceived change of heart?
Good deeds and public service can be considered toward parole applications, but in this case his sentence didn't allow for parole.
How many believe that Williams would have written his anti-gang books if he wasn't on death row? And how many believe he will continue to write them if he is granted clemency?
We have the death penalty. Little wonder we're okay with torture.
It would be wrong to grant clemency just because Williams had an (apparent) change of heart *after* being condemned.
Why?? The prison system allegedly exists to rehabilitate, not just to punish.
who happens to have been a founding member of one of the most violent street gangs
It is not illegal to be a member of a gang or any other organization. We are talking about actual crimes under the law here. keep in mind the LAPD has a lengthy "gang member list" that features pretty much any kid they've ever seen in a bad neighborhood wearing a Raiders jacket. Do we really want to go further down that road?
As for the "I'm from LA and I know all about these awful gang members" argument: please. I live in LA too, on the Westside- I dont know that I've ever even laid eyes on a gang member in my life. Even supposing the people saying this are posting on Monkeyfilter from the heart of South-Central, which I kind of doubt, I dont see how your personal experiences with gang members have any bearing whatsoever.
chimaera: Ah. my misunderstanding.
*tips hat*
Point taken about the "poster boy" example, agreed.
Fes so there's no rehabilitation, no forgiveness for crimes committed? My point being that if he's killed, how would we know? How would we know if he's given life in prison? I guess a continued sustained striving for good his whole life. That seems like a pretty convincing example.
rocket if he wasn't on death row . . I don't know. But if he's killed, we can't ever know. And this is just one example of the 1000 since Nineteen seventy . . six?
How many believe that Williams would have written his anti-gang books if he wasn't on death row? And how many believe he will continue to write them if he is granted clemency?
Yes on both counts. If granted clemency, he will still be in maximum security prison for the rest of his life- worse than death anyway in my book.
And anyway, who cares? Maybe if Mother Teresa had gotten asked to the prom she would've been a socialite and never done anything good at all. The point is what people do, not what they might have done under different hypothetical circumstances.
Pete, my contention is that, once you've committed what are essentially the worst of crimes, rehabilitation doesn't matter. He did what he did, and there is a punishment that attaches to it. We may laud his work since, and may even believe that he has had a sincere and utter change of heart. But his crimes are such that no moral expiation is possible and, to my mind, anything less than execution amounts to injustice. Perhaps, if He exists, God will let Tookie into Heaven; but this is not Heaven, and we owe it to each other to assess against those who commit murder to ensure, all other questions aside, the ultimate punishment.
You all think that Tookie invented gangs, but actually they were invented thousands of years ago by the Chinese (shortly after they invented gunpowder, come to think of it).
Judge Smails: I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them.
I sort of disagree, drjimmy. Motivation has a lot of weight for me. We'll probably never know whether he rehabilitated himself in a bid for clemency or because he genuinely regrets his past. I'm going to wait for the TV movie to decide. It'll be out, what, next week?
And I say motivation or subsequent behavior doesn't matter, for the entire idea of expiation relies on the idea that one can make things right again. Tookie can't. No murderer can.
ok, fine. But I find it incredibly cynical for people, who I think we can safely say have never met the man, to assume the worst about his motivations.
Wouldn't someone who was concerned about saving his own life concentrate more on legal challenges and less on writing books? That its all some kind of "plot" to escape the death penalty strikes me as just ridiculous- which is the same thing I think when I hear people talk about the death penalty as "deterrant" -
as if criminals think- "well if its just the rest of life in a hellhole getting butt-raped with no chance to get out ever, I'll go ahead and do this. but death- wait I better not."
And furthermore, re: motivation: how do we truly know any of us are "good" or "moral" at all- maybe we just dont commit crimes because we fear the punishment? if so, how are we any better than Tookie?
drjimmy11 - you're not going to find gangs on the west side now. Not for years. Of course you haven't encountered them.
drjimmy11, I too agree with you on the ridiculousness of the supposed deterrent effect of capital punishment, and wish my fellow supporters would stop dragging that canard out every time the subject is debated. There has been shown, time and again, to be no significant deterrent.
But I think it is natural, if perhaps ungenerous, to question Tookie's motives, if only for the reason that a true conversion of someone's personality is so rare, and there is much, possibly, to gain from a fake. The phrase "a leopard never changes his spots" is both apt and, for the most part, true.
drjimmy: I'm not 100% convinced that Tookie's "rehabilitation" is just an attempt to bolster his case for clemency, but I'm very suspicious that it might be. If clemency was his only chance for escaping certain death, and his lawyer advised him that good deeds could help his case, of course he would make the attempt. Wouldn't you?
After all, this is a man who dedicated his life to a murderous drug-running organization. What he has done in the last few years barely makes a dent in what he's done in the previous thirty.
I think it is safe to say that his motivations are suspect.
I read one of the books, and interestingly enough, he spends a lot of time saying "because I got into a gang, I lost friends I cared about and that made me sad," and very little time saying "because I got into a gang, I lost a lot of people I cared about, and hurt many people I did not know that did not deserve violence, and knowing what I did wrong makes me sad."
Read one of the books. I'm at work, but there are scans online. There's no remorse, EVEN in his writings, for his actions. He has never repudiated his connection with the crips, and has never expressed remorse for either the crimes he was convicted of OR the damage he contributed to by being in a gang.
He also refuses to "snitch" on his accomplices in the gang or current gang leaders, or make any effort to disband the crips entirely. He believes in the gang-system, and spends more time lamenting the death of his buddy Raymond Washington than the deaths of Albert Owens, Yen-I Yang, Tsai-Shai Yang, and Yee-Chen Lin.
Ignoring the death penalty debate, and speaking of the law:
Why should the law allow clemancy for people who have become reformed, and still sentence the mentally retarded and insane (who cannot reform) to death?
If clemancy is granted, I expect a whole lot more children's books written by death row inmates.
