Will Connecticut join the civilized world?

[kallend 1,625]

www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/connecticut-senate-votes-abolish-death-penalty-article-1.1056500

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[marks2065 0]

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www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/connecticut-senate-votes-abolish-death-penalty-article-1.1056500

I guess that would depend on your version of a civilized world, mine wouldn't include murderers. it is more civilized when murderers are not here to threaten us.

[billvon 2,400]

>it is more civilized when murderers are not here to threaten us.

Agreed. Of course, you can accomplish that via the death penalty OR prison for life. And the prison-for-life is nice because it's cheaper.

But if you want to spend the extra money, I am totally in favor of you paying it.

[ryoder 1,384]

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www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/connecticut-senate-votes-abolish-death-penalty-article-1.1056500

I guess that would depend on your version of a civilized world, mine wouldn't include murderers. it is more civilized when murderers are not here to threaten us.

And we know how reliable the courts are, right?
Just yesterday:http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-conviction-overturned-20120404,0,6665258.story

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[skypuppy 1]

yeah,. and if you want to pay more for gas because it'll save the whales, I'm totally in favor of you paying more for it....

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[marks2065 0]

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>it is more civilized when murderers are not here to threaten us.

Agreed. Of course, you can accomplish that via the death penalty OR prison for life. And the prison-for-life is nice because it's cheaper.

But if you want to spend the extra money, I am totally in favor of you paying it.

Cheaper? How can $10 in electricity be more expensive than housing an inmate at 50k a year be more expensive?

[ryoder 1,384]

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>it is more civilized when murderers are not here to threaten us.

Agreed. Of course, you can accomplish that via the death penalty OR prison for life. And the prison-for-life is nice because it's cheaper.

But if you want to spend the extra money, I am totally in favor of you paying it.

Cheaper? How can $10 in electricity be more expensive than housing an inmate at 50k a year be more expensive?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cost+of+death+penalty

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[lawrocket 3]

In Cali, we just had another death row inmate die of natural causes. That brings the total to 76 who have died of natural causes of suicide compared to 14 who have been executed since 1978.

There comes a time when we should ask ourselves why we do this. I am all in favor of the fdeath penalty in principal. But how it's being done?

I'd be in favor of limiting the applicability of the deatj penalty to a person who kills someone while in custody.i

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Shotgun 1]

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I'd be in favor of limiting the applicability of the deatj penalty to a person who kills someone while in custody.

My first thought here is that that would be an incentive for certain prisoners to kill other inmates.... Sentenced to life in prison without parole, feeling suicidal, why not just kill another inmate and then get to die a fairly comfortable death with a "last meal" request and all that? (Maybe this already happens?)

I'm in favor with the death penalty on principle, but it's just too expensive (a little more than $10 worth of electricity ), and I'm not sure if there is any good way to make it less expensive.

[DougH 270]

In its current form, go ahead revoke it.

I totally get the moral argument that you run the risk of executing innocent individuals.

I wish it was an accelerated option for some very select very heinous crimes like the rape and murder of a child. For those when you get convicted the next step should be to go before a some sort of a panel of Judges who evaluate your chance for appeal.

If the evidence is so clear, and the case was conducted such that there is no grounds for appeal the next step should be through the trap door and right into the wood chipper.

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[BIGUN 1,053]

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>it is more civilized when murderers are not here to threaten us.

Agreed. Of course, you can accomplish that via the death penalty OR prison for life. And the prison-for-life is nice because it's cheaper.

But if you want to spend the extra money, I am totally in favor of you paying it.

Well, this moderate Christian RePUBICAN also does not believe in the death penalty, but not for financial reasons. A permanent solution demands a perfect process - and one does not yet exist. Conversely, I find the arguments on both sides have come from years of treating hard-core long-time repeat offending criminals to have been coddled so much that it turns my stomach.

