I wouldn't be opposed to him being put in a prison ward where he gets ass raped every day guaranteed the rest of his life. But only if that was guaranteed.
I am a huge opponant of the Death Penalty, but there should be cases in which it's warranted. And I believe this is one of them.
No Person shall be deprived of LIFE, Liberty, or Property without due process of law. Found guilty is due process, whether the guy is actually guilty or not. The founding fathers clearly considered the death penalty, and considered the mere 12-0 vote of the jury good enough.
Death Penalty is a fucking failure in the state of Illinois. Just like our government... It shouldn't be tossed around like "YEAH FRY THAT FUCKER" because what if he was innocent? More than 50% of the people the state used the penalty on was innocent..
FWIW, no innocent person has ever been executed. Some people with a lot of time and money are trying to make the case that Cameron Todd was innocent but executed by the state of Texas in 1989. Also for the record, in the history of the USA (as a nation, since 1776), less than 5000 people have been executed in total. Most of those in a 20 year period around the 1930s.
Dang. You have little faith in the effectiveness of government, yet complete faith that government has acted 5000 times without making a mistake. And it really has to be faith, because there's no way to really verify your claim.
I have reasonable faith in the courts, just not in government bureaucracies. With all the appeals processes and 12+ year waiting periods before a person can be executed, and how few there really are, it's not difficult to see how the innocent get off.
The American legal system is a mammoth bureaucracy. But I suppose it always correctly and judiciously dispenses death sentences, because this is one government system that gets it right 5000 times out of 5000 times. And if you happen to not be white, well, tough:
Fine. Don't kill them. Toss them on an Island and let them take care of themselves. What it boils down to is that I don't want to pay to keep them alive, and I don't want the risk of them getting out and doing it again. I don't buy the "innocent people have been killed" argument because that may have been true decades ago, but how likely is it that someone will be found guilty with all the advances we have today, go through the appeal process, AND STILL be put to death despite being innocent? I don't think it's very likely in our day and age. 30 years ago? Sure. Today? No.
The american legal system is far more municipal and state courts than it is federal courts. In fact, the number of death penalty cases in the federal system (non-military) are incredibly few. Maybe 20, and those would be of the Julius & Ethel Rosenberg variety. I completely agree with you that the justice system is tougher on non-whites (blacks) than it should be, though it raises a slew of related questions and issues that are completely unrelated to the death penalty. This does not address whether there should be a death penalty in the first place. I don't view the death penalty as an eye-for-an-eye sort of thing. I see it as fitting punishment for heinous crimes. It should be enforced because we care a lot about people not committing heinous crimes and not punishing people for committing crimes would make the law (any law) rather meaningless.
I am to the point where I view the death penalty as no longer being much of a deterrent, so I'll just take whichever option costs me less but still keeps the guy off the streets.
I might have my facts wrong, but Illinois refuses to do the death penalty. It might be that someone is putting into the system to be executed, on death row.. and then the state figured out it was someone else.
The governor of Illinois suspended executions pending a review of the procedures and facts that put people on death row. http://www.dailyillini.com/blogs/di...nois-death-penalty-can-wait-for-fixes-funding In 2000, former Illinois Governor George Ryan put a moratorium in place on the death penalty in the state, clearing death row as he left office. This fall, the race between incumbent Pat Quinn (who has maintained Ryan’s moratorium and said he would continue to do so in the immediate future) and Republican Bill Brady (who has said he would lift it) will determine the death penalty’s future. Quinn has said he does support the death penalty in certain instances, but has kept the moratorium intact until the mistake-prone system has been revised. With an 89.9 percent forecast of a Brady victory (by the New York Times, as of September 21), the return of the death penalty is a very possible reality.
That's a compelling case that not enough white criminals have been given the death penalty. I fail to see how it has any saving significance for non-white criminals, who have been given exactly what they deserved more consistently.
Bottom line. Spend less on appeals, fry 'em and stick a fork in 'em, and then we have more money for schools.
