It's even worse when you look at the list of countries that still have the death penalty: Afghanistan Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belize Botswana Chad China (People's Republic) Comoros Congo (Democratic Republic) Cuba Dominica Egypt Equatorial Guinea Ethiopia Guinea Guyana India Indonesia Iran Iraq Jamaica Japan Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Lesotho Libya Malaysia Mongolia Nigeria North Korea Oman Pakistan Palestinian Authority Qatar St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Saudi Arabia Sierra Leone Singapore Somalia Sudan Syria Taiwan Thailand Trinidad and Tobago Uganda United Arab Emirates United States Vietnam Yemen Zimbabwe That's some great company we're keeping, eh?
For give them Lord, for they know not, what they have done. Let us hope that Carlos used his last few minutes this side of Eternity to forgive all those who did him wronged. And, if indeed, he did, we can be assured that he is now Carlos, the Angel.
I didn't see anything that proved he was innocent. Don't get me wrong, Texas has executed plenty of people who weren't guilty, but if there's no ironclad proof that he was in fact innocent (as opposed to just not guilty), then no one will care and nothing will change. If he bothers to make a statement, Rick Perry* will stand by his long-held assertion that the system works and we've never executed an innocent man. We've gotten used to this thanks to the Cameron Todd Willingham debacle. *judging from the date, I assume this was before Perry's reign of incompetence began, but he's still had to claim numerous times that the system is infallible to defend his record. Former Governor Dubmass has generally avoided such claims, since he pretty much just doesn't give a shit.
Since the only thing I really know about Singapore is their fondness for public canings and their tough as shit stance on drugs, I'll reserve judgement on them. As for the UAE, I wouldn't call them civilized at all. Between indentured servitude, the sharia nonsense that applies to their citizens but not their tourist lifeblood, and their absurd adherence to their seemingly reasonable drug laws, I'd actually call them fairly uncivilized.
Considering the UAE all but allows slavery, I'm not sure why you used it as an example. Infrastructure is not equal to civilization.
TO BE FAIR, this was in 1989. I'm sure an investigation of the same case now would be much more thorough. I am still 100% anti-death-penalty and feel awful for the guy's family and friends, but I hope (perhaps naively) that the issues from the original investigation have already been "solved" for current/future investigations.
The constant is that people still believe eye-witness testimony to be the shit. It's not, but you put some tearful rape victim on the stand and let her say that she's absolutely positive that Tom Robinson over there was the man that raped her, juries will absolutely eat that shit up. That's something that hasn't changed and will still lead to somebody getting mainlined in this state.
Absolutely correct about eyewitness testimony. It's the absolute WORST in terms of reliability and accuracy, yet, we put people to death for convictions based on IT and nothing else frequently. Just have a look at http://www.innocenceproject.org/ to see how many people have spent decades of their lives behind bars for crimes they didn't commit, many convicted on eyewitness testimony.
You seem to be justifying your position by implying that *all potential* issues have been solved for future investigations, which is absurd. If you agree with the death penalty, it is necessary that you accept the execution of innocent people. It's as simple as that
It's pretty amazing how detached from things people can become when they don't directly impact them. The death penalty is one of those things. Does that acceptance extend to your immediate family?
If one person saying they saw him is enough to prove him guilty then how is another person confessing to the crime himself not enough to prove he is innocent?
Yeah. Like I said, shit happens. It's not like I would be overjoyed if they received consecutive life sentences instead. The whole idea of "this shouldn't be a legal form of punishment because we could accidentally punish innocent people" is absurd. We may as well not have criminal sentences at all since that's the only way to avoid that kind of thing.
Neither prove anything. Witnesses are often mistaken, and criminals often lie about crimes they claim to have committed. Jailhouse confessions are notoriously unreliable. To be clear, it looks like he was probably innocent. I'm just saying that down here in Texas, once a jury convicts you and has you killed, you're guilty until proven innocent, and it'll take more than a jailhouse confession of a different rapist to convince these people. Anybody who's not familiar with the case should read the New Yorker article on Cameron Todd Willingham. It's the prime example of that mentality. Willingham might well be guilty, but in retrospect there's not a single bit of evidence to suggest his guilt. Yet The Man continues to insist that his execution was just because he was a POS.
Well the idea is that all that's taken away if you're wrong in a falsely-convicted life imprisonment case is 20 years or whatever, so if you find out they still have what's left of their life to live. In a death penalty case you don't have this, obviously. I'm against the death penalty but it's a touchy subject in my family right now because my sister is eagerly awaiting such a sentence for the guy who murdered her boyfriend a few years ago.
I completely agree with you that making the death penalty illegal based only on the grounds that there is potential to execute an innocent is absurd. It's cool that we agree on something here. With that said, I am, and will remain staunchly anti-death penalty for a number of reasons: First, it's not a deterrent. Never has been, never will be. The cost of appeals almost always exceeds what it would cost to simply incarcerate the person for life Two wrongs don't make a right The death penalty is disproportionately handed out to minorities and the poor Speaking from experience, long-term incarceration is MORE of a punishment than the death penalty Given that The Innocence Project has freed over 1000 people who were wrongly convicted, I think until or unless we get a handle on this, the risk of putting an innocent to death SHOULD be weighed as PART of the rationale against the death penalty I happen to believe that the death penalty is incongruous with our laws against cruel and unusual punishment. Killing someone is the definition of cruelty. It's always been something that's baffled me about the conservative viewpoint. They're pro-war, pro-death penalty, but don't like giving a woman the right to choose to abort a pregnancy.
The death penalty is different in significant ways from any other form of punishment. Most importantly, it is conceivable that you can rectify an error in any of the other methods of punishment. Imprison someone wrongly and when it is determined it is wrong, you can pay him some kind of compensation for it. Fine him wrongly and you can easily refund the fine and throw in an extra for the hassle. But there's nothing you can offer to someone who is dead. The purpose of government is protect individuals from other individuals who would violate their rights. When the government becomes the rights-violator, when the people fear the government itself violating their rights, then the government loses its function, and the people are right to desire to bring down that government.
Yeah, except the fact that the law explicitly states that you relinquish those rights when you perform certain unlawful actions. So I don't see how anyone's rights are being violated.
Again, I don't see why this only applies to the death penalty, though. You could make the same argument for people who are falsely imprisoned.
Yeah, it has been done... There have been a few guys in the news recently that spent many years in prison and were later released because it was found that there was evidence exonerating them. And they were basically made instant millionaires as a result. It is hard to say exactly what an equal trade would be, but it's better than nothing.
Well, let me provide some perspective on that. Having spent 16 years 9 months 11 days in the big house, I can tell you with unequivocal certainty that I would NOT do it willingly for ANY amount of money. So, I guess what I'm saying is, I don't think there is an "equal trade" for a wrongful conviction that results in long-term incarceration. Oh, sure, I'm sure it's nice to get all that money and to become instantly free from financial concern for the rest of your life, but nothing can make up for the time you lost when incarcerated. I think people who have never been locked up don't really understand how dehumanizing, humiliating and soul-crushingly miserable it really is to serve time in prison. Until you have experienced it, you just can't really comprehend it. It definitely helped form my opinion that life in prison is a worse punishment than the death penalty.
I certainly won't dispute your point, Barry, but it's not relevant. Nobody's saying that they're better off for the experience. What we are saying is that if they're already in jail and their choices are a lethal injection or exoneration and payday, they're going with the latter, or else they would have hanged themselves long ago.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162...nerated-after-serving-5-years-on-rape-charge/ He wouldn't have been exonerated were it not for the perp stepping forward. Let this be a lesson to those who trust in our racist injustice system.
Those are a regular occurrence down here. In what I'm sure is just a huge coincidence, once Dallas elected a black district attorney the number of people getting cleared because of DNA has skyrocketed.