I dunno- I dont see it as much of a gain. It's hard to know for sure, but if I was facing life w/o parole in max. security, I would be demanding that lethal injection ASAP.
It's true that he is probably not a saint now, and never will be. It's impossible to ever know another person's motivations and I personally believe they are always mixed- do i refrain from punching people in the face because I know its "wrong," because I fear them punching me back, or because I fear the legal penalty? probably a little of all three.
But if his books and words are doing good for people, how much does it even matter? No one is talking about putting him on the street- just letting him live the rest of his natural lifespan in prison.
Why should the law allow clemancy for people who have become reformed, and still sentence the mentally retarded and insane (who cannot reform) to death?
It shouldn't. the death penalty is an abomination, period. I am no more against Tookie's execution than I am against all executions. But it makes no sense to say "other wrongs are going on elsewhere, so we should let this one happen, even if we could stop it."
Right, while other people who don't write children's books and make speaches get to get shuffled off to death.
Either the death penalty is wrong, and should be done away with, or you have to apply it regardless of what actions the condemned take. As soon as we start picking and choosing based on our gut feeling, is he reformed or isn't he, we're going to screw it up.
The very fact that people are saying Arnold is looking for a boost in the polls by offering clemancy is proof that the system is farked.
just letting him live the rest of his natural lifespan in prison.
Where he is likely to be a victimizer, rather than a victim (although should be neither); where he has in the past exerted command over his gang, fomenting new crimes; and from where he may, someday, earn a parole or (unlikely, but possible) escape. Where there is life, there is hope. And his hopes are have been proven dangerous, have snuffed out at least four lives, and crushed the hopes of many others. My support for the death penalty is in significant part couched in my belief in the prison system cannot guarantee that a commuted former death row inmate will never be released or victimize another person. When they can, I will absolutely rethink my support for capital punishment.
I don't think proof is needed, Mord: Illinois (wasn't it?) managed it a couple years ago.
However, this is California. We have some spectacular criminals here, which makes sense as we're a very large state and a very large economy. And a lot of prisons. And a lot of gangs.
but this is not Heaven,
Some might argue it is, and we're fucking up. But I'd bet that's a whole other thread.
BREAKING NEWS
A federal appeals court refuses to block Tuesday's scheduled execution of Crips gang founder Stanley Tookie Williams, court officials say.
And I say motivation or subsequent behavior doesn't matter, for the entire idea of expiation relies on the idea that one can make things right again. Tookie can't. No murderer can.
And executing him can't make things right again, either. How many times have we seen victims' families on the news, saying that they forgive the murderers and that the execution didn't make them feel any better? Is the purpose of the penal system to try to create some kind of cosmic moral balance wherein wrongdoers receive the retribution here on Earth that they righteously deserve - is it even possible to do that?
But isn't it worse yet to simply abandon our obligations to each other to stop the Tookie Williams' of the world, once they have proven their maleficience, from ever having the opportunity to do so again? Or to an even greater extent, isn't it worse to simply abandon the ideal of an appropriate justice?
Executions are not to make families feel better. They are society's way of ensuring that those who commit the most flagrantly heinous of affronts never get to do so again, along with the concomitant idea of a measured, appropriate punishment that fits the enormity of the crime. The "moral" aspect of this rests on us individually, as enterers into the social contract. It is my individual obligation to you to seek appropriately assessed punishment for Tookie Williams, so that I may say to you in good faith: Underpants Monster? Since he has proven himself to be a murderer, and whether you want it or not, I have supported the execution of this man because I want to ensure that he never has the opportunity to victimize you, your family or your friends - ever.
That, I believe, is the cornerstone of the legal system - our obligation to each other individually to assist in the capture, conviction and punishment of those who would do us wrong.
>>But isn't it worse yet to simply abandon our obligations to each other to stop the Tookie Williams' of the world, once they have proven their maleficience, from ever having the opportunity to do so again? Or to an even greater extent, isn't it worse to simply abandon the ideal of an appropriate justice?<<
I am in 132% agreement with you on this. I just think it could be accomplished through rigorous prison and sentencing reform rather than execution.
The purpose of the penal system isn't cosmic. It isn't even to get justice. Its to set boundaries for social behavior, correct behavior when it is correctable, eliminate it when it isn't. If we weren't killing him, we might be exiling him, or locking him away. The whole point is to get him out of society because he proved beyond any doubt that he isn't fit to be part of it. So in those terms, the death penalty is pretty neutral. You can have one or not and it probably doesn't make a whit of difference.
But... I can't feel bad about him being killed. Try as I might to adopt the progressive view that killing is always wrong. I wouldn't feel bad about him spending the rest of his life in prison either. We don't need him, didn't need him, never will need him or anyone like him, no matter how many wonderful books he writes and speaches he makes. There are enough problems that aren't intentionally created by people like him to work toward solving, enough innocent blood to try not to spill, I don't think I'm going to lose too much sleep over this.
And I readily concede that you may be right. I don't *like* the idea of capital punishment any more than you do. I just don't know that there is any other effective, or appropriate, alternative.
How is life in prison and life on death row different? To take it to the logical conclusion, they'd have to kill the person immediately on handing down the sentence, wouldn't they?
If the sentence is arrived at and handed down properly, and if the maximum security prisons are doing their job properly, then life-without-parole should be sufficient to meet your requirements. If one or both of those conditions are not met, then we have different problems to react to, and it still shouldn't result in killing another person.
I was going to go on with another point but I think I should review that previous thread first
We don't need him, didn't need him, never will need him or anyone like him, no matter how many wonderful books he writes and speaches he makes.
Yes, but you don't know that. You might believe it, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. Suppose one of his books or speeches gets someone off the downward spiral when they may have been ready to bump into you?
The resources have been spent to raise & educate him. To take him out so that he can't escape prison with guns a-blazing, and deny any good he might do is a bad move. (although I concede there are better arguments against it.)
No, I do know that.
Of the people he killed; they might have written hundreds of books, influenced millions of people.
