Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

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wolfeyedangel
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Re: Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

Post by wolfeyedangel »

Randomname? I'm trying to give you information and methods of better supporting your contentions properly and fully in accordance with the requirements of this section of the forum. I am making none of my own. Please put the effort into doing the actual research that will support your claims and strengthen your arguments. Wild claims aren't going to do you any favors, and I'm not going to find all the documentation for you. The resources are out there beyond the spring-board articles you posted go look for them. You can also find information on procedures for overturning convictions of ANY sort. Google is still your friend and as I keep saying all the findings ARE a matter of public record. Use those resources, otherwise you're just arguing conspiracy theories.

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Re: Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

Post by TxCat »

For reference, one might look at "Chasing the Devil" by Sheriff David Reichert, "The Riverman" by Robert Keppel, and "Green River, Running Red" by Ann Rule. This is just one instance in which the death penalty could have been rather nasty if it had been enacted without forethought. According to the various sources named above, they had at least three suspects over a twenty year period, some of which served time and/or were under surveillance for a crime carrying the death penalty. At one point, they were ready to go to trial until DNA evidence proved conclusively that they had the wrong man. Had it not been for the delays built into the system and hesitancy to use the death penalty, they could well have killed a man for something he had not done.

There's another case, in a book entitled "Murder" by an author whose last name is Michaud, which details several murders for which they arrested a severely mentally impaired man. In spite of the fact that several profilers testified that this man did not have the mental capacity to carry out the kills with the sophistication indicated by the crime scene analysis, he was convicted and put on death row. I can't remember the name of the man or the case itself but it was a high profile case in the early 1990s or late 1980s.

Then, too, there's an entire circuit court devoted to hearing the cases of convicts in Texas who may have been wrongly imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. Some of these too were slated for death row. A surprising number were found to not be guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced.

(And if anyone can find links to the latter two, I'd appreciate it...I could not, I just remember reading about them and seeing a program about the circuit court on television).

One more reason why it IS so terribly hard to meet the criteria for setting a death penalty in the first place and why there ARE so many appeals. If you're at all curious about the process, John Douglas details it in several of his accounts, including "Journey into Darkness".
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Re: Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

Post by randomname »

wolfeyedangel wrote:Randomname? I'm trying to give you information and methods of better supporting your contentions properly and fully in accordance with the requirements of this section of the forum. I am making none of my own. Please put the effort into doing the actual research that will support your claims and strengthen your arguments. Wild claims aren't going to do you any favors, and I'm not going to find all the documentation for you. The resources are out there beyond the spring-board articles you posted go look for them. You can also find information on procedures for overturning convictions of ANY sort. Google is still your friend and as I keep saying all the findings ARE a matter of public record. Use those resources, otherwise you're just arguing conspiracy theories.

~Wolfeyedangel
Understood. I didn't realize that I'd made any wild claims. But I will not post again unless I have the kind of documentation you deem necessary.
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Re: Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

Post by oneway »

Very much yes those people who raped and murder and stay there in prison getting 3 square meal a day also rotting away in jail for decades. Let me pull the trigger and include child molester for the death penalty. The point is how many families have to watch men and women who are suppose to executed by state live longer then some of family members or the system give them time to ride it out for decades. So question is the people do they feel the death penalty should be used or not and why. Now here a another question I am going to ask if we believe that death penalty should be used why do most states don't use it or it takes a long time to do it
Last edited by oneway on August 2nd, 2011, 11:00:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

Post by brisingr15 »

oneway wrote:Very much yes those people who raped and murder and stay there in prison getting 3 square meal a day also rotting away in jail for decades. Let me pull the trigger and include child molester for death penalty
I agree. Sure maybe they need stricter rules on making sure that the person actually committed the crime before they kill them. But I just don't see the point of letting intentional murders live. Child molesters are even worse.
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Re: Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

Post by bombus »

i am very much against the death penalty and i can pretty much sum it up in one sentence. it is wrong to kill another human being. would i want to have the death penalty if a friend or family member was a victim of a violent crime, probably but that still doesn't make it right. there are lots of arguments that having the death penalty will lower the rate of crime but i do not believe that. if someone is mentally sick enough to take another's life then they are more than likely not thinking about the consequences. i believe having the death penalty actually can raise the crime rate, if the government can justify killing so can a murderer. i stand by my belief that there is no justification for killing someone.
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Re: Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

Post by Penumbra »

A study shows that the there is a huge racial prejudice when it comes to the death penalty. They banned it a couple decades ago because stats showed that if a white man and a black man committed the same crime, the white man was likely to get life, and the black man was likely to get the death penalty. They recently brought it back.

I don't support the death penalty because it's not objective. It all depends on how much money you can spend to get a good enough lawyer. It also depends on your race, your gender, your social standing. It barely even comes down to what your crime is. People who commit the same crime can get very different punishments.

If they, I don't know, made a computer that could objectively judge people's crimes (which is sort of impossible), then maybe I would have less qualms with it. I don't have qualms with killing people who earn such a punishment - its just that, when it comes to the death penalty, it's just not equal.
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Re: Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

Post by wolfeyedangel »

Could you provide links to the actual study or sites that might help us track down the study itself? (Yes this is something else you really need to reference.) Where did you run across this study? If in a magazine, which one? What rough time frame?

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Re: Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

Post by Penumbra »

It was a study referenced in the court case that outlawed the death penalty a few decades ago. I don't know if I can find the actual study, but I can find information about the court case and other articles.

http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/ ... th-penalty

This talks about how the race of the victim impacts whether one will be sentenced to the death penalty.

http://www.capitalpunishmentincontext.org/issues/race

This too

http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issu ... y-and-race

It's a well-covered fact, and there's multiple studies about it. Overall though, the consensus is that race plays a disproportionate and completely inappropriate part in the capital punishment system.
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Re: Death Penalty- Yay or Nay?

Post by wolfeyedangel »

Those look like good places to look for the study itself, good places to start. Definitely let us know if you find it. Oh, and for the record: The death penalty has not been outlawed. I'd also be interested in seeing a few demographical statistics. (Comparing the conviction/arrest ratios, etc. Looking for them might lead you to the study. Also check your local library see if they have an exchange program with a research library, or if you have a college or university in your town see if their library is open for perusal by the public.)

note such statistics can be found on state department of justice pages for example: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/deathrow.htm I haven't checked all states but it might be another good place to go for more information. Again court records are by and large open to the public and many of them are readily available on line. Site: .gov will narrow the search a little, though it's not as efficient as www.google.com/unclesam was.

If it is a "well covered fact" then it shouldn't be too hard to find multiple studies on the topic and those demographics, the more current demographics the better given the cultural and legal changes over the last 50 years. That would be another interesting trend if someone wants to take it up for this thread: how the system has actually changed over time and how the perceptions are influenced by what was, as well as efforts to review cases tried prior to things such as DNA testing etc, then tying it back to how that influences the question as a whole.

A complete tangent someone might try though it might make a better thread in and of itself: What is the actual purpose and intention of the prison system?

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