In principle, I do not have a problem with the concept of the death penalty in certain egregiously heinous cases. In practice, I think there is no way to create foolproof safeguards that would prevent the execution of the innocent - even if we did make Poutine the King of SCOTUS. The injustice of executing an innocent person far outweighs - at least in my mind - any benefit in having the death penalty.

Toll's example, of Dr. Petit and his family, is a perfect example of utterly worthless humans who, in any moral sense, "deserve to die." They're basically worthless scumbags, who have contributed nothing to society but criminal activity, who then capped their criminal career by murdering and raping exemplary human beings, women and children, leaving the father of the family, gravely wounded, to live in horror and pain the rest of his life.

I've stated my opinion, though, that the death penalty basically wastes money. The immense procedural safeguards we need to prevent the utterly unconscionable execution of innocent defendants makes the death penalty economically inefficient. The vast amounts of money wasted to execute a tiny number of people, who mainly are guilty of having bad lawyers, deprives truly needy people of absolutely necessary services, like medical care.

It simply isn't worth the money to spend enormous amounts of cash to kill a tiny number of truly evil people, when the same money could be spent to save worthy lives.

I'm glad that most of you here share my dislike of death penalty. Please remember to support the petition for Troy Davis in my other topic. Thank you.

Connecticut Death Penalty Repeal Approved By State Legislature

Repeal was attained by making it not applicable to the 11 men who are now on death row in a Connecticut prison. This includes the murderers of the horrific Cheshire home invasion. Connecticut correction officers recently took a trip to Texas for instruction on how to implement the death penalty, but it is conceivable that these death penalties will be commuted to life in prison without possibility of parole.

I am 98% opposed to the death penalty.

I was friends with a woman whose husband was wrongfully convicted of murdering his parents. He sat on death row for 6 years before a snitch contacted the ATF and told them he had heard some people bragging how they had gotten away with the murders. The killers were arrested. He was finally freed after almost 2 years of arguing with the county DA's office.

Eventually he was freed and the real killers were convicted of the murders along with a raft of federal charges. Yes he is free but he still lives under a cloud of suspicion. His neighbors shun the family and his siblings have nothing to do with him. His wife's heart breaks seeing him treated so horribly since he has been released.

And haven't studies shown there are more innocent people convicted of crimes than previously thought? I am against the death penalty because the system is seriously flawed. The death penalty is ineffective as a crime deterrent.

How horrible, unfortunately not the first of last time an error like this will be made, with the innocent paying the price.



^^This and I don't believe anyone, including the government, should be killing people when there are viable alternatives to stopping the person from harming people.

I used to be a supporter of the death penalty, but after reading an article written by one of the prison officials (in Texas I think) who was responsible for the actual execution, I changed my mind. The cost is too great.

Only if you include those responsible for Justin Bieber and Twilight

In theory, I think there are crimes so vile, and people so horrible, that the people who commit these crimes deserve to die. The home invaders in Cheshire, CT are examples of such repulsive people. These are people who worsen the world by merely existing.

However, the actual utility of capital punishment has no empirical basis. It is incredibly costly, and since it is intolerable to execute an innocent person, this cost cannot be avoided. Despite the astounding cost of capital punishment, executing people has shown no benefit commensurate to this cost. Jurisdictions with robust capital punishment seem to have crimes as awful as those without.

I am willing to tolerate the existence of scumbags, behind bars, for a lesser cost than executing them, simply because capital punishment is economically inefficient.

There are some cases where I would still support the death penalty but not under our present system. I would support it in cases where there is ZERO doubt as to the circumstances of the crime and that it was so horrible as to shock the conscience. The Polly Klaas murder comes to mind.

Our system is too flawed and the laws are not applied consistently or evenly. The chances are too great for an innocent person to be convicted of a capital crime. Trying capital cases is too costly. If we can't fix the flaws, it should be suspended.

For the bundys and gaceys in the criminal world, yes, I think the death penalty is appropriate.

The rest of 'em? Hardly. The system is so damaged and so unfair to the defendant who typically draws a capital charge there's no way to support it any longer.

O'Donnell did a Rewrite on the Death Penalty this evening. The drafter of the CA Death Penalty said the main reason for appealing the death penalty aside from excessive financial costs to the state and undesirable wrongful conviction levels; it does not act as a deterrent to murder.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755883/vp ... 33#VpFlash

I was once a strong supporter of the death penalty.