You still seem to buy that he can somehow redeem himself. We made a bad investment with tookie, but we're holding on to the bad stock hoping that the company will put out a little profit if we just keep it around long enough.
Whatever we've spent on him already is insignificant compared to what we've lost, and again, what of all the people who are incapable of reforming. We spare the literate and productive criminals because we've invested in them? A consistent justice system that is less prone to emotional judgement calls and manipulation might be more valuable.
I remain inadequately informed on the state of the Tookie to myself judge whether he should live or die. That he has never admitted to the killings he was convicted of just makes for the uncomfortable binary possibility that either (a) he has never truly taken responsibility for his past bad actions or (b) he was given the classic Gang Leader treatment of "we can't prosecute him for what his followers did, so let's make up something he did personally". Anyway, the difficulty in passing judgement (and a lack of faith in the system that does - enforced by my own experience on the jury of a capital murder fifteen years ago) leans me toward opposing the death penalty in general, EVEN for really really bad guys.
What Fez said about "measured, appropriate" punishment reminded me that the DP can be enforced on someone who committed a single murder the same as Iraq is trying to enforce it on Sadaam Hussein. Appropriateness for the truly heinous is impossible. However, I will not shed the same tears for Tookie's death as I have recently for Richard Pryor, Eugene McCarthy or Wendie Jo Sperber.
But, all seriousness aside, reading the original link, I did a Cherry Cola spittake when I saw the following sentence:
Some of the black groups that existed in Los Angeles in the late 1920s and 1930s were the Boozies, Goodlows, Blogettes, Kelleys, and the Driver Brothers.BLOGETTES?!? Does that mean I've been a gang member for the last 6 years?!?
And, like I said, I'm neutral on the death penalty. But I do value consistency.
It's a semantic point admittedly, but technically you can't know we'd never need anyone "like" him - mostly because "never" is a long time and "like him" is pretty broad.
You can believe it all you want, but you can't know it.
>set piss-fight /crotchety /ivory-tower off
I can't KNOW anything. But whether he is sitting in prison for the rest of his life, or dead, the most impact he will ever have on my life is that his 4 victims won't be a part of it.
That is, assuming he doesn't escape or he's not miraculously resurrected. Because I don't know that those things won't happen.
Seems to me that any justification for using the death penalty is about retribution, deterrence, and maybe incapacitation. Rehabilitation simply doesn't enter into it. Now I'm a death penalty opponent, and it seems to me that indeterminate or true life sentences would do all the above more humanely, but if anything accepting notions of repentance or rehabilitation goes against the logic of the death penalty.
Curious George: Is the idea of rehabilitations a dead concept when it comes to the criminal justice system in the US?
That's a bit rhetoric, I guess. Obviously it is. I just wonder why we don't change all the signs from "Department of Corrections" to "Department of Governmental Vengeance."
And yes, I'm a pinko liberal anti-death penalty communist. But I'd also like to believe in the idea that a person might be able to change...whether Tookie actually has or not I don't know, but I'm romantic that way.
this debate could go on all day and I dont have that much more to say, but re: this
I just think it could be accomplished through rigorous prison and sentencing reform rather than execution.
the problem is not that we have too few people in prison in California, or that sentences are not strict enough, but quite the opposite.
Living in a free society means putting yourself at risk. Yes, I suppose that there is a .000000001% chance or so that Tookie, an old man by now, could escape San Quentin and kill again. There is a somewhat greater risk of any of us falling victim to another criminal. But that's just part of life. In the same way I am not ready to throw the Constitution away after 9/11, I am not ready to throw away any or all of our freedoms and due process to decrease the risk of being a victim of violent crime.
Legalize pot and we'd have a lot more room in the prisons.
...
I'm just sayin'.
but if anything accepting notions of repentance or rehabilitation goes against the logic of the death penalty.
Good point. Karla Faye Tucker.
And perhaps I'm wrong about the "know" thing, but we'll just have to see if the 'Hat shows up to officiate
Karla Tucker gained international attention both for being the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War and the first in the United States since 1984. Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro noted in a public speech that spectators outside a Texas prison had cheered when Karla Faye Tucker was executed. "And we are on the threshold of 2,000 years of Christ!" he exclaimed. In England, Richard Harries of the Diocese of Oxford reported that a Gospel singer's Amazing Grace was shouted down by cries (of) Kill the bitch! from the crowd that gathered outside of prison. From Nicaragua, Bianca Jagger campaigned on Karla Faye Tucker's and Sean Sellers' behalf, using their example (Sean Sellers was executed the same year as Karla Tucker for a crime committed at age 16) to point out the anomaly of the U.S. Justice system as compared to other post-industrial countries that abolished the death penalty and executions of prisoners for crimes committed while they have been children.
Yeah, that's stark.
I'd forgotten about those reports about the reaction to Karla Faye Tucker's execution. There is something incredibly coarsening about the death penalty.
The death penalty is wrong, immoral, and entirely vengeance based. Full stop.
The death penalty has also been shown to have put to death innocent people. If you support the death penalty, then you must support the death penalty being applied to any Judge who wrongfully kills an innocent man. Murder is murder. Full stop.
I appreciate Fes' points of social contract and proper enforcement of said contract, but the contract is wrong. We need to change it, and then we need to continue (as Fes suggests) enforcing the contract to the letter, consistently.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency today for convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, saying the facts of the case do not justify blocking his scheduled execution. Williams, a convicted killer and co-founder of the Crips gang, is due to die by injection shortly after midnight local time. His death sentence sparked a debate over capital punishment, with his supporters claiming he is a changed man who writes books leading children away from gang life.
via CNN.com
It is ignoble to gloat at the death of anyone, regardless of their evil. Capital punishment should never be the mob's howling for blood - it is an ugly, repugnant, but imo necesssary, job.
