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Wo you think our justice sytem is fantastic? What have you been smoking? I want some!

 Rented Tritium wrote:
You cannot just say "well this guy is a fething murderer, so let's just ignore due process".

You can say that, you'd just be utterly wrong.

That's a general you.

Yeah personally I think we should just abolish the death penalty. Life without parole is no picnic. Just put them in and move on.

Even if a loved one was murdered, I would much rather have the murderer get life without parole so I can move on with my life than to live with the execution process over my head for some number of years.

I mean, have you seen interviews with loved ones of murder victims who are waiting for an execution? They get CONSUMED by this need for revenge. They want it to happen so they can get "closure" but after a while it starts to mess with them and they get bloodthirsty. It's such an unhealthy way to deal with a loved one's death.

You put someone in a box without parole, you can put them out of your mind and move forward. You can also sleep at night knowing that if you were wrong, you were not a part of a murder.

Our justice system is FANTASTIC and I love it, but to say that it's so perfect that we should enact permanent and irreversible punishments is utter hubris.

While I don't agree I can understand this position, and I would be ok with it IF it were life with no possibility of parole.

 Frazzled wrote:
Wo you think our justice sytem is fantastic? What have you been smoking? I want some!

It's a drug called "familiarity with other justice systems".

I mean, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things I would change, but all in all it's pretty great.

 Rented Tritium wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

It just seems wrong for someone to walk away from a murder because of an error in procedure. What sort of error could make the difference between an innocent and guilty verdict?

You seem to be having a problem with the very thing that makes our justice system so fantastic.

The fact that even someone who we all know is guilty will walk if the proper procedures aren't followed is the ONLY reason procedures are getting followed for everyone else.

Equal protection means we follow procedures NO MATTER WHAT and we throw out evidence that wasn't handled properly. This is for the protection of ALL accused.

You cannot just say "well this guy is a fething murderer, so let's just ignore due process".

BUT CASEY ANTHONY IS GUILTY!

 Rented Tritium wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Wo you think our justice sytem is fantastic? What have you been smoking? I want some!

It's a drug called "familiarity with other justice systems".

I mean, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things I would change, but all in all it's pretty great.

Compared to who? 3rd world hole, yea agreed. A proper functioning First World legal system? Thats funny.

Casey Anthony. Ugh, I could have done without thinking about that horrible story.

We should institute the "Kronk Reproductive Protocol" immediately.

 Rented Tritium wrote:

I mean, have you seen interviews with loved ones of murder victims who are waiting for an execution? They get CONSUMED by this need for revenge. They want it to happen so they can get "closure" but after a while it starts to mess with them and they get bloodthirsty. It's such an unhealthy way to deal with a loved one's death.

While I personally would not presume to tell anybody who the should or should not deal with the death of a loved one, you raise a point dear to me.

I think the theoretically arguments for the death penalty are pretty decent. Not overwhelming, but I have no real great reason to oppose the theory of capital punishment. What bugs me is the practice. Casting aside the incredibly racially biased way it's actually used (based, suprisingly, not on the race of the defendent but of the victim), it raises a very ugly streak of vengeance, which, IMO, is not proper for the legal system.

Rented Tritium wrote:Execution costs more than life in prison. I'm really tired of having to explain this in every single thread this comes up in.

Plus, if money is your justification for life vs death, I think you're a monster.

In this particular case, hasn't the defendant already gone through all of the appeals anyway? Thus meaning that 50 years (really more like 25-30, though considering health conditions in prisons) will definitely cost more?

Frazzled wrote:I'm ok with Life on a chain gang. But we need to bring back chain gangs.

This is monstrous. Frazz, you do realize that chain gangs were a stop-gap replacement for a slave-labour economy and tied to countless wrongful convictions for the purpose of free labour?

 azazel the cat wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:Execution costs more than life in prison. I'm really tired of having to explain this in every single thread this comes up in.

Plus, if money is your justification for life vs death, I think you're a monster.

In this particular case, hasn't the defendant already gone through all of the appeals anyway? Thus meaning that 50 years (really more like 25-30, though considering health conditions in prisons) will definitely cost more?

Frazzled wrote:I'm ok with Life on a chain gang. But we need to bring back chain gangs.

This is monstrous. Frazz, you do realize that chain gangs were a stop-gap replacement for a slave-labour economy and tied to countless wrongful convictions for the purpose of free labour?

Whats wrong with hard labor? If Cool Hand Luke has taught us anything, its that a good chain gang can clean a road.

