Angelus Errare
Banned
Until one of those mistakes are a family member then you'd probably be the first one crying demanding the death penalty be abolished.
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The Last Meals Of Innocent Men
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Until one of those mistakes are a family member then you'd probably be the first one crying demanding the death penalty be abolished.
Trickster
Member
Let's be honest here though. Looking at the guys in the OP that got falsely convicted, the basis on which they got convicted is clearly incredibly flawed, even illegal in some of the cases I'm pretty sure.
It seems like that if someone is wrongly convicted, it's most likely because the system fails in a spectacularly, and easily avoidable way.
Someone like Breivik on the other hand, is there really any doubt that he is not guilty? I mean there are dozens of eye witnesses, himself admitting it, and I'm pretty sure there was footage of him walking around in the city in his police wannabe suit shortly before the bomb went of. And I'm pretty sure there's much more evidence, car is probably traceable to him etc.
Not agreeing with mooseking though
csquared587
Member
I have read most of this thread, but this one line is haunting. Do you really mean that, or did you just say something extreme to highlight your opinion?
Are the 10 mistakes justified for economic reasons, or is it just simply getting revenge on the 990 pieces of shit that makes it ok?
JasonUresti
Member
"Hey prisoner, you are about to be wrongly executed for a crime you didn't commit. For your last meal, do you want some food that maybe reminds you of good times you had as kid, or some status food recommended by some douche on the internet?"
What kind of toxic cognitive environment does one have to embroil their minds in, in order to form this sort of anti-humanist world view?
Conservatism!
As for the death penalty... you just shouldn't support it in general.
I mean, you can make a whole bunch of rational arguments about how an inaccurate judicial process means extra cost and loss of innocent lives...
But I think the society we should strive for should just remove the idea of killing and violence been a valid method of solving problems. Not to say we are defenseless peaceniks; we should absolutely have the resources and technologies to defend our freedoms without compromise...
But within the envelope of civilized society, we should just take the table off violence and harm off the table completely.
Anything that can help to reduce this societal incongruency; where some lives are worth less than others (for whatever reasons), will help us move towards a more egalitarian future where all lives are properly valued.
I mean, you can make a whole bunch of rational arguments about how an inaccurate judicial process means extra cost and loss of innocent lives...
But I think the society we should strive for should just remove the idea of killing and violence been a valid method of solving problems. Not to say we are defenseless peaceniks; we should absolutely have the resources and technologies to defend our freedoms without compromise...
But within the envelope of civilized society, we should just take the table off violence and harm off the table completely.
Anything that can help to reduce this societal incongruency; where some lives are worth less than others (for whatever reasons), will help us move towards a more egalitarian future where all lives are properly valued.
Devolution
Member
With all the blokes getting released, and more than few on death row, thanks to DNA testing, no one should be for the death penalty.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
They all have the same childhood nostalgia for cheap junk food?
White. Trash.
I would have something that tastes good... screw "status".
If you haven't had anything tasty for 10+ years, then that's most likely what you want.
I don't think Mooseking's position is as terrible as everyone else does.
Every system needs some sort of fault tolerance. Even if we aren't talking about the death penalty, consider our court system generally. Let's talk about people who are sentenced to life in prison.
How many people do you feel can be falsely sentenced to life in prison for every person who is sentenced correctly? Do you want 1 false for every 100 correct? 1 for every 1000?
Insisting that there is no error is effectively the same as saying you want no system at all. No system is perfect, no system will only convict the guilty. You have to accept that some people will be falsely sentenced to life in prison, we just need to argue over what ratio is acceptable.
I can certainly imagine someone thinking that 0 faults are acceptable with a death penalty, and I can agree with that. But I don't think someone who has a fault tolerance of .1% is profoundly different and more terrible than someone whose fault tolerance is 0%.
Every system needs some sort of fault tolerance. Even if we aren't talking about the death penalty, consider our court system generally. Let's talk about people who are sentenced to life in prison.
How many people do you feel can be falsely sentenced to life in prison for every person who is sentenced correctly? Do you want 1 false for every 100 correct? 1 for every 1000?
Insisting that there is no error is effectively the same as saying you want no system at all. No system is perfect, no system will only convict the guilty. You have to accept that some people will be falsely sentenced to life in prison, we just need to argue over what ratio is acceptable.
I can certainly imagine someone thinking that 0 faults are acceptable with a death penalty, and I can agree with that. But I don't think someone who has a fault tolerance of .1% is profoundly different and more terrible than someone whose fault tolerance is 0%.
While error tolerance is a necessary part of a system's design, stating it in the terms Mooseking did, would imply strongly that he would be happy to kill a few innocents so that the guilty are punished bodily for it.
Which on a forum that attempts to inculcate compassionate, humanistic values would necessarily illicit the emotion of disgust.
