Attorneys pitch mercy for condemned Ohio man

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**d-usa**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Rented Tritium wrote:
Yeah, even if you rehabilitate successfully, they get back out and the whole world gakks on them for the rest of their lives.

You're not mad at society for being mean to felons are you?

Why feth with prison for anybody at all if there is no such thing as "having served your sentence"?

**Chongara**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Rented Tritium wrote:
Yeah, even if you rehabilitate successfully, they get back out and the whole world gakks on them for the rest of their lives.

You're not mad at society for being mean to felons are you?

I can't speak for him, but I find no merit in cruelty regardless of the circumstances.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

d-usa wrote:
Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Rented Tritium wrote:
Yeah, even if you rehabilitate successfully, they get back out and the whole world gakks on them for the rest of their lives.

You're not mad at society for being mean to felons are you?

Why feth with prison for anybody at all if there is no such thing as "having served your sentence"?

Are you for or against sex offender registries?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chongara wrote:
Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Rented Tritium wrote:
Yeah, even if you rehabilitate successfully, they get back out and the whole world gakks on them for the rest of their lives.

You're not mad at society for being mean to felons are you?

I can't speak for him, but I find no merit in cruelty regardless of the circumstances.

I'm not talking about cruelty when I say that, I mean if I owned a business and I had a choice between a person with or without a criminal record, I'd choose one without.

**xole**

I can't say I see the difference between life in prison and the death sentence anymore. Neither provides a hope for return. The person's life is over in either case. If anything, spending the rest of one's life in a small room may be worse than a quick death.

I say give the prisoners the choice.

**Hordini**

Rented Tritium wrote:
Hordini wrote:
Rented Tritium wrote:
Bottom line is that our system is not perfect enough to have non-reversible punishments.

Prison time is irreversible. You can't give those years back.

This is some extreme nitpicking.

I'm not trying to nitpick, nor am I trying to use it as a reason why we should execute somebody instead (although I'm not against capital punishment, at least in theory). My point is, while the death penalty is a very serious punishment, so is being sent to prison. While it's important not to be cavalier about executions, I think it is equally as important to not be cavalier about sending someone to prison or tacking on years. Going to prison, even only for a few years, can easily destroy someone's life and the potential for them to improve their life in the future, even if they are able to get out and stay out. It's just important to remember that while the death penalty certainly is permanent, sending someone to prison for pretty much any length of time has serious permanent consequences, some of which can be removed by overturning a conviction, but many of which can't.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

d-usa wrote:
Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Rented Tritium wrote:
Yeah, even if you rehabilitate successfully, they get back out and the whole world gakks on them for the rest of their lives.

You're not mad at society for being mean to felons are you?

Why feth with prison for anybody at all if there is no such thing as "having served your sentence"?

Exactly. After someone does their time, why shouldn't they have a chance to be a productive member of society? The fact that it's almost impossible to do so in many cases is part of the reason we have such a ridiculous recidivism rate.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

Hordini wrote:

d-usa wrote:
Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Rented Tritium wrote:
Yeah, even if you rehabilitate successfully, they get back out and the whole world gakks on them for the rest of their lives.

You're not mad at society for being mean to felons are you?

Why feth with prison for anybody at all if there is no such thing as "having served your sentence"?

Exactly. After someone does their time, why shouldn't they have a chance to be a productive member of society? The fact that it's almost impossible to do so in many cases is part of the reason we have such a ridiculous recidivism rate.

Criminal History Bankruptcy!

**azazel the cat**

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.

Nothing's wrong with hard labour; the problem lies in the fact that the for-profit system presents a conflict of interest between its need to turn a profit, and justice being served.

Dreadclaw69 wrote: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?

Even just once is too often. And the problem isn't with advances in forensic DNA analysis, the problem is with a jury being able to understand the findings, in addition to several evidenciary problems surrounding collection and transportation. Recombinant DNA analysis is fantastic; however there are many, many flaws attributable to human error at several steps of the process.

Also, the appeals process is sometimes seriously flawed.

**sebster**

Grey Templar wrote:
With the near universal use of DNA evidence collecting and other advanced forensics, the probability of false convictions on something so major is dwindling.

Ha ha ha ha.

No.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Polonius wrote:
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.

Yeah. Calling for death is a primal thing and it brings powerful emotions to the trial. As a result I think there's a good chance of the verdict being driven more by that emotion than by reason and a proper review of the evidence, producing a really shocking number of really poor verdicts in death penalty cases.

**timetowaste85**

Grey Templar 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.

It only costs more because of our ridiculous amount of pleas we allow, meaning nobody ever gets executed for decades.

Seriously, we should put some sort of limit on the number of pleas and a hard execution data. Say 5 years max.

If you have indeed been wrongly convicted, you have 5 years to prove it.

As was mentioned in the first post, the West Memphis Three had a man on death row, took more than 5 years to get Damien Echols off death row, despite overwhelming evidence of innocence. A backwards southern town looking for a scapegoat and refusing to accept the wrong man was in prison kept him on death row. Tell him he only deserved 5 years to prove his innocence when proof was constantly ignored. Tell his wife and their new child that, while you're at it. I'm not saying I don't support the death penalty: some monsters need it. I'm saying don't paint with such a wide brush.

**MrDwhitey**

And now in before "Acceptable collateral" comments.

**Peregrine**

MrDwhitey wrote:
And now in before "Acceptable collateral" comments.

Well, you know, the best way to ensure that the guilty are punished is to kill everyone...

**Chongara**

Peregrine wrote:
MrDwhitey wrote:
And now in before "Acceptable collateral" comments.

Well, you know, the best way to ensure that the guilty are punished is to kill everyone...

Killing people is very important. It's really worth any price if we get to kill people. Even if we have to kill people so we can kill people.

**Ouze**

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.

Well said. I don't often support the death penalty (but sometimes, it really depends on the case), but I never think a cost basis argument has any bearing on the argument in civilized society.

**boyd**

You can find reasons for and against the death penalty. The death penalty should exist as a deterrent for people who commit heinous crimes. I have no problem with a person who committed first degree murder being executed if you can prove to the jury he did it. I have no problem with the defendent getting one last shot to prove his innocence before his execution.

**d-usa**

The fact that we are killing people for heinous crimes as a deterrent, and that hundreds of years later people still commit henious crimes that they are getting killed for, should make it obvious that it doesn't appear to be a very effective deterrent.

**Relapse**

Considering the fact that a far higher number of convicted killers murder again, either in prison or after their release than there are innocent people executed, I'm all for the death penalty.

**Alfndrate**

I flip flop on the death penalty issue, sometimes I'm very much in the camp of, "What that man/woman did was a terrible crime, he wants to live? Fry him!". But in this case, I can see granting the man life without parole simply because when he was arrested, it wasn't an option in Ohio, and I'm fairly certain he would have been granted such a sentence in any such case for this crime, but I'm not a lawyer, nor have I served on a jury.

**Ouze**

d-usa wrote:
The fact that we are killing people for heinous crimes as a deterrent, and that hundreds of years later people still commit henious crimes that they are getting killed for, should make it obvious that it doesn't appear to be a very effective deterrent.

I don't think this is a good argument. I mean, you can say that about essentially any law - as x crime exists, should we bother legislating x crime? Just because a law isn't a perfect, 100% solution doesn't mean it isn't effective enough that it's worth having.

A better tack would be arguing that the law isn't enough of a deterrent to warrant state-sponsored executions; or hell, maybe argue it's not a deterrent at all. Is it? I don't know, but if I wanted to argue against it this would be fertile ground to plumb.

Of course, they're always the argument all life is sacred, so we shouldn't kill people on that ground. I personally don't believe that but I respect that others honestly can feel that way.

**Relapse**

A short list of repeat offenders:

http://www.wesleylowe.com/repoff.html

**d-usa**

Ouze wrote:
d-usa wrote:
The fact that we are killing people for heinous crimes as a deterrent, and that hundreds of years later people still commit henious crimes that they are getting killed for, should make it obvious that it doesn't appear to be a very effective deterrent.

I don't think this is a good argument. I mean, you can say that about essentially any law - as x crime exists, should we bother legislating x crime? Just because a law isn't a perfect, 100% solution doesn't mean it isn't effective enough that it's worth having.

Except that is not what I am arguing. You still punish crimes, like we have always done. There is a difference between "the death penalty doesn't deter people, let's stop passing anti-homicide laws and let them walk" and "the death penalty doesn't work as a deterrent, let them rot in prison".

But executing people as an extra deterrent has not been effective. I'm not even talking it hasn't been 100% effective, I'm saying it has not been effective at all. How many murders does the US have compared to other western nations that don't have the death penalty?

A better tack would be arguing that the law isn't enough of a deterrent to warrant state-sponsored executions; or hell, maybe argue it's not a deterrent at all. Is it? I don't know, but if I wanted to argue against it this would be fertile ground to plumb.

Which is pretty much what I did. I never argued that we should not punish criminals, just that "killing people to keep others from killing" doesn't seem to work.

Of course, they're always the argument all life is sacred, so we shouldn't kill people on that ground. I personally don't believe that but I respect that others honestly can feel that way.

For me it's not a life is sacred thing, it's just a "if there is a chance that even a single innocent man gets killed because of the law, then it is a bad law".

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just for fun, rates of intentional homicides per 100,000 people:

USA: 4.8
Albania: 4.0
Turkey: 3.3
Finland: 2.2
Lebanon: 2.2
Belgium: 1.7
Czech Republic: 1.7
Canada: 1.6
Greece: 1.5
UK: 1.2
France: 1.1
Netherlands: 1.1
Poland: 1.1
Australia: 1.0
Sweden: 1.0
Denmark: 0.9
Italy: 0.9
Germany: 0.8
Spain: 0.8
Switzerland: 0.7
Austria: 0.6
Norway: 0.6

So it looks like there are quite a few countries that managed to lower the homicide rate without the whole "We are going to execute you, that will show the others and keep them playing nice" thing.

There may be plenty of arguments for the death penalty, but "it is a deterent" doesn't seem to be one of them.

**whembly**

d-usa wrote:
The fact that we are killing people for heinous crimes as a deterrent, and that hundreds of years later people still commit henious crimes that they are getting killed for, should make it obvious that it doesn't appear to be a very effective deterrent.

Eh... it really isn't about punishment (like you're saying)... it's really about removing such folks from society. That's what it's really about.

As to the OP: if both the fricking defense AND prosecution band together on this, I'd side with them.

EDIT: I'm groaning that you're using that stat d... I'd argue that most of those are drug/gang related homicides that we in the US of A have in spades. I wish there's a way to extrapolate those stats in such a way to identify "gang-related homicides", "drug-related homicides", "burglery homicide"... etc.

*shrugs*

**d-usa**

whembly wrote:
d-usa wrote:
The fact that we are killing people for heinous crimes as a deterrent, and that hundreds of years later people still commit henious crimes that they are getting killed for, should make it obvious that it doesn't appear to be a very effective deterrent.

Eh... it really isn't about punishment (like you're saying)... it's really about removing such folks from society. That's what it's really about.

As to the OP: if both the fricking defense AND prosecution band together on this, I'd side with them.

But I was responding to the post directly before mine:

boyd wrote:
You can find reasons for and against the death penalty. The death penalty should exist as a deterrent for people who commit heinous crimes. I have no problem with a person who committed first degree murder being executed if you can prove to the jury he did it. I have no problem with the defendent getting one last shot to prove his innocence before his execution.

Edit:

whembly wrote:

EDIT: I'm groaning that you're using that stat d... I'd argue that most of those are drug/gang related homicides that we in the US of A have in spades. I wish there's a way to extrapolate those stats in such a way to identify "gang-related homicides", "drug-related homicides", "burglery homicide"... etc.

*shrugs*

And no other western country has gang/drug related homicides?

But again, I was replying to the stupid "death penalty is a deterrent" argument. We do have more homicides than pretty much every other western nation, and there are many causes and possible fixes. Killing people to keep people from killing people has not worked though.