I love life - mine, my family's, my friends', and most of humanity's. As an atheist, I don't believe in a heaven or hell - at the end, the lamp just gets... unlit. But that makes me value life even more - because I believe, in my heart, that this life is all you have, that there is no reward to go on to, no streets paved with gold, no 72 virgins, no two turntables and a microphone. But it's this value that I place on life that offends me when people take it so casually, when they use and throw away other people's lives, which they had expected to live as much we do ours, as thoughtlessly as we might toss a cigarette butt that has burned down to the filter. And that is why I cannot abide for murderers to languish, why it pains me to see those who have demonstrated such utter disregard for what I care about so much championed, vindicated, granted clemency, released.
I have no hatred for Tucker, but neither am I swayed by the pleadings of someone who brags, then cries, over the same act, the only difference being the impending punishment. I wish that Tucker had never murdered anyone, but instead had lived her life believing, as I do, that other people lives are worth more than the price of a motorcycle.
I'm not sure what this has to do with Tookie, but if someone did something sufficiently heinous to a loved one I'd take it upon myself to kill their ass.
Because it is about vengeance. For better or worse.
no two turntables and a microphone
Heh
But isn't part of humanity to respect the lives of others even if they don't? Isn't that even a goal?
If someone f*s up royally, intentionally even, shouldn't we try to help get them on the right track? Or does the line of murder eliminate that option?
If so, is that it, or are there other acts that would justify (in the "higher" sense) taking someone out of this plane of existence?
I'm gonna put moneyjane down for a "no" to question #1.
That's great Fes, but what has been done cannot be undone, all we can do is look to the future and see how we can make society better.
The death penalty is wrong, it is immoral, it is in the most basic of definitions murder.
"If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person."
Such is the stance of the Catholic church.
You make excellent points on social contracts, Fes. But the contract itself needs to be changed. Societies - and their respective contracts (religion, government, economy, information) - evolve. This evolution is long overdue in the US.
I'm most concerned about what the death penalty says about those of us who impose it. I'm not at all convinced that taking life from another is a good way of indicating our love of life as a society (I'm an expat American). I'm not completely convinced that we don't have the right to do so, I'm just not convinced that the message it sends is helpful. For me, adding that tepid opposition with secondary issues like the danger of wrongful conviction weigh the balance firmly against its use.
And, I should add, that I'm with moneyjane, and I make no claims about being consistent. But penalties aren't imposed by the victim, we do as a society.
Imagine if someone fucked with moneyjane, one thing led to another, and she ended up gutting the poor sap and getting caught trying to burn the bloody gloves.
In the US, she would be a candidate for the death penalty. And in the eyes of the state, no different from Stanley Williams, Charles Manson, or George W. Bush.
And then how boring would Monkeyfilter be?
The death penalty is immoral.
But isn't part of humanity to respect the lives of others even if they don't? Isn't that even a goal?
I think it is, a laudable goal. But we're not talking about loving a noisy neighbor here, we are talking about respecting the life of someone who has demonstrated the most egregious disrespect possible for someone else's life, to the point where they have ended that other person's life. Why should we respect the life of someone who kills MORE than than one of someone who was killed? Murder is not just a wee bit of fucking up, deserving of only a smack and a point down the proper path. Murder is the the ultimate crime, from which the victim cannot come back, for which their is no possible redress - except that poor justice that comes from the permanent assurance to the survivors that it cannot happen again.
I don't know if there are other crimes as deserving of death. I've always felt that rape was one. Crimes against children. Certain attempted murders.
But the contract itself needs to be changed
Perhaps you're right - but to what? Prove to me that we can keep society safe from a murderer, that life in prison is just exactly that, taht once proven dangerous they will never hurt anyone again, and I will support the abolition of capital punishment.
Murder is not just a wee bit of fucking up, deserving of only a smack and a point down the proper path.
I wouldn't think life in prison to be a smack and a point. I also am going to try really hard and not degrade down to prison jokes. But it would be too easy when you set me up with "smack and a point".
I'm instead going to quote Sean Paul on this:
Then they say, "what if it happened to someone you know." And I reply, "In 1996 one of my best friends, Michael LaHood was murdered. And I don't want his killer to die. I want his killer to repent. And then spend the rest of his life in prison helping other prisoners with less onerous sentences to see the light."
Such is the stance of the Catholic church.
The Catholic Church is built upon the idea that death is only a doorway to a better existence. They have the luxury of knowing that this life is transitory, ephemeral, a mere stopping point in eternity. I do not.
I want his killer to repent. And then spend the rest of his life in prison helping other prisoners with less onerous sentences to see the light.
But what if LaHood's murderer chooses, instead, to foment appeals, victimize other prisoners, and generally revel in the torment of those with less onerous sentences until, perhaps, he is released?
Historically, murder has had one of the lowest recidivism rates of the violent crimes. This isn't a great link, but look at Table 19 here: Illinois Recidivism Rates
Remember also that recidivism includes any criminal conduct that leads to readmission, so most of those 17.7% don't murder again.
I do not.
And as such, you should value each life all the more. Death is final, and no-one should be murdered. Even murderers. This is what I believe in my heart of hearts.
Should we open books on how long until this spins into a debate about abortion? How many comments till Godwin? Oh wait, this isn't mefi. Oh I DO love Monkeyfilter for it's civility.
As of March 2002, California had executed 10 people out of 655 people with death sentences since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. That's 1.5%. During that time more death row inmates killed themselves (11) or died of other causes (22) than were executed. Since 98.5% of inmates aren't executed, and since they're more likely to die of old age, get killed by other inmates, or kill themselves than they are to be executed, actually executing a specific person is cruel and unusual punishment. Everyone on death row was convicted of a terrible crime, so what makes Tookie Williams, or anyone else, deserve to die more than the 98.5% of people who won't be executed? Being "sentenced to death" does not mean actually being sentenced to death for the overwhelming majority of death row inmates, so it's unfair to the people who are actually executed.
Having the death penalty lets people talk about being tough on crime, and lets people who support it have the illusion that bad people get what's coming to them for doing bad things.