Being on death row and being innocent has to be one of the worst things I can think of. I got in trouble a lot at school and the one thing that really got to me was when teachers assumed I did something just because I had a bad rep. I once did a detention despite doing nothing wrong all because another kid blamed it on me. I couldn't imagine actually being in serious trouble and being innocent, let alone death row.
That's pretty awful too reading about their families. If someone in my family got put to death despite being innocent I honestly don't think I could ever forgive or get over it.
Thank god I live in the UK.
That's pretty awful too reading about their families. If someone in my family got put to death despite being innocent I honestly don't think I could ever forgive or get over it.
Thank god I live in the UK.
This is actually fucking disgusting, honestly. But hey, how about they just hand all these people over to you and you can do it with your own bare hands, sounds like you'd probably enjoy it.
Anyways, what tangible benefits does having the death penalty bring to society? tangible benefits mind you, not, ideological bullshit about right and wrong and human scum and whatever emotional crap argument i'd expect from a victim's family but wouldn't really tolerate anywhere else.
Rocket Scientist
Member
Lol this dude is just trolling. Nobody is that dumb.
It's no deaths vs. innocent people being murdered by the justice system. With wrong convictions and life in prison there is at least a chance, through appeals or advocacy groups or do-gooding college students, that the wrongly convicted get out. Heck, I just bumped a thread last week about a Texas man who was wrongly convicted for murdering his wife spent 15 years in prison and is now free. An Texas is considering whether to charge the prosecutor with misconduct. Had he been executed, the man would have no recourse. Faults will always happen, but striving to improve our justice system constantly is inherently more just than accepting some flaws. Killing innocent men to allow for others to die, those who would be removed from society permanently anyways, is intolerable in a society that can put people away for life. There are no second chances after death, no just compensation.
When I discover that I've wrongly imprisoned someone for life, I can release them, and they can be compensated to some extent. Until we master the art of raising the dead, the death penalty is a bit of a different story.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
with DNA testing shouldn't we be FOR the death penalty more than before, since we are more sure than ever before?
Devolution
Member
No because what the testing revealed is just how railroaded folks are when it comes to the justice system, so those presumed guilty got released because DNA just happened to exonerate them. If there is no DNA left at the scene they're screwed.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I understand the desire for seeing others killed for their crimes. It is nothing more than blood thirst, a leftover behavior from our barbaric past, that I personally would rather we didn't allow to dictate our moral matrix and societal laws.
Other than "it feels good", what possible purpose does killing criminals serve?
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
that's a consequence of other factors not related directly to the testing of DNA. There's always going to be crooked cops or district attorneys trying to up their conviction rates.
DNA testing makes "railroading" the accused harder, and going forward based on the logic that people are exonerated for past crimes, that people will be exonerated for future crimes they did not commit.
Spring-Loaded
Member
I'd argue it doesn't serve any purpose at all. Even if you were wanting a criminal to be suffer because of the "feels good" argument, having them be alive to actually experience punishment would be better. Keeping them alive would also allow them to actually be exonerated in the case they were wrongfully incarcerated. A single innocent death is too many.
But what about situations where corruption in law-enforcement/corrections is so high, a powerful criminal's influence can reach beyond their prison? Leaders of organized crime could still be a threat behind bars. What then?
I would rather have a few criminals not go to jail instead of having a few innocents getting their life ruined in prison or worse.
Agreed. Although those compensations are normally a joke.
For example:
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/25/justice/wrongful-conviction-payments
Or in UK:
http://rense.com/general50/25yt.htm
wrongly imprisoned for 25 years gets you:
Vermillion
Banned
Legal ethics - always rather that a criminal go free than an innocent to be punished... it was actually one of my first topics, come to think of it.
LaserBuddha
Member
You're looking at this through the eyes of someone who can have whatever they want, whenever they want it.
When you go for years without simple things like steak, fries, soda, etc, your perspective on them will change. You won't long for some gourmet super meal, you'll long for the simple things you take for granted right now.
Now stop being a dick in your ignorance.
Basically this. And since life in prison doesn't really have a good alternative that keeps dangerous people locked up, it seems necessary.
There's no good reason to support the death penalty. I mean, if you can't even justify it economically, there's really no debate. Then you're just out for revenge, which isn't something a modern government should be involved in.
Lonewolf_92
Member
Depends, in some states it's limited to what the prison kitchen has on hand or easily get (so if you wanted a bucket of KFC and there's a KFC in town fine, but if you wanted a burger from Red Robin and there isn't one nearby you're out of luck), in others you're presented with a list of food items you can select from to make you're last meal. Which is why you see a lot of repeat items if you look at lists of final meals in a state (Texas, I think, had this rule and used to post what inmates had as final meals, if you want examples). It's also common for the untouched portions of last meals to be given to the rest of the inmates, which is why you see them order things like 20 fried eggs and a pitcher of milkshake, it's a gift to the rest in a way.
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