**whembly**

d-usa wrote:
whembly wrote:
d-usa wrote:
The fact that we are killing people for heinous crimes as a deterrent, and that hundreds of years later people still commit henious crimes that they are getting killed for, should make it obvious that it doesn't appear to be a very effective deterrent.

Eh... it really isn't about punishment (like you're saying)... it's really about removing such folks from society. That's what it's really about.

As to the OP: if both the fricking defense AND prosecution band together on this, I'd side with them.

But I was responding to the post directly before mine:

boyd wrote:
You can find reasons for and against the death penalty. The death penalty should exist as a deterrent for people who commit heinous crimes. I have no problem with a person who committed first degree murder being executed if you can prove to the jury he did it. I have no problem with the defendent getting one last shot to prove his innocence before his execution.

Oh...

I stand corrected. Sorry.

I'm of opinion that the death penalty isn't a deterrence.

**d-usa**

Yeah, I hear the deterrence argument being raised every so often. In the scope of pro-death penalty arguments, it is the dumbest one IMO.

**whembly**

d-usa wrote:
Yeah, I hear the deterrence argument being raised every so often. In the scope of pro-death penalty arguments, it is the dumbest one IMO.

Agreed...

Along the same vein of this thread, EU court to UK: Life without parole is “inhuman and degrading”:

Whole-life jail sentences without any prospect of release amount to inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, the European court of human rights has ruled.

The landmark judgment will set the ECHR on a fresh collision course with the UK government but does not mean that any of the applicants – the convicted murderers Jeremy Bamber, Peter Moore and Douglas Vinter – are likely to be released soon.

In its decision, the Strasbourg court said there had been a violation of article 3 of the European convention on human rights, which prohibits inhuman and degrading treatment.

The judgment said: "For a life sentence to remain compatible with article 3 there had to be both a possibility of release and a possibility of review."

The court emphasised, however, that "the finding of a violation in the applicants' cases should not be understood as giving them any prospect of imminent release. Whether or not they should be released would depend, for example, on whether there were still legitimate penological grounds for their continued detention and whether they should continue to be detained on grounds of dangerousness. These questions were not in issue."

The appeal was brought by Vinter, who murdered a colleague in 1996 and after being released stabbed his wife in 2008; Bamber, now 51, who killed his parents, his sister Sheila Cafell and her two young children in 1985; and Moore, who killed four gay men for his sexual gratification in 1995.

The judges in the grand chamber at Strasbourg, the appeal court above the ECHR, found by a majority of 16 to one that there had been a violation of human rights. The judges awarded Vinter €40,000 (£34,500) for his legal costs.

Their decision means that the government will now be under pressure to introduce a formal review of whole-life sentences after 25 years. The current law governing release of life prisoners in England and Wales was unclear, the judges said.

Those on a whole-life term can be freed only by the justice secretary, who can give discretion on compassionate grounds when the prisoner is terminally ill or seriously incapacitated.

The ruling comes shortly after the home secretary, Theresa May, voiced her frustrations with the European courts in the Commons in the wake of the lengthy fight to deport the radical cleric Abu Qatada from the UK.

In its judgment, the grand chamber said: "The need for independent judges to determine whether a whole-life order may be imposed is quite separate from the need for such whole-life orders to be reviewed at a later stage so as to ensure that they remain justified on legitimate penological grounds."

It added: "Given that the stated intention of the [2003 Criminal Justice Act] was to remove the executive entirely from the decision-making process concerning life sentences, it would have been more consistent to provide that, henceforth, the 25-year review [of whole-life sentences], instead of being eliminated completely, would be conducted within a wholly judicial framework rather than, as before, by the executive subject to judicial control."

The new British judge on the court, Paul Mahoney, pointed out in his comments that the UK government was "of course free to choose the means whereby they will fulfil their international treaty obligation" to abide by the judgment.

In response to the decision, Bamber said: "I am the only person in the UK who was [retrospectively] given a life tariff on a majority verdict that maintains innocence. The verdict today seems in so many ways to be hollow, as I am still serving a prison sentence for a crime I did not commit. My whole-life order has now been given a system of reviews, but there is no provision for someone who is wrongly convicted to prove that they are worthy of release, such hope is in reality no hope at all.

