CA Death Penalty Close to Collapse

[IrishMist]

This is a deeply troubling thing to read because it is exactly the same rationale that many murderers use: "it's okay to kill X, because X is less than human." X can be a prostitute, a drug addict, a black person, a Jewish person, etc.

It isn't true. Those who have committed terrible crimes are as human as I am. I don't believe in any tests for qualification to be considered human because history shows us that such tests are used in ways that I, for one, am resolutely opposed to. A person who has committed murder bleeds just as I do, they need food just as I do, they feel pain just as I do.

If I were to condone killing another human being that would make me no different from a murderer. Just because my weapon of choice is the state doesn't mean that my victim doesn't end up just as dead as the victim of a murderer.

Excellent post, Grainne, and I agree. :clap:

 

[IrishMist]

I find it ironic that the cost is used as an excuse by the very people that CAUSE the costs to go up by filing repeated appeals on behalf of the murderers, child rapists and other such deserving individuals.

Make no mistake - if they DO achieve their goal of no DP they will not stop. The next step is a redefinition of "Life in prison" to be a maximum of 25 years with a chance of early release, like in their beloved Europe. Then it will be to make prisons more comfortable for the prisoners. There is an agenda here - the belief that society should not punish, just separate people who "need additional care to get along with others".

Who is this "they" of which you speak? I'm a DP opponent, but have always said LWOP should be the alternative. True LWOP.

 

[Amraann]

The additional cost is for all the appeals and the special way they house the condemned as opposed to the life without parole people. Life without a parole is still a death sentence since you die in jail, you just do it without assistance. It's actually fact that it's cheaper for LWOP than the death penalty. A fact that sticks in my craw that Florida has the DP but hasn't given state workers a raise in many, many years even though the cost of living has gone up.

You must work for a different State Agency than my Hubby because he has gotten cost of living raises.

I disagree that LWOP is a death sentence since we all die eventually of old age .. It is no more of a death sentence than the rest of us have to look forward to.

 

[deanws]

You must work for a different State Agency than my Hubby because he has gotten cost of living raises.

I disagree that LWOP is a death sentence since we all die eventually of old age .. It is no more of a death sentence than the rest of us have to look forward to.

GREAT point Amraann. :clap::clap::clap::clap:

 

[philamena]

....
I disagree that LWOP is a death sentence since we all die eventually of old age .. It is no more of a death sentence than the rest of us have to look forward to.

:clap::clap::clap:

 

[Ciara]

Well, then, you would not be in that group. There are people that feel that in the US "life in prison" should be defined the way it is in Europe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment#Interpretation_in_Europe

You will see them post occasionally, not on WS so much.

With execution as the pinnacle of the penalty pyramid we say the worst of the worst get death, the rest get life. Chop off the pinnacle and make life the top, and then the argument is that "true" life in prison is for the worst of the worst and the next step down, the ones currently getting real life in prison, should get a different sort of "life" which is, say, actually 25 years but we'll call it "life" to make it sound better.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Eventually we could have shoplifters given "life", which for that level of offense is defined as 2 days.

So true :clap::clap: Many of the sentences over here are nothing short of insulting to the victims. Its always "Life with a minimum of 7 years to be served" for example, sometimes for the most horrible of crimes. Only the really notorious cases get longer and even then its something like 30 years if that.........truly sickening.

 

[GlitchWizard]

.....But to send the family a bill for the care and feeding of the convict would directly punish them for something they did not do. That would be wrong.

Were it my child, I'd rather you send me a bill than kill my child. The punishment to the innocent is going to happen anyway.

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Were it my child, I'd rather you send me a bill than kill my child. The punishment to the innocent is going to happen anyway.

Unfortunately, the parents of murderers don't get to choose whether to bail their children out of yet another mess they created.

The parents of murderers are victims of their own children. We feel sorry for them, but we feel more sorry for the dead victims.

 

[Ciara]

Unfortunately, the parents of murderers don't get to choose whether to bail their children out of yet another mess they created.