California would have had to kill 23 death row inmates every year between 1977 and 2002 to execute them all. there were There were 645 people on Death Row in California as of June 2005. 85% of Californians may want Tookie dead, but are they up for two executions every month?
In the clemency statement, Arnold (or his researchers/writers) says that based on a variety of things, Tookie's request for clemency is based not on redemption and remorse -- since he also continues to claim innocence for the four murders -- but he "still sees violence and lawlessness as a legitimate means to address societal problems". He's denied clemency.
even if a murderer has done much in service to humanity, is it *ever* enough to make up for the crimes he has perpetrated?
No, it isn't. Nothing is.
So why bother just committing another moral crime for an act of revenge that will do nothing to bring the dead back to life?
As for "the leopard cannot change his spots" - people are not leopards. How old was Williams when he did this? I was capable of horrific things when I was a teenager - overwhelmed with emotion, unable to relate to the emotional reality of others - many are nearly psychopaths. Are you the same person at 40 as you were at 20? What things did you do which you can barely imagine doing now?
i thought california was supposed to be all progressive and shit?
in many ways, it seems like we are just lynching niggers
in many ways, it seems like we are just lynching niggers
Not even close.
Wedge, I don't suppose Crackpot is your sock puppet? That sounds like something he'd say.
The execution of someone the likes of Tookie Williams is such a long way from a lynching that I wonder if you just said that to semi-godwin the thread.
Since I moved to Calif. in 1998, my taxes have contributed to 8 state-funded deaths.
Oh! This is hard to deal with. I've always thought that the government has no permission to kill anyone in my name, but this event is especially difficult since the available news makes makes me think of him as someone I almost know.
I even think he did heinous crimes. I live in California, and the small city here has serious Hispanic gangs who threaten our peace, but,even so, I can't agree that taking a life is justified. It just makes me and the rest of the residents as as guilty of murder as those executed. On the other hand, I've have managed to shine on other executions since I'm too selfish to take on every fight that's out there.
I keep thinking of what I would feel if I were strapped to a gurney and given injections that would mean I would cease to exist. And it's clear that that will happen to this human being.
I don't fear being dead, but I do fear dieing. Forcing someone to give up that last influence on his life seems like cruel, if not unusual punishment.
I'll say it again, in the hopes that someone'll pick up on it: Given that the U.S. has the death penalty (well, most states do), it's no wonder the U.S. thinks torture is okay.
I'm not trolling. I'm pointing out a moral equivalence. We don't need to put murderers to death. The death penalty's effect on crime is highly debatable. Why isn't life in prison enough?
And, fes, I can understand your take on this, but the bottom line for me is that I do not want any government to take a life in my name. When they do, it means that a surrogate for me will inject lethal drugs into someone I couldn't kill myself.
If you find it difficult to work up much sympathy for Williams (I admit to having this problem myself), consider the case of Cory Maye.
getting caught trying to burn the bloody gloves.
Gloves are for pussies. Bare hands all the way.
Seriously though, I'm pro-death penalty if the state doing the killing has a very high standard of proof and by law the offender must be provided with a well-seasoned lawyer with a proven track record in capital cases. Let it be a fair fight. Then let it be done. This particular offender absolutely will not offend again against anyone, anywhere because he is dead.
That's the state. If it was myself wrecking vengeance on some loathsome bastard, I would make the decision to kill a two-parter; I am going to kill this bastard and, in some way connected to this event I will most likely be killed too. To me, ultimately, a fair exchange.
. . . pro-death penalty if the state doing the killing has a very high standard of proof and by law the offender must be provided with a well-seasoned lawyer with a proven track record in capital cases. Let it be a fair fight.
That's one of the arguments though, it isn't fair so much of the time that we shouldn't allow it outright. There are dozens of cases where the defense lawyer is incompetent, drunk, or just plain absent in capital cases. What is laid out as "if the state . ." is an ideal that is almost never met.
Also, when I'm terminally sick maybe I should knock off a few people so they'll put me down with a lethal injection instead of denying me that right to euthanasia. California (and all states with death penalty / no euthanasia laws) is weird.
Of couse I'd have to know a few years in advance.
There are dozens of cases . . .
I should have said hundreds.
The US has a horrible record, with competent counsel, let alone high calibre counsel specifically skilled in capital cases.
So I am for it in principal because I think there is a point where an individual who has caused horrendous harm and death to others should no longer be part of the world and society in any way whatsoever, meaning execution; however the current mechanism in the U.S. really and truly blows.
As far as Tookie goes, does he deserve execution? To me, he probably does. Does anyone deserve execution in the U.S.? No. Those are two different questions.
i thought california was supposed to be all progressive and shit?
When a lot of people think of "California" they're thinking "LA and San Fransisco." it's a very big state and we have just as many "rural" areas as anywhere. We also have one of the world's biggest prison systems.
California (and all states with death penalty / no euthanasia laws) is weird.
Very. That, along with the "war on drugs," I think, are the things people will look back on in a few hundred years and say "Oh my God what the fuck were those backwards-ass people thinking back then???"
Given that the U.S. has the death penalty (well, most states do), it's no wonder the U.S. thinks torture is okay.
i kind of see your point, but saying that "the U.S." thinks things is a little off. We have, unfortunately, had the death penalty for a while. The torture thing is a product of the Bush administration acting outside the law- it's not as if they did it in response to a vote or public demand.
Where I agree with you is that they both reflect what I call "sliding scale morality." ie:
"killing is wrong, BUT if the guy's a really bad gang leader I have no problem with it.."
and
"torture is wrong, but Al Qaeda is SO terrible we can make an exception..."
I suppose this is the main reason I am against the death penalty across the board- if killing is wrong, its wrong, period. Once you start making exceptions based on circumstances, you'll always find ways to make more and more exceptions...
I'll bite, too, Hawthorne.
Rather than defend the death penalty in and of itself (as I said above, I'm moderately against it, with certain reservations that haven't yet been resolved in my mind), I'll go by saying that I don't think that there is a moral equivalence between the death penalty and torture.
