Texas killed innocent manFollow

needle = lethal injection
shocking = electric chair

Seriously, it's like you've never seen an oh snap before.

To be clear, Illinois still had the death penalty and new people have been put on death row since that happened. Many of the questioned cases were from the 70s and 80s where new DNA evidence exonerated people, old evidence was lost or degraded and there was basically little faith in the system that had put these people on death row.

The death penalty won't have any kind of real credibility until we invent the Magic 8-Ball of Justice that instantly, accurately and concisely determines if such-and-such is guilty of a crime and to what extent they should be punished. It's a tradition that people stick to because it's traditional, like caning in Iran and Saudi Arabia.



As useless as it is for me to say this, the point we're getting at is that if the system is fallible, it's not serving as a deterrent at all. That just tells criminals that not only is the judicial system having trouble finding their *** with both hands, but that there's a good chance some other guy will catch the rap for their crimes.

And it tells ordinary citizens that there is a small probability that they will one day be executed by the state for a crime they didn't commit. What purpose does this really serve? Judicial mistakes embolden criminals and terrify innocents. And you're never going to get rid of judicial mistakes, but so long as you're using the death penalty your mistakes will become so high-profile that it will be as impossible to ignore them as it is to fix them.

Edited, Sep 4th 2009 3:03pm by zepoodle

Samy,



How do you know what the murder rates would be if say Texas decided to abolish the death penalty?

Although that may be your opinion of how the system should work, it is not the law. The law provides opportunities for review of error. They were presented with overwhelming evidence that the fire was not arson, that no liquid accelerant was used, and yet did nothing.

He was convicted of arson, involving the application of an accelerant (think gasoline) to deliberatly kill. They tested for accelerant and found none, except near the front door (the expert witness testamony was that the accelerant was placed all over, including under the children's bed, etc). Now they also had testamony from eyewitnesses that the front door was where the family kept a grill for outdoor cooking - and a bottle of lighter fluid - both of which actually burned in the fire.

At the time of trial, they had direct physical evidence to invalidate the ruling of arson. And everyone ignored it.

This is not uncommon.

People who are not brain dead need to serve on juries.

When kids die, people want to place blame. They want to find a reason. It's an emotional response.

This is a pretty good reason for not allowing horrific pictures to be shown at trial. They are generally excluded because they are considered prejudicial - that they serve no purpose but to inflame the jurors and make them want to convict someone, even the wrong someone.

But probably not under sentence of death, I'm guessing.

Man, you all have had a stellar run of governors.

ftfy

I had so much other banter typed but no one needs to hear my ******* bleeding heart sing. You're wrong. The system doesn't work. There is no garunteed solution at this time. We need a monster island...

Life Imprisonment allows for:

1. being a worse punishment overall than Death.

2. giving time and the possibility of change and rehabilitation of the guilty, so that they live out the rest of their lives in jail as better people. Small possibility of parole for the truly reformed and repentant after several decades.

3. Is cheaper than the Death penalty because of the necessity of all those legal challenges in each Death Penalty case.

4. Allows for the possibility of society to take back the injustice of convicting the wrong person.

Well, clearly they were easier to bribe before being renamed.

Substantively incorrect. DP cases are far more expensive than any other kind.

Also - am I reading you right? You're really against life imprisonment as opposed to the DP because you're afraid prisoners will have a chance to avoid hell?

Wow.