"Reviews and parole hearings are subject to a risk assessment to gauge dangerousness and this is influenced by the inmate's confession, remorse and rehabilitation for reintegration back into the community. In my case I do not fit the criteria for parole on this basis.

"The justice system, despite the investment in the Criminal Cases Review Commission, still refuses to accept that there are prisoners who are innocent of the crimes they have been convicted of and this comes into conflict with sentence reviews.

"While there are some people who have been released at the end of their sentence and still maintained innocence, such as Eddie Gilfoyle and Susan May, it is unlikely that I would ever be released without my conviction being overturned in a court of law simply because of the high-profile nature of my case. As is always, the law does not apply if it assists me in any way."

Bamber's statement was released by those campaigning to overturn his conviction for killing five members of his family at a farmhouse in Essex in 1985.

During the original hearing in Strasbourg, Pete Weatherby QC, who represented the three claimants, told the court: "The imposition of a whole-life sentence crushes human dignity from the outset, as it removes any chance and therefore any hope of release in the future. The individual is left in a position of hopelessness whereby he cannot progress whatever occurs."

Commenting on the decision, Rebecca Niblock, a criminal law solicitor at Kingsley Napley LLP, said: "No doubt there will be renewed calls to pull out of the European convention on human rights and repeal the Human Rights Act. Yet Theresa May would do well to keep a sense of proportion: a right to have the sentence reviewed is quite different from a right to be released, and the number of prisoners affected is tiny – 49."

"England and Wales lag behind other European countries in the use of the whole-life sentence – the only other EU country which uses it is Holland. The repeated calls to withdraw from the European convention carry a huge risk of undermining the UK's reputation abroad. There is only so much the UK can say to other countries about their human rights records when they show disdain for judgments which go against them at Strasbourg.

"Making political capital at the expense of the rule of law is a dangerous game."

Here's a response to this.... here: Europe's boneheaded decision on life sentences without parole

**Ensis Ferrae**

boyd wrote:
You can find reasons for and against the death penalty. The death penalty should exist as a deterrent for people who commit heinous crimes. I have no problem with a person who committed first degree murder being executed if you can prove to the jury he did it. I have no problem with the defendent getting one last shot to prove his innocence before his execution.

The problem becomes though, if it is supposed to be a wonderful deterrent, you MUST use it.

And haven't we (the US) determined that a person convicted of a felony no longer has rights? I mean, he/she can't vote, can't really hold a job anywhere legal (or rather, that no place that does strictly legal business would hire them for any meaningful work), they are in essence among the worst drains on public funds and resources.

We also know of plenty of ways to execute someone that are just as effective as lethal injection. The people who do actually commit the sort of crimes that deserve capitol punishment, and are actually guilty are really inhuman, so what bother is it to anyone else how they die?

**Rented Tritium**

Because we're better than that.

**xole**

Given the choice, I would much rather kill rapists and child molesters than the average murderer. Despite the previous link on the topic, it isn't all that likely for a murderer to kill again.

Sex offenders, however, end up in jail again all the time. They deserve no mercy.

**Frazzled**

MrDwhitey wrote:
And now in before "Acceptable collateral" comments.

I think my collars are fine and completely acceptable. What are yout alking about...er never mind...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

d-usa wrote:
The fact that we are killing people for heinous crimes as a deterrent, and that hundreds of years later people still commit henious crimes that they are getting killed for, should make it obvious that it doesn't appear to be a very effective deterrent.

You just made the argument that no criminals should ever be sentenced, because laws haven't stopped crime from happening. Thats hilarious on its face.

**Monster Rain**

Rented Tritium wrote:
Monster Rain wrote:
Which is a major reason I feel that murderers should be deprived of the same thing they deprived their victims of.

There are two questions here and you are focusing on only one.

1. What is the appropriate punishment for someone who did X
2. Did this person do X?.

That's a fair point.

I would respond that surety of guilt is a spectrum, and there's no reason not to look really closely at who is getting executed.