I'm looking forward to casting my vote this November to abolish it in California. Sometimes innocent people may be killed. That is something I can't live with. Besides, it doesn't work as a deterrent and it costs a freaking fortune. LWOP works fine for me; that way, errors may be later corrected.

No matter what his other failings were, I will always have a measure of respect for former Illinois governor, George Ryan for instituting a moratorium on executions.

+1.

I don't support the death penalty, no.

Me too. 100% if you don't count the rare knee-jerk.

I am going to respond to this even though it was posted a year ago, because I never saw the response until now:



Your argument is one for legislators, not for courts. My beliefs about the death penalty are based on my personal interpretation of what the eighth amendment and due process clause of the Constitution require. Constitutional analysis of this issue does not allow for consideration of budgets.

That aside, I also disagree with the "benefits of the penalty" policy analysis you suggest. This is because there is no real benefit at all, except for an intangible emotional one on a societal basis. There is no proof whatsoever that application of the death penalty results in lower crime or homicide rates.

[edit: at least not in the somewhat constitutional manner we apply it in this country. I'm sure if we employed a Pol Pot-like death penalty scheme, the crime rate would reduce.]

No.

Since I haven't read that thread in over a year and my memory is fuzzy as to the details, I'll just respond very briefly.



That doesn't make it wrong.



My very short opinion of the constitutionality of the death penalty is that it is constitutional because the Supreme Court says so. In the imaginary world where I am a Supreme Court Justice, I would write an opinion along the lines of that of William Brennan or Thurgood Marshall in Furman and Gregg and then dissent in every future opinion, citing the original opinion.



The evidence is actually equivocal. If by "proof" you mean "evidence sufficient to convince any reasonable mind," I agree. However, from what I have seen, I believe there is some evidence, that I find unpersuasive, that there is a deterrent effect. There is also some evidence, that I find persuasive but is insufficient to convince all reasonable people, that the death penalty has a brutalizing effect on society and is actually counterproductive.

However, in response to what I think was your original point, I believe the application of the death penalty in the State of New Jersey was, from its reintroduction after Gregg in 1982 until its repeal in 2007, similar to what you would suggest. The result was that while scores of capital cases resulted in the imposition of the death penalty, every one that reached final appellate review was overturned and of those still in litigation in 2007, not one was actually carried out. The result was an enormous waste of time and money and a mockery of process.

That may not be, strictly speaking, a constitutional argument. I have nothing more to add to that argument than has already been stated by Justices Brennan and Marshall (and later Blackmun). Perhaps it is constitutional to perpetrate a cruel futility at gargantuan expense. I think in the case of the death penalty, it is not. However, whether or not it is constitutional, it strikes me as an unusual way to run a justice system.

There have been recent studies, mostly by economists, that purport to show a deterrent effect on the rate of murder. This has always seemed odd to me, because so many murders are acts of uncontrolled emotions, not acts committed in the course of another crime. That may be what we saw with Trayvon Martin. However, even premeditated murder can be an act of passion. The threat of a death sentence probably does not enter into a person's calculations.

One of the older studies left quite an impression on the country. It was undertaken by Isaac Ehrlich, an economist, after the SCOTUS decision suspending capital punishment in the U.S. He used country-comparative data, thus making a claim about all of humanity. His results were challenged on statistical and other grounds. In such circumstances, it is customary for the original researcher to provide other legitimate researchers with the data so that the analyses can be rerun. So far as I know, he refused and refuses to do so. The National Academy of Sciences convened a panel to investigate his claims, because they were of such policy importance; the panel raised serious questions. SCOTUS reinstated the death penalty, with Ehrlich's papers being cited in the plea to reinstate the death penalty.

The newer studies have not had that kind of inspection.

One of the stories that sociologists like to tell is about the high rate of pickpocketing at the scenes of public executions of pickpockets.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/0 ... 44919.html

That's good news for Mr.Robinson. I hope that more people like him have their sentence changed to life, so that if somewhere along there's proof of their innocence they could just be released without much drama like Troy Davis case. Thank you Plutodog for sharing the good news, it makes me feel good that there's a chance for innocent people who are wrongfully convicted to be released.

Maybe I should have included the opening paragraph of the convoluted story but I figured folks would follow the link. Apparently Mr. Robinson is the only convicted killer who was or will be able to take advantage of the now-defunct law.