Recently, a friend of mine's wife was killed by a drunk, Guatemalan illegal alien as she rode her motorcycle to work. He ran a red light, completely took her out in an instant (as in dead) and witnesses said at trial that he looked at them, shrugged his shoulders as in, "Oh well." He received six years and that "was the best we could hope for." Cause you know, he didn't mean to kill her; kill her - he accidentally killed her.

My buddy was preparing to speak at the parole hearing about the "only love of his life" when he received a call of, "Mr. X, we're sorry to be calling you like this, but we thought OKC was going to call you and they thought we were going to call you, but the man who hit your wife is in Oklahoma City awaiting deportation." My friend asks what he can do to make it stop. "Well, sir, I'm sorry to tell you this but once they get to Oklahoma City, they are usually on a plane that day." He was and he had served 16 months of his six year sentence.

Due to so many liberties that criminals now have; cable TV, degree programs, free access to lawyers, counseling etc. has reached the level of ridiculous. So ridiculous that we must now fall to it being a financial question instead of a justice question? In addition to seeing first degree murderers having to serve < half their sentences; the victims being the only ones to receive the life sentence; lesser capital cases getting even less time over the years - the American public cries out for true justice.

NOW, let's talk about this so-called "lower cost of life sentence to death penalty" bullshit. Here's what those 11 "Urban Studies" done by DPIC DON'T tell you... "In 1994, a new law (amended in 1996) authorized the federal government to provide financial assistance to the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories to construct or renovate prisons to incarcerate additional violent offenders. Those states and territories that adopt the 85 percent standard became eligible for an increased portion of federal funding. Since fiscal year 1996, the Justice Department has provided more than $1.3 billion through the Violent Offender Incarceration/Truth-in-Sentencing (VOI/TIS) incentive grants program.

The adoption of these state legislative changes has resulted in increases in time actually served behind bars and growing state prison populations nationwide (up 7 percent annually since 1990). The average time served by released violent offenders (persons convicted of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) rose from 43 months in 1993 to 49 months in 1997. Time served by released violent offenders rose in at least 38 states during that period. Their average percent of sentence served in prison rose from 47 percent to 54 percent." (1) 54 PERCENT?!?!?!?!

So, what we have are studies asking the States for financial information regarding THEIR costs; not the TOTAL cost... Because we all know the government can take money from one pocket and put it in another and spin it as a savings or a greater cost depending on the situation then existing and how many news cameras are present and which way the opinion needs to swing that day.

BOTTOM LINE: I will be one of the first to raise his hand and agree to Life Without Parole really meaning, 1) life without parole, 2) prison meaning prison and 3) taking away any and all rights and liberties. Yup, as in hard fucking labor from 5 o'clock in the morning until 10PM at night. No work programs, no release programs, No college or counseling services, no degree programs (cause that kinda means you may be getting out, don't it?). Let's go to the big rocks into little rocks and paint the little rocks in the hot blazing sun forty year program. Unless it involves a child and then you get the forty year with castration program.

But, we know that's not going to happen either.. Cause you know, we'll get to hear such wonderful platitudes like Dostoyevsky's, "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons" or Pope John Paul II's, "A society is measured by how it treats its weakest members" ad nauseum infinitum.

(1) http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/press/tssp.pr

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[marks2065 0]

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>it is more civilized when murderers are not here to threaten us.

Agreed. Of course, you can accomplish that via the death penalty OR prison for life. And the prison-for-life is nice because it's cheaper.

But if you want to spend the extra money, I am totally in favor of you paying it.

Well, this moderate Christian RePUBICAN also does not believe in the death penalty, but not for financial reasons. A permanent solution demands a perfect process - and one does not yet exist. Conversely, I find the arguments on both sides have come from years of treating hard-core long-time repeat offending criminals to have been coddled so much that it turns my stomach.

Recently, a friend of mine's wife was killed by a drunk, Guatemalan illegal alien as she rode her motorcycle to work. He ran a red light, completely took her out in an instant (as in dead) and witnesses said at trial that he looked at them, shrugged his shoulders as in, "Oh well." He received six years and that "was the best we could hope for." Cause you know, he didn't mean to kill her; kill her - he accidentally killed her.

My buddy was preparing to speak at the parole hearing about the "only love of his life" when he received a call of, "Mr. X, we're sorry to be calling you like this, but we thought OKC was going to call you and they thought we were going to call you, but the man who hit your wife is in Oklahoma City awaiting deportation." My friend asks what he can do to make it stop. "Well, sir, I'm sorry to tell you this but once they get to Oklahoma City, they are usually on a plane that day." He was and he had served 16 months of his six year sentence.

Due to so many liberties that criminals now have; cable TV, degree programs, free access to lawyers, counseling etc. has reached the level of ridiculous. So ridiculous that we must now fall to it being a financial question instead of a justice question? In addition to seeing first degree murderers having to serve < half their sentences; the victims being the only ones to receive the life sentence; lesser capital cases getting even less time over the years - the American public cries out for true justice.

NOW, let's talk about this so-called "lower cost of life sentence to death penalty" bullshit. Here's what those 11 "Urban Studies" done by DPIC DON'T tell you... "In 1994, a new law (amended in 1996) authorized the federal government to provide financial assistance to the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories to construct or renovate prisons to incarcerate additional violent offenders. Those states and territories that adopt the 85 percent standard became eligible for an increased portion of federal funding. Since fiscal year 1996, the Justice Department has provided more than $1.3 billion through the Violent Offender Incarceration/Truth-in-Sentencing (VOI/TIS) incentive grants program.

The adoption of these state legislative changes has resulted in increases in time actually served behind bars and growing state prison populations nationwide (up 7 percent annually since 1990). The average time served by released violent offenders (persons convicted of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) rose from 43 months in 1993 to 49 months in 1997. Time served by released violent offenders rose in at least 38 states during that period. Their average percent of sentence served in prison rose from 47 percent to 54 percent." (1) 54 PERCENT?!?!?!?!

So, what we have are studies asking the States for financial information regarding THEIR costs; not the TOTAL cost... Because we all know the government can take money from one pocket and put it in another and spin it as a savings or a greater cost depending on the situation then existing and how many news cameras are present and which way the opinion needs to swing that day.

BOTTOM LINE: I will be one of the first to raise his hand and agree to Life Without Parole really meaning, 1) life without parole, 2) prison meaning prison and 3) taking away any and all rights and liberties. Yup, as in hard fucking labor from 5 o'clock in the morning until 10PM at night. No work programs, no release programs, No college or counseling services, no degree programs (cause that kinda means you may be getting out, don't it?). Let's go to the big rocks into little rocks and paint the little rocks in the hot blazing sun forty year program. Unless it involves a child and then you get the forty year with castration program.

But, we know that's not going to happen either.. Cause you know, we'll get to hear such wonderful platitudes like Dostoyevsky's, "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons" or Pope John Paul II's, "A society is measured by how it treats its weakest members" ad nauseum infinitum.

(1) http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/press/tssp.pr

+1

[billvon 2,400]

>A permanent solution demands a perfect process - and one does not yet exist.

Agreed. There is nothing morally wrong (IMO) with executing someone who has committed a heinous crime, like a premeditated murder. However you have to be 100% sure of the facts before you can do that, and we will never get to that level of surety.

>1) life without parole, 2) prison meaning prison and 3) taking away
>any and all rights and liberties.

Also agreed, with the exception that they do still have the right to have their case re-tried if new evidence comes to light.

[marks2065 0]

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>it is more civilized when murderers are not here to threaten us.

Agreed. Of course, you can accomplish that via the death penalty OR prison for life. And the prison-for-life is nice because it's cheaper.

But if you want to spend the extra money, I am totally in favor of you paying it.

Cheaper? How can $10 in electricity be more expensive than housing an inmate at 50k a year be more expensive?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cost+of+death+penalty

yep I have read some of those, but why do the prisoners get all the benifits the victom never got or will get? no free health care, tv, schooling, clothes, dental, vision, weight room, and the rest. they need food and 3 walls with a set of bars on the 4th side. All the free stuff is why it costs so much to house and try these criminals. Who cares if they kill themselves ? no need for 24 hour guards. who cares if they want tv? not me. the only thing they have a right to is a fair trial. how about we give some of their comforts to the victoms and their families while they adjust to the loss of a loved one or the devistation brought unto their lives.

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

Hi John,

For the record: I am opposed to the death penalty.

I rather like the post by BIGUN & Billvon's reply; which I agree with ( both posts ).

Today on NPR the question came up as to what to do with the ~11 people who are currently on death row with a death sentence.

Back in the 60's Oregon repealed the death sentence and, the then governor, Mark Hatfield immediately commuted the death sentence of all of those that were then on death row.

Just something to think about,

JerryBaumchen

[BIGUN 1,053]

Agreed.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[Marinus 0]

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a fairly comfortable death

In fact all execution methods used in the US are cruel and unusual or have the potential to become cruel and unusual if something goes wrong. This includes lethal injection. Substance A is sufficient to kill someone humanely but for some reason the redundant substances B and C are added which will result in a agonizing death is A fails. But technically lethal injection could be made 100% fail safe & humane by making the procedure simpler, cheaper and less moronic. It might also be a good idea to (re-?)introduce the guillotine. It's cheap, humane and 100% fool proof, and it's perfectely suited for dramatic executions to satisfy the blood lust of the spectators to give even more closure to witnesses to the execution.

About the point you made on prisoners murdering to receive the death penalty as a form of suicide: that could be easily circumvented by an voluntary euthanasia program for those with long prison sentences. I mean, if a society is killing prisoners against their will why should it be a problem to kill them if they want to die?

[kallend 1,625]

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I mean, if a society is killing prisoners against their will why should it be a problem to kill them if they want to die?

"It's the government, it doesn't have to make sense".

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Shotgun 1]

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a fairly comfortable death

In fact all execution methods used in the US are cruel and unusual or have the potential to become cruel and unusual if something goes wrong. This includes lethal injection.

I was thinking "comfortable" relative to the means that one would have to commit suicide in prison.

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About the point you made on prisoners murdering to receive the death penalty as a form of suicide: that could be easily circumvented by an voluntary euthanasia program for those with long prison sentences. I mean, if a society is killing prisoners against their will why should it be a problem to kill them if they want to die?

Then we would be giving a "right" to prisoners which most non-prisoners do not have (in the U.S. anyway). Even terminally ill persons who are suffering terribly are forced to wait to die painfully and naturally rather than being allowed voluntary euthanasia.

[jclalor 12]

The irony of hearing the same people bitch and moan how the Government is inept andt never to be trusted - then have no problem having that same Government execute it's citizens.

[Marinus 0]

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I was thinking "comfortable" relative to the means that one would have to commit suicide in prison.

Fair enough

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Then we would be giving a "right" to prisoners which most non-prisoners do not have (in the U.S. anyway).

No euthanasia at all? that sucks.... But even with that knowledge I don't really see a problem, prisoners have a different of rights than free civilians as it is.

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

Hi Shotgun,

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Even terminally ill persons who are suffering terribly are forced to wait to die painfully and naturally rather than being allowed voluntary euthanasia.

Not in Oregon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Death_with_Dignity_Act

JerryBaumchen

PS) Every year I donate to the Death with Dignity organization because I believe in it. No one is required to use the law.

[Shotgun 1]

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No euthanasia at all? that sucks.... But even with that knowledge I don't really see a problem, prisoners have a different of rights than free civilians as it is.

I believe it is legal in three states here, for residents of the state, and with certain restrictions. (Oregon, as Jerry just posted, and I think the others are Washington and Montana.)

I don't think I would have a problem with allowing prisoners (in for life) choosing euthanasia. But I also believe that every citizen here should have that right, at least under certain conditions.