You are perfectly within your right to say that if someone murdered one of your loved ones that you'd like that person in jail for life. However if anyone murdered any of my loved ones I would have no problem with the death penalty.

 Rented Tritium wrote:
Yeah personally I think we should just abolish the death penalty. Life without parole is no picnic. Just put them in and move on.

Even if a loved one was murdered, I would much rather have the murderer get life without parole so I can move on with my life than to live with the execution process over my head for some number of years.

I mean, have you seen interviews with loved ones of murder victims who are waiting for an execution? They get CONSUMED by this need for revenge. They want it to happen so they can get "closure" but after a while it starts to mess with them and they get bloodthirsty. It's such an unhealthy way to deal with a loved one's death.

You put someone in a box without parole, you can put them out of your mind and move forward. You can also sleep at night knowing that if you were wrong, you were not a part of a murder.

Our justice system is FANTASTIC and I love it, but to say that it's so perfect that we should enact permanent and irreversible punishments is utter hubris.

Or you can put a murderer in a box in the ground after his/her execution and know that you were not part of a murder either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
Whats wrong with hard labor? If Cool Hand Luke has taught us anything, its that a good chain gang can clean a road.

For non-violent offenders we still have work details here that go out and clean up roads.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
You are perfectly within your right to say that if someone murdered one of your loved ones that you'd like that person in jail for life. However if anyone murdered any of my loved ones I would have no problem with the death penalty.

Which is why we don't allow those who have been affected by a crime to set the penalties for it.

an unhealthy way to deal with a loved one's death.

You put someone in a box without parole, you can put them out of your mind and move forward. You can also sleep at night knowing that if you were wrong, you were not a part of a murder.

Our justice system is FANTASTIC and I love it, but to say that it's so perfect that we should enact permanent and irreversible punishments is utter hubris.

Or you can put a murderer in a box in the ground after his/her execution and know that you were not part of a murder either.

To get back to the point you clearly ignored, 5 or 10 years later, what happens if they discover that the 'murderer' in that box in the ground turned out the be innocent?

What happens if five to ten years later, the Earth is hit by a comet?

Thankfully, that possibility is not a concern of our legal systems. However, the rights and futures of the people being handled by it are.

Although, in the case of a comet, it would melt up in our atmosphere, what with being made mostly of ice.

EDIT: Nevermind, comets are freaking huge. They'd screw us up quite a bit.

 Fafnir wrote:
Which is why we don't allow those who have been affected by a crime to set the penalties for it.

Does you point also apply to those saying lock the person up until the end of his/her life, or just the ones who have no problem with execution?

 Fafnir wrote:
To get back to the point you clearly ignored, 5 or 10 years later, what happens if they discover that the 'murderer' in that box in the ground turned out the be innocent?

And how likely is that to happen with recent advances in DNA? And with all the appeals that someone on death row gets? What sorts of figures are we talking here?

 Fafnir wrote:
Thankfully, that possibility is not a concern of our legal systems. However, the rights and futures of the people being handled by it are.

Although, in the case of a comet, it would melt up in our atmosphere, what with being made mostly of ice.

No, the concerns of how the victims' families might feel if decades later the convicted person turns out to be innocent most certainly AREN'T.

 Frazzled wrote:
No, the concerns of how the victims' families might feel if decades later the convicted person turns out to be innocent most certainly AREN'T.

I'm always amazed at how many people always overlook the victim to argue for the rights of the perpetrator, that's why I thought I would clarify what the crime was in the OP.

 Fafnir wrote:
Thankfully, that possibility is not a concern of our legal systems. However, the rights and futures of the people being handled by it are.

Although, in the case of a comet, it would melt up in our atmosphere, what with being made mostly of ice.

Also you clearly haven't read Lucifer's Hammer. I suggest you do so, and pronto. Its righteously excellent.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
No, the concerns of how the victims' families might feel if decades later the convicted person turns out to be innocent most certainly AREN'T.

I'm always amazed at how many people always overlook the victim to argue for the rights of the perpetrator, that's why I thought I would clarify what the crime was in the OP.

There is no right to vengeance. Nobody has the right to have another person be dead or miserable.

Whenever possible we should avoid killing people or making them suffer. That perhaps some believe that the death or suffering of another may do something to ease the pain they feel does nothing to change that. Killing and misery are awful things, if there is any alternative whatsoever we should avoid actively creating either.

Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Which is why we don't allow those who have been affected by a crime to set the penalties for it.