The parents of murderers are victims of their own children. We feel sorry for them, but we feel more sorry for the dead victims.

Well Said Jeanna:clap:

 

[Pepper]

If they just lined them up and actually got on with the executions it wouldnt cost so much and it would probably be a better deterrent too. I also dont think they should be "protected" from the general population. They put themselves there so they deserve everything they get

Yeah, only in CA the DP means life without parole, since it takes 300 years before an execution will take place! If we in CA aren't going to use the DP the way it was intended, then I see no reason to keep it on the books. It's an economic issue for me, not so much a moral one. If it wouldn't endanger the guards, heck maybe we should give them all knives and lock them in the same huge room.

 

[Jeana (DP)]

Yeah, only in CA the DP means life without parole, since it takes 300 years before an execution will take place! If we in CA aren't going to use the DP the way it was intended, then I see no reason to keep it on the books. It's an economic issue for me, not so much a moral one. If it wouldn't endanger the guards, heck maybe we should give them all knives and lock them in the same huge room.

I agree Pepper. Use it or lose it.

 

[Dr. Doogie]

I am opposed to the death penalty because it is too lenient - there is always a chance of reincarnation!

(with apologies to the TV show from the 1980's "Hammer") ropeller:

 

[Dr. Doogie]

California has executed 13 people over the last three decades. They currently have 673 inmates on death row. If CA started executing them at a rate of one a week (instead of the average one every 2.3 years), it would still take almost 13 years to "clear the books" of the current population. And that does not include the additional convicts sentenced to death during that 13 year period.

I say its time for California to get crackin'!!!!

 

[Grainne Dhu]

If the death penalty performed hastily were really a good deterrent, then I would expect to see little or no capital crime in countries where they give the convicted a short time (one day to one month or so) before they are executed. And yet this is clearly not the case; people keep right on committing capital crimes and being executed for them in those countries.

The last fifteen years shows graphically the danger of hasty execution; there are over 200 people who have been found to be factually innocent of serious crimes when the evidence in their cases was reviewed and/or DNA tested.

The guilt for taking away many years of a person's life for a mistaken conviction is a terrible thing. It should be--something that can never be restored or reimbursed has been stolen from an innocent person. How much worse would it be to wonder if, maybe, just maybe, that person who was executed hastily was really innocent?

It has always been clear to me that there are very few people who commit crimes expecting to be caught. People who commit crimes don't think the penalty will apply to them because they think they will get away with the crime. Some are so convinced that they're actually shocked when they are arrested.

 

[Dr. Doogie]

But so would the situation of locking away an innocent for life without possiblity of parole if the case was never overturned. If some innocent people are exonerated, doesn't it make sense that some innocent people are not exonerated. We can tangle up our thought patterns with numerous "what-if's" - so much so that we will never accomplish anything.

How long is long enough to right any wrongly convicted cases? It currently takes twelve years (on average) for an inmates first appeal to be decided. Inmates then go on to many subsequent appeals which drag the case on ad infinitum. If the answer is never, then we have removed the concept of assigning guilt at all. At some point (Five years? Ten? Twenty-five?), we have to accept that someone is actually guilty and deserving of some sort of punishment. California has decided (at least on paper) that the penalty should be execution for certain crimes. Practically, we incarerate this scum for the rest of their natural lives, but only because of we lack the conviction of our principles to actually do what we say we should do.

One of the main problems with the DP in California is that there are so few lawyers who are designated as "qualified" to argue DP appeals. The requirements are so strict that the judges themselves that will be deciding the appeals cannot meet the criteria. If we lower the qualifications to a reasonable standard, it would advance the process and help move the cases along.

No one wants to see innocent people executed, but I sure as hell want to see the guilty ones get what is coming to them. The system, as it stands now, errs too far toward protecting the guilty. If some of us seem like we are too eager to start jamming needle into convicts arms, it is because we are sick and tired of seeing scum game the system and die of old age on death row.

 

[Ciara]

Great Post Dr Doogie:clap: