Democrats introduce bill to end the death penalty

[Stumpy 256]

Yep this seems a bit mid boggling to me - he seems to think the two options are
a) Kill them or
b) Adopt them
without any middle ground.

Odd.

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[labrys 0]

Stumpy

Yep this seems a bit mid boggling to me - he seems to think the two options are
a) Kill them or
b) Adopt them
without any middle ground.

Odd.

Bah, he also had the gray area option of baking them a pie

Owned by Remi #?

[jakee 1,280]

Quote

Then perhaps you can open up your house and they can live in your spare room for a while. Because what you are saying is equivalent to "well the system is broken so we should just let them go home"

Better than you thinking that the police should go around shooting mildly suspicious people on sight in case they may have committed a crime.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Stumpy 256]

labrys

***Yep this seems a bit mid boggling to me - he seems to think the two options are
a) Kill them or
b) Adopt them
without any middle ground.

Odd.

Bah, he also had the gray area option of baking them a pie

Hey - my cooking isn't that bad!

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[Bertt 0]

The death penalty's kinda like a nuclear weapon. You want to have it just in case, but you don't want to use it unless it's really necessary.
The bigger issue here is that there are a lot of problems Congress needs to tackle, and this is nowhere near the top of the list. For instance, she could introduce a bill to specify term limits for Congress.

You don't have to outrun the bear.

[rhaig 0]

quade

There is a fiscal conservative advantage to eliminating the death penalty. I dunno. Maybe we should at least look at it.

Many years ago execution was cheaper than a life sentence. But it's reversed. Between the extensive appeals before and legal ass covering that happens during the execution, It's more expensive to execute someone than to house them for the rest of their natural life (assuming average age of an incarcerated convict, average age of those receiving the death penalty, fewer appeals, and other sundry crap). I did the numbers once in the late 80's (89-ish I think) and once again in the early 2000's (03?).

--
Rob

[rickjump1 0]

jakee

Quote

I don't believe the death penalty is a deterrent either, but I feel that some liberals are more interested in saving the life of a mass murderer than even considering the impact on the victims family.

And some republicans believe that the worse the crime, the laxer the judicial process should be, because killing someone in revenge quickly is more important than finding the right person. But those are both fringe issues. There are far better arguments both for and against.

Some citizens with no political affiliation feel a rope is cheaper than a lead slug, and it's like recycling, you can use it over and over again.

Do your part for global warming: ban beans and hold all popcorn farts.

[regulator 0]

People have sat on death row for over 10 years on appeal after appeal. The current system should definitivly be able to determine guilt by then.

[kelpdiver 2]

regulator

I said I think that the system does need to be re-evaluated. I do know that there have been people that were executed that could have been innocent. I'm familiar with the Houston crime lab and how many screw ups they've had, but I am unsure if that led to an innocent person getting executed. I do know that if the case has a mountain of evidence, perhaps witnesses that saw the perp do the crime, or DNA evidence linking them to say the murder of multiple children or something heinous like torture and murder of multiple people then they don't deserve to live the rest of their lives while their victims are long dead.

There are documented cases for all of these where the wrong person was executed. Typically further back in time, when justice, esp for minorities, was particularly questionable, but you also have very recent cases where DAs have totally bullshitted the process (ex: the Duke Lacrosse team and allegations of rape) and made shit up. Eye witnesses have long been used to convict the wrong person. Short of a confession (and one that they don't recant, or say was beaten out of them), it's hard to support. I'm all for killing the right guys as punishment, but our legal system defaults the other way. We're not China.

But refocusing - since you assert that anyone who might object to the death penalty is instead suggesting killers walk free...how about finding those cases *in the US* where first degree murder convicts are released and go kill again? That has been the crux of your argument, but I don't think it stands up to scrutiny.

[ryoder 1,412]

regulator

People have sat on death row for over 10 years on appeal after appeal. The current system should definitivly be able to determine guilt by then.

Sure: http://www.businessinsider.com/man-wrongful-conviction-murder-release-2013-8

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

[kelpdiver 2]

regulator

People have sat on death row for over 10 years on appeal after appeal. The current system should definitivly be able to determine guilt by then.

convictions have been overturned (for real evidence, not just for flaw in process) later than that.

[mistercwood 287]

kelpdiver

***People have sat on death row for over 10 years on appeal after appeal. The current system should definitivly be able to determine guilt by then.

convictions have been overturned (for real evidence, not just for flaw in process) later than that.

In addition, my understanding* is that once the original conviction is recorded and sentence handed down, the appeals process is purely to either contest the sentence or to show a flaw in the original trial process - they can't actually directly try again to show the convict wasn't really the perpetrator.

*garnered from watching many crime dramas, which likely makes me completely wrong. Others on here are better placed to confirm this.

You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

[davjohns 1]

regulator

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and seven other Democrats have proposed legislation that would eliminate the possibility of imposing the death penalty for a range of federal offenses, including several categories of murder and crimes against the government like treason and espionage.

The Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act, H.R. 3741, would end the death penalty for assassination or kidnapping that results in the death of the president or vice president, and also ends it for the murder of a member of Congress.

Under the bill, the death penalty could no longer be used to punish people for using a weapon of mass destruction, or murder done via torture, child abuse, war crimes, aircraft hijackings, sexual abuse, bank robberies or the willful wrecking of a train.

Using chemical or biological materials to kill could also no longer result in the death penalty, nor could deaths related to treason or espionage. The death or injury of an unborn child could not result in the death penalty either.

Death of state or local law enforcement officials, using the mail to kill, kidnapping and killing people to stop them from testifying could no longer lead to the death penalty, nor could the use of firearms or armor piercing ammunition during any crime of violence.

http://www.conservativeinfidel.com/uncategorized/liberal-democrats-introduce-bill-end-death-penalty-treason/

I continue to put my faith in a jury of 12 ordinary citizens guided by a Judge.

I continue to think the 535 legislators in D.C. are clearly incompetent at the most basic of tasks and should try to figure out the easy stuff like balancing a budget before they tackle the more difficult matters like this.

Don't give me anecdotes about juries messing up. They are made of humans and subject to an infinite variety of screw ups. They are still preferable to the infinite variety of screw ups we call legislators who manage to make infinite screw ups look finite by comparison.

Don't sprain your brain trying to figure that out. I'm saying juries are ordinary people who judge the individual situation based on the best facts available. Legislation is charismatic people of dubious mental facility making attempts to pre-judge lots of situations with very few facts and lots of emotion / politics.

Given the choice, I'll take the jury.

I know it just wouldnt be right to kill all the stupid people that we meet..

But do you think it would be appropriate to just remove all of the warning labels and let nature take its course.

[jclalor 12]

Why is it that on one hand, the government is one of the most inept and un-trustworthy organizations ever, that can't ever be trusted to do even the most basic of task, and yet OTOH, you have no issue with trusting them with the capital punishment of its citizens?

How do you ever rationalize that?

In other news today, Obama commuted the life sentences of several crack dealers, that was goog news.

[regulator 0]

You make it sound like Washington DC is in charge of the death penalty for each state, when in fact each state individually makes the determination to put someone to death or not.

[regulator 0]

(CNN) -- A shortage of lethal injection chemicals has contributed to declining use of capital punishment in the United States with a new report on Thursday noting only 39 executions this year.

It is only the second time in the past two decades the annual number of inmates put to death has dropped below 40.

The total represents a 10 percent reduction from last year. No further executions are scheduled in 2013.

"Twenty years ago, use of the death penalty was increasing. Now it is declining by almost every measure," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, and the author of the report.

"The recurrent problems of the death penalty have made its application rare, isolated, and often delayed for decades. More states will likely reconsider the wisdom of retaining this expensive and ineffectual practice."

The nonprofit organization provides accurate figures and a range of analysis, but opposes use of the death penalty.

While the annual number of executions and death sentences continues to drop nationally overall, it remains a legally and socially acceptable form of justice for aggravated murder in 32 states.

But just nine states conducted lethal injections this year, and two -- Texas with 16 and Florida with 7 -- accounted for nearly 60 percent of the total.

Texas is among the active death-penalty states scrambling to find new lethal injection protocols after European-based manufacturers banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions.

Among them is Danish-based Lundbeck, which manufactures pentobarbital, the most commonly used -- either as a single drug, or in combination with others -- to execute prisoners.

States have been forced to try new drug combinations or go to loosely regulated compounding pharmacies that manufacturer variations of the drugs banned by the larger companies, according to an investigation last month by CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

A pending lawsuit against Texas filed by several death row inmates and their supporters alleges the state corrections department falsified a prescription for pentobarbital using an alias.

Until recently, most states relied on a three-drug "cocktail," but many jurisdictions now use a single dose or a two-drug combination.

Various state and federal courts have postponed some planned executions until issues surrounding the new protocols are resolved.

Every execution this year relied on pentobarbital, except in Florida, which used midazolam hydrochloride -- a drug applied for the first time in human lethal injections.

And Missouri was prepared to inject a single dose of the anesthetic propofol for its two recent executions, until Gov. Jay Nixon halted its application.

The European Union had threatened to limit export of the widely used drug for other purposes if the state had proceeded. The two inmates were separately put to death in recent weeks using pentobarbital instead.

Among the high-profile capital cases this year involved Kimberly McCarthy, the first woman executed in the United States in three years.

The former Dallas-area resident was convicted of murdering her neighbor, and in June became the state's 500th prisoner to die at the hands of the government since 1976, when the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume.
So far, 1,359 people have been put to death across the country since that time, using lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, hanging, and firing squad. That includes three federal prisoners.

Spared for now was Georgia inmate Warren Hill, whose attorneys say he is mentally disabled. Courts earlier this year stayed three separate execution dates, one with just minutes to spare.

The Supreme Court in March will hold oral arguments and decide whether the Florida scheme for identifying mentally disabled defendants in capital cases violates previous standards established by the high court.

Freddie Lee Hall and an accomplice were convicted of the 1978 murders of a pregnant 21-year-old woman and a sheriff's deputy in separate store robberies, both on the same day. His lawyers say the death row inmate has an IQ of 60.

In Missouri, Reginald Griffin was freed in October and his sentence thrown out after the state high court found the trial prosecution withheld critical evidence that may have implicated another prisoner in a jailhouse murder.

He became the 143rd person exonerated from death row in the past 40 years.

Maryland became the sixth state in as many years to abolish its death penalty, joining Connecticut, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico. Eighteen other states have previously done so.

Attorney General Eric Holder faces a tough decision in coming months: whether to seek the death penalty in federal court for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev.

Across the country, capital sentences remain at historic lows, with just 79 so far this year.

They have declined in number by 75 percent from 1996, said the report, when 315 people were put on death row.

With the death penalty declining and recent polls showing a corresponding drop in public support, some legal analysts wonder if the Supreme Court is prepared in coming years to take another look at the issue's overall constitutionality -- whether capital punishment in the 21st century represents "cruel and unusual punishment."

The justices in most cases continue to deny most requests for stays of executions, usually without any comment, or a breakdown of which members of the nine-member bench might have granted such a delay.

"It certainly seems that it merits another day in court after 40 years," said Evan Mandery, a law professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and author of the new book "A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America."

"There are a lot of reasons to think that (moderate-conservative) Justice Anthony Kennedy's vote is up for grabs and his mind is open on this question. So I don't think the outcome of a case would be predetermined one way or another."

But there is no sign such a monumental legal and social review by the nation's highest court will be coming soon.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/19/politics/death-penalty-us/

[lawrocket 3]

jclalor

In other news today, Obama commuted the life sentences of several crack dealers, that was goog news.

More people who probably liked the healthcare they got.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[jakee 1,280]

regulator

People have sat on death row for over 10 years on appeal after appeal. The current system should definitivly be able to determine guilt by then.

Oh sure, it should. Of course, civilised people shouldn't be out murdering in the first place but it happens.

There are loads of things that 'should' be a certain way, but reality just doesn't play ball.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[jakee 1,280]

regulator

You make it sound like Washington DC is in charge of the death penalty for each state, when in fact each state individually makes the determination to put someone to death or not.

Right, 'cause state governments don't suffer from any of the incompetence or corruption that happens at national level.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[jclalor 12]

[ryoder 1,412]

Anyone who thinks the evidence shown to a jury is accurate, should watch this:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/real-csi/

Here is the short version:
The only forensic "science" which is actually supported by real science is DNA analysis.
Even supposedly-reliable fingerprint evidence is *not*.

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

[jclalor 12]

Another great documentary, it won the Academy award a few years ago. This is one of the best you will ever see, even my conservative friends even loved it.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wWwf-uHrCIA

[kelpdiver 2]

davjohns

Don't give me anecdotes about juries messing up. They are made of humans and subject to an infinite variety of screw ups. They are still preferable to the infinite variety of screw ups we call legislators who manage to make infinite screw ups look finite by comparison.

Don't sprain your brain trying to figure that out. I'm saying juries are ordinary people who judge the individual situation based on the best facts available. Legislation is charismatic people of dubious mental facility making attempts to pre-judge lots of situations with very few facts and lots of emotion / politics.

Given the choice, I'll take the jury.

If you acknowledge that the juries are failable, that sounds like an argument against the death penalty. You can free a guy after 20 years - it's still shitty and his life was mostly ruined, but at least he gets something afterwards. You kill him, it's done. Clearing his name post death doesn't do anything for him.

The rant about legislators being of poor intelligence is just asinine. By any measure you could suggest, they're well above average.

[freethefly 6]

lawrocket

***There is a fiscal conservative advantage to eliminating the death penalty. I dunno. Maybe we should at least look at it.

Perhaps instead of ending all death penalty cases we should instead simply look at limiting the death penalty to the worst of the worst.

Me? I think that if a person kills someone (or arranges the death of someone) while in prison, that person have shown that he/she is a danger to the lives of others that cannot be eliminated.

Who here thinks that a humane option is to let a person live who kills while in prison?

Solitary confinement with no contact to the outside. Death is the easy way out. Where is the punishment? Kill my loved ones and I wish upon you years and years of agony.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[regulator 0]

How about telling the inmate WHILE in solitary that on a random day sometime between now and 10 years from now they will be taken out of solitary and beaten to death. I'm sure not knowing when, while in solitary would make them go insane.