My defense is simply this: the death penalty is a punishment, and the result of a process of adjudication that, in the US at least, takes years, and in many instances (Tookies, for instance) decades to complete. No less than a dozen courts have reviewed the case and have unanimously been in agreement as to the legal appropriateness of the penalty.
Torture, at least as it seems Dick Cheney intends to use it, is intended to be a tool for gathering information from uncooperative, or insufficiently cooperative detainees. Aside from the extremely high likelihood that torture brings about false positives (the detainee trying to tell the torturer what they want to hear), there is also no due process, held in an open court on public record to arrive at the decision to implement the torture, and certainly not with a possible delay of decades.
So since there is a fundamental process check that dismantles the equivalence of the death penalty and torture, there really only stands the question of whether torture as a punishment could be accepted in a legal fashion. In this case, the constitution already has explicitly dealt with that fact, in (if I recall correctly) the 4th Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause.
Any punishment whose intent is to inflict pain really cannot be defended as not being cruel. The intentional infliction of pain is practically the very definition of cruelty.
The purpose of the death penalty is not suffering, it is an ultimate and irreversible removal from society. In my opinion, I think that the gas chambers and electric chairs of the country should be dismantled in favor of death by chemical means, or even the reintroduction of the guillotine. Death by lethal gas and death by electrocution involve a time of pain and suffering often measuring in minutes (or longer), whereas lethal injection (if done properly) and the guillotine involve a duration of pain measured in seconds. The limited research I've done on the subject indicates that beheading by guillotine is as distasteful as it is generally because of its extreme bloodiness and its association with its extreme overuse after the French revolution, and less about whether it is a relatively "humane" method.
I also happen to believe that an overdose of barbiturates and opiates should be an option for the prisoner. A massive overdose of morphine almost certainly involves no pain whatsoever, and the depression of the CNS and breathing causes death just as certainly as the normal lethal cocktail.
Anyway, I'm getting a bit afield from that, but I think that if we're talking about morality, the only morality that people can generally agree upon is the morality of legality, an outgrowth of the emergent morality that simply exists when people have to live together and agree on rules of interaction.
And with what petebest said, I am an unwavering proponent of legalizing euthanasia, with appropriate checks and balances. Things like an equivalent of a "Do Not Resuscitate / No Heroic Measures" order where a person can explicitly state "should I lose X capacities, I am ordering that according to the law of the State of $state, a lethal dose of phenobarbital and morphine be administered to me under the supervision of a qualified and accredited nurse or physician."
killers kill
because they can
whether the deed us done by a state
or by an individual man
beyond that, exists no 'right' to kill
whether the deed were done by a killer locked in a cell
or the soldier in the field
or a state doing what's equally indefensible
to the law of the State of $state
Awesome.
In this case, the constitution already has explicitly dealt with that fact, in (if I recall correctly) the 4th Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause.
This may be a bit OT, but I've always wished that could be changed to "cruel and/or unusual punishment." It sort of makes it sound like cruel punishment is OK as long as it's not unusual.
And with what petebest said, I am an unwavering proponent of legalizing euthanasia, with appropriate checks and balances.
I was just reading an interesting article about Oregon's assisted suicide laws. You have to get a second opinion about the terminal state of your condition and go through some form of counseling. And interestingly, only a small fraction of the people who've received the lethal prescription have ended up using it; the comfort of knowing that they could choose not to suffer was enough to get them through the suffering.
Chimaera, I stick by my belief that if you believe it's okay to kill bad guys, you're closer to thinking it's okay to torture bad guys. I understand and appreciate the distinctions you make; they just don't sway me from thinking there's a moral link at play here.
Basically, I don't want anyone torturing or killing anyone in my name. Which is what the state of California did last night, and what the feds are doing in Gitmo and who knows where else.
to the law of the State of $state
Excellent mix of a programming joke with a subtle social jab.
How do you feel? the reporter asks me with tender feelings. What does that matter, I scream, it is not about feelings, it is about human rights.
And what of the human rights of the victims? THey, too, were presumed to have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or at the very least to not be subject to summary execution at Mr. Williams' hands. If one can make the case that the government has no right to end a criminal's life, what right did Williams have to slay an entire family?
Apples and oranges, we say. Well, true enough, I guess. And yet, I can't help but think that it comes down to appropriate punishment for the most ghastly of crimes. Perhaps we cannot achieve true justice, but I feel that it is at least our duty to make the attempt. We are far more willing to be merciful to those that still live, while the memory, and the call to justice, for those that had their lives taken fades with time. I feel that, for some crimes, the only punishment that approximates justice is death, if only for the reason that while a murderer yet lives, the opportunity exists for him to avoid a just punishment, and for those true monsters, for whom the lives of others are tools or impediments to be used or discarded at whim, each day - even behind bars - brings them further opportunity to bring fear, pain and death to those person whose misfortune it is to be weaker.
If one can make the case that the government has no right to end a criminal's life, what right did Williams have to slay an entire family?
Come on, Fes. I know this is an emotional subject, but appealing to emotional arguments is, by definition, not rational. Saying that the government shouldn't kill Tookie is not equivalent to saying it was okay for Tookie to kill the people he allegedly killed. He had no right to do that (if he did it), obviously. And as a result he was put in prison and locked away from society. In the ways that matter to most people, his life was ended.
Does justice require that we kill him? Is the only fit answer to the crime to inflict the same crime upon the criminal? That's the moral/ethical debate. And I'd wager you realize that.
Distilled down, I suppose my entire point is: I believe life imprisonment - as it is practiced today - is not sufficient punishment for murder. If someday the justice system can offer a life imprisonment that truly precludes the possibility of parole and further victimization, then at that point I think we will have a sufficient non-death punishment for murder. Until then, I can't help but think we must make do with what we have, for ugly as it is, it is the only punishment that I feel approaches true justice and precludes further crimes.
And what of the human rights of the victims?