Does you point also apply to those saying lock the person up until the end of his/her life, or just the ones who have no problem with execution?

Of course it does. As I said, those affected by the relevant crimes should not be responsible for setting the penalties.

 Fafnir wrote:
To get back to the point you clearly ignored, 5 or 10 years later, what happens if they discover that the 'murderer' in that box in the ground turned out the be innocent?

And how likely is that to happen with recent advances in DNA? And with all the appeals that someone on death row gets? What sorts of figures are we talking here?

The number itself is irrelevant, so long as the possibility for any error at all exists. Unless the system is perfectly, infallibly correct in every case with no possibility at all of error, then measures must be taken so that credibility may be maintained. It's one of the safeguards and burdens that puts our legal systems above those of less developed nations.

Bottom line is that our system is not perfect enough to have non-reversible punishments.


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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
No, the concerns of how the victims' families might feel if decades later the convicted person turns out to be innocent most certainly AREN'T.

I'm always amazed at how many people always overlook the victim to argue for the rights of the perpetrator, that's why I thought I would clarify what the crime was in the OP.

The victim is dead and absolutely nothing we can do is going to bring them back.

 Fafnir wrote:
The number itself is irrelevant, so long as the possibility for any error at all exists. Unless the system is perfectly, infallibly correct in every case with no possibility at all of error, then measures must be taken so that credibility may be maintained. It's one of the safeguards and burdens that puts our legal systems above those of less developed nations.

No sense having a discussion with you if you're so absolutist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chongara wrote:
There is no right to vengeance. Nobody has the right to have another person be dead or miserable.

Whenever possible we should avoid killing people or making them suffer. That perhaps some believe that the death or suffering of another may do something to ease the pain they feel does nothing to change that. Killing and misery are awful things, if there is any alternative whatsoever we should avoid actively creating either.

Best not lock them up either, the poor dears might be miserable.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
The number itself is irrelevant, so long as the possibility for any error at all exists. Unless the system is perfectly, infallibly correct in every case with no possibility at all of error, then measures must be taken so that credibility may be maintained. It's one of the safeguards and burdens that puts our legal systems above those of less developed nations.

No sense having a discussion with you if you're so absolutist.

So you would be okay with the possibility (no matter how small) of you or a loved one being wrongly executed for a crime you or they did not commit in order to make the legal system more efficient, I would assume?

 Rented Tritium wrote:
The victim is dead and absolutely nothing we can do is going to bring them back.

So we worry about the rights of the person who meted out a non-reversible punishment of his own? Sickening.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Fafnir wrote:
So you would be okay with the possibility (no matter how small) of you or a loved one being wrongly executed for a crime you or they did not commit in order to make the legal system more efficient, I would assume?

So an absolutist position and now this? Are you serious??

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Rented Tritium wrote:
The victim is dead and absolutely nothing we can do is going to bring them back.

So we worry about the rights of the person we are pretty sure meted out a non-reversible punishment of his own? Sickening.

I fixed that for you.

Yes, many innocent (at least of that specific crime) peole are executed.

No, very few guilty people walk completely free.

It's easy to say that monsters don't deserve rights. It's trickier to decide who a monster is.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Rented Tritium wrote:
The victim is dead and absolutely nothing we can do is going to bring them back.

So we worry about the rights of the person who meted out a non-reversible punishment of his own? Sickening.

"sickening" that we respect someone's rights no matter who they are or what they did?

Really?

I think you need a civics class urgently.

 Polonius wrote:
I fixed that for you.

Yes, many innocent (at least of that specific crime) peole are executed.

No, very few guilty people walk completely free.

It's easy to say that monsters don't deserve rights. It's trickier to decide who a monster is.

The guy isn't arguing he is not guilty, he's asking for his sentence to be commuted. That's quite the difference.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Fafnir wrote:
So you would be okay with the possibility (no matter how small) of you or a loved one being wrongly executed for a crime you or they did not commit in order to make the legal system more efficient, I would assume?

So an absolutist position and now this? Are you serious??

Our universe exists as it does on even shakier probability. So the point is, would you accept the possibility of it happening? Of course I'm serious, because what you propose would admit such a possibility to happen in the first place. Whether it be you, someone you know, or someone entirely unknown to you should be irrelevant, all that matters is that the possibility exists.

 Rented Tritium wrote:
"sickening" that we respect someone's rights no matter who they are or what they did?

Really?

I think you need a civics class urgently.

He does have rights - including a fair trail, and multiple appeals. He got those. And the Court had a right to sentence him to death for his crimes.