Heh. As I linked that article I was imagining you saying just that, Fes. Mostly because I thought it too when I read it. But I think the message is that it's not right to kill someone (against their will, i suppose) either way. As humans, we expect that right. If a murderer violates it, that's wrong. If the state violates it, that's wrong. Justice has many faces, and shades of gray.
Does the Abu Gharib detainee who was killed in interrogation have the right to sentence that US soldier to death? (Not from a "war has rules" perspective but from a human rights perspective)
Murderers aren't the only people capable of killing. You'd have to kill pretty much every single person living to eliminate that as a possibility. Which I also disagree with . . .
In the ways that matter to most people, his life was ended.
But the fact was, it wasn't. Williams was still able to act; he was able to victimize others; he was able to effect further crimes outside of prison through his gang; he was able to attempt clememcy and, one assumes, eventually attempt parole. My response was to the article pete posted from boingboing, and I go further and say that it was an apples/oranges comparison. And yet, there is the element of redress - or vengeance, if you like - in justice. We all are supposed to speak for the victims, and by proxy, for potential victims to come. But as time goes by, it becomes far easier to forget that Williams, who admittedly was facing a fate that I would personally wish on no one, was able to sway us toward mercy where the family he killed, who deserved simply to live out there lives, received no such consideration. We are merciful to the living, but we forget the dead. And I think that part of our duty to approach justice is to speak for the dead, where they cannot speak for themselves.
Heh. As I linked that article I was imagining you saying just that, Fes.
Successfully trolled again. I am such a sucker :)
I'm teasing, pete, I know you weren't trying to troll
Does the Abu Gharib detainee who was killed in interrogation have the right to sentence that US soldier to death?
More apples and oranges. There is, I think a difference between killing and murder. Would I recommend the death penalty for someone who causes a car accident in which people are killed? No. However negligent the instigator may be, it is not the purposeful killing with associated motive that we call murder. And I think the justice system, with its degrees of manslaughters and whatnot, addresses that pretty well. I'm speaking only of true murder. The Abu Ghraib scenario you describe, I think would fall under one of these lesser categories. Which is not to say that it should not be punished. I disagree with HawthorneWingo's assumption that becuase I support the death penalty, I must somehow also support the torture of Al Qaeda's because the two are morally cut from the same cloth. I do not. I think anyone who tortured a prisoner at Abu Ghraib ought to be punished to the fullest extent of law, and I think that torture in itself is both ludicrous and feeds on sadism. But I would, like our justice system does, reserve the death penalty for murder-most-foul, for lack of a better, legaller term.
But Fes, what about those wrongly convicted? There are quite a few as DNA evidence becoming more widespread is showing. What about those not given a fair trial, with incompetent lawyers, etc.? A death sentence is the biggest mistake the state can make - who is responsible then? And according to (what I understand of) your outline for justice, wouldn't the executioner of a wrongly convicted person need to be killed? Who knows - he might execute another wrongly convicted person?
What about those who pay for murder? Should they be killed too? What about those who know of those plans and don't stop them? Should they be killed also? They might do it again - so shouldn't they be removed from that possibility?
(on preview) difference between killing and murder
Agreed, but the difference I think is intent, and that soldier intended to kill - which makes it murder.
But Fes, what about those wrongly convicted?
I don't think there is a single serious proponent of the death penalty that sincerely wishes an innocent man to be put to death - it is not only unjust in an activity that seeks justice, but it leave the real murderer unpunished and free to wreak more havoc. And I will agree that there are some significant issues with the way the death penalty is currently applied. But I also believe that there is, overwhelmingly, a sincere effort to give the prospective murderer the full benefit of law - jury rather than judge assessment, automatic appeals, appeals beyond that. It is not for nothing that the time between Williams' conviction and execution was marked in decades, rather than days.
And, I have said earlier in this thread, that there are other crimes for which I, were I King of America, would see the death penalty applied. But that's just my opinion, having seen the results of those crimes up close. The scenarios you describe are, I think, adequately accounted for in our current justice system. It is far different to pay someone else to pull the trigger than it is to pull the trigger yourself.
Agreed, but the difference I think is intent, and that soldier intended to kill - which makes it murder
Was it? The intention of torture, if that is what he was doing, is to extract information, purportedly (along with the concomitant "benefit" of gratifying one's sadistic urges). If the solider mean tot simply kill the man, he could have done it far more easily. If the intent was to actually torture the man to death? Then absolutely, I would, were I the prosecutor, seek the death penalty.
"solider mean tot" = "soldier meant to" sorry about that
It is far different to pay someone else to pull the trigger than it is to pull the trigger yourself.
How so? 'Cause I see it as pretty much the same thing. Someone didn't want to get caught, didn't want to get hands dirty, etc. - same intent, same result.
It certainly shows intent, and I think that punishment for hiring a murder should be severe. But there is a difference, I think in the person who hires it done and the person who accepts the contract; while they both lack the ability to see other people's lives as having value (although it could be said that the former assesses for themselves the *exact* value of someone else's life), the person who willingly takes on the responsibility for the wetwork, as it were, I feel is more dangerous to all of us.
Honestly, the more I think on it, to be honest, the more I feel that hiring it down ought to also be a death penalty crime. You might be right about that, pete. I have the advantage over you, pete - as a proponent of the death penalty, I have the luxury of expanding the sorts of crimes that demand the ultimate punishment, whereas you must say that no crime, no matter how horrible, no matter how heinous an affront, deserves it. Even as you list crimes that you ask me to equivicate, I could do the same to you, with greater and greater degrees of horror: Ok, if regular murder isn't worthy of the death penalty, what about *this* one? No? Ok, what about *that* even more reprehensible murder? No? You see where I'm going, here.
Are we seriously promoting the idea that Williams' claims of innocence were founded, that his conviction was all some sort of racist frame-up?
We may, as moral individuals, forgive Williams for his crimes, and laud what he has done since. But we must also, as participants in a society that promotes itself as being just and based upon the rule of law, at the same time meet our obligations to assess appropriate punishments for crimes.
>>If one can make the case that the government has no right to end a criminal's life, what right did Williams have to slay an entire family? <<
If this is true, then the converse is also true. There's an old saying that "two wrongs don't make a right." If executing a murderer somehow makes up for the death of his victims, even in some tiny way, then it's in a way I can't wrap my monkey head around.
Barring the first couple of sentences, that's sorta my point - nothing can make up for it. The best we can hope for is to punish appropriately. Which, in this case, means permanently.
Well, I, for one, am not claiming it was some sort of frame-up. But killing a murderer as a function of policy, legislation, or legal act is inhumane.
Moneyjane taking out a killer that has pissed in her raisin bran is different. It's not legislated, or subject to the failings of the court system.
Inhumane to the murderer, perhaps. We can work to make that system as humane as is possible. But my contention is that not doing so is inhumane to the idea of appropriate justice for appropriate crimes, and inhumane to the future victims of the murderer who are at least partially our victims when we, in the name of mercy, do not fulfill or responsibilities, the obligations that we owe each other in exchange for the rights that we justly prize.
Moneyjane is different, in that we trust the court system to NOT make the mistakes that one p.o'd woman might easily make. The courts system is there so that we are sure we are punishing the right guy. The Moneyjane Method, while quicker, has no such surety.
And thus we, again, reach impasse. Thanks, pete, for your equanimity and thoughtfulness on the subject, and thanks to all of you who debate these contentious subjects in good faith.
On a lighter note, let's ask this guy. It's been running through my head during this entire dialog!
How about, for certain murder 1 type crimes, put the responsibility for making the decision to put a killer to death, and the sole responsibility for carrying it out (pushing the button, pulling the trigger, what have you), to the victim's next-of-kin? That way we acknowledge that the sole function of capital punishment is vengeance, something the state has no right to carry out, and make it so that the only person who HAS the right to kill for vengeance has to make that incredibly weighty decision for themselves, struggling with their own interpretation of whether or not it is just, if, indeed, the person is guilty beyond a shadow, and know that they are the only one's deciding whether a man/woman lives or dies and there is not anonymous state machinery to hide behind. That way, the people who actually desire vengeance would have the satisfaction of meteing it out, instead of just watching or whatever, and the question of any doubts about the convicted's innocence will rest squarely on the next-of-kin's shoulders for the rest of their life.
My guess is that there would be a lot fewer executions.
Yep. She's a reporter at San Quentin at the time of the execution.
Today a 77 diabetic man who was deaf and legally blind was executed for ordering a hit from jail that killed 3 people, including a 17 year old (young) woman.
Having suffered a heart attack back in September, Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution, a request prison officials said they would not honor.
"At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life," said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon. "We would resuscitate him," then execute him.
okay, everything about this is fucked up but that last part is postively insane.
77 year old
Lemme ask you this, Pete: if anti death penalty advocates decry (rightly, imo) that one of the issues against capital punishment is that it is irregularly applied, how then is it that the same advocates ask for leniency based on age, children's books, etc and thus exacerbate these irregularities? Should those who criticize capital punishment on its unfairness seek not to perpetuate the seemingly random clemency requests, which contribute to the unfairness they rightly criticize?
Well, I guess I'd argue that anti death penalty advocates ask for leniency in every case, but irregularities like children's books or age/health reasons make the news.
I'm not sure how it exacerbates the irregularities though. I mean if I understand your question, you're making the comparison that convicts who are sentenced to death are sentenced irregularly (i.e. more black than white) and that calling for clemency in a given case is also irregular? I'd say that makes sense but I don't see the correlation. (Like, how calling for clemency in this person's case will affect the next convict sentenced)
The specific part I couldn't believe though was the refusal to let this guy die on his own because of some perceived "sanctity of life" - and then execute him. If anything isn't that an affirmation of the "sanctity of death"? Well, if anything it's fuckin' loony, IMMO
"Sanctity of life" PR spin aside, I think the state's position is that if he has been handed a death sentence, he must face said sentence without an easy out. I'm sure the families of the victims, unless they are opposed to capital punishment, would agree. There is no "saved by the bell" clause in any state's penal code that I'm aware of.
In addition to which, the extra time alive would give him chances to appeal and exonerate himself, if he is not guilty. Given his reaction, I'm sure that's not what's going to happen, but still, there's something to be said for even application of the law.
wouldn't a heart attack be more painful than lethal injection? Or did i misinterpret the "easy out"? I think Jeffrey Dahmer was beaten to death, I wonder if the victim's family would choose against that for (whatever the death sentence is where he went).
I didn't mean "easy out" in terms of amount of suffering -- I don't believe in doling out retributive justice on a pain-based scale, and I don't think that's what the penal system is getting at. I simply meant that he must be made to face the sentence he was given.
In addition, though it sounds a bit crazy, there is a principle at stake here -- they are not allowed to just let a prisoner die through negligence, even if that prisoner is scheduled for execution. The law simply does not allow it, and though this may seem a weird side effect, this is what obeying the rule of law sometimes means.
Bear in mind, I'd rather see a massive overhauling of our prison system and actual, indestructible "life without possibility" sentences put in place than have capital punishment.
Shit, we need serious prison reform, period. We're visited annually by a minister from a United Methodist Church from Yekaterinburg, Russia. Her church is connected to a prison there, and so she ministers to the inmates regularly. Prison ministry (not just preaching, but reform, job training, education, etc.) is very near to her heart. When she first visited the US, she was taken to one of our prisons for a tour, and she was absolutely appalled by the conditions. She couldn't understand how such an affluent country could have its citizens locked up in such cesspools, feeding off each other without much hope of reform. Meanwhile, back home, their prison is constantly starved for money, and the recidivism rate is astonishingly low.
On preview, sorry to ramble on so. *gets off soapbox*
True, true. It is appalling. And it was interesting how short-lived the connection between American prisons and Abu Gharib were in the mainstream press.
George W. Bush.And then how boring would Monkeyfilter be? The death penalty is immoral.