New female addition to texas death row

[imthemom]

I voted undecided only for the fact that I think there needs to be reform but I do believe people who have commited such crimes deserve the death penality. All death row inmates sentences in IL were commuted to life in prison with Ryan left office for the fact that they are not sure who is innocent and who is not because they were putting people away who they knew shouldn't be there. I can say this, if someone in my family was murdered I would want to see the SOB hang, I would probably want to do it myself, so I feel for the victims family's and feel they deserve justice however, they want it.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

All of the recent exonerations are due to DNA evidence which wasn't available previously, and we also now know that false witness identification is the leading cause of wrongful conviction...

But it's been known for decades that eye witness testimony can be highly inaccurate. There are studies that were done way back in the 1930s where the researchers set up an incident and filmed it, then asked the onlookers to describe what had happened at timed intervals after the incident. They had the film to prove absolutely what had really happened but even as soon as five minutes after the incident was over, eye witnesses would give highly variable answers.

[QUOTE}so I would say the odds of a person TODAY being falsely convictioned are much, much smaller than they were even 10 years ago.[/QUOTE]

I hope so. Then again, have you followed the ongoing scandal from Galveston Texas? The state lab there was terrible, infested with cockroaches, mould growing on the walls, etc. They made many mistakes and many people were unjustly convicted on the basis of DNA evidence from that lab.

One Texas prosecutor said of that lab "if you told them to separate a given sample or die, why, bless them, you'd have to shoot them because they can't do it." That was a prosecutor!

Yes, an innocent man being imprisoned is a terrible thing...but likewise a guilty person masquerading as an innocent man and a victim going without justice and closure is also a terrible thing.

Thomas Jefferson said "better that ten guilty men go free than that one innocent man be convicted." I believe this.

I see your point about inmates having privileages so they can be used as a tool for discipline but to me giving prisoners Internet access is INSANE and having death row inmates who raped/murdererd/tortured their victims having their own seb sites is truly DISGUSTING and strong evidence that many people are misguided in where they put their sympathy..feeling sorry for the dirtbag remorseless killer and wanting the victims families to basically get over it.

So far as I know, there are no websites run by prisoners. All such websites I've heard of are run by sympathisers who essentially take dictation from the prisoner and post it to the website. I'm not sure how to prevent this because it gets into First Amendment territory. Someone who has no convictions and has not committed a crime has wide rights to freedom of speech in this country and that's the way I believe it should be. What we, as a people, gain from having freedom of speech (and assembly) is far more precious than restricting a few sickos whose speech is hateful.

I wouldn't tell any family to just get over it. But... there are times when there is something that cannot be stopped or fixed. No one has to log onto the web and look at any particular website; in such cases, I'd urge the families not to look.

Some people can't be rehabilitated, the problem with our system is that for whatever reason we can't seem to be able to identifiy the difference so non violent drug offenders and petty criminals are sent to jail for decades while violent psychopaths are given parole and work release.

I absolutely agree with this.

If people really wanted to reduce violent crime, I think the simplest, easiest step would be to decriminalise marijuana. All the money that goes into trying to stop the transport and sale of marijuana could be put towards fighting violent crime with far better effects. Treat marijuana as if it were alcohol; same penalties for driving under the influence, etc, but not illegal to have or consume so long as no one else is hurt or endangered.

 

[Kiki]

I agree with all of your post except for this.

If people really wanted to reduce violent crime, I think the simplest, easiest step would be to decriminalise marijuana. All the money that goes into trying to stop the transport and sale of marijuana could be put towards fighting violent crime with far better effects. Treat marijuana as if it were alcohol; same penalties for driving under the influence, etc, but not illegal to have or consume so long as no one else is hurt or endangered.

I have a cousin who smoked marijuana and only marijuana. He became psychotic and is now on medication for the rest of his life. A psychiatric nurse I know has had patients permanantly affected like this from just one joint. It is a horrible drug and it can destroy people and families. A lot of people argue "I smoked marijuana and it didn't damage me." Perhaps not. Perhaps they do have some damage to their brains that they cannot see. I think it's like tobacco. You can smoke your entire life and not become seriously ill from it or you can be one of those who are who will pay the price early. No one can predict how their bodies will react and it's just not worth it.

 

[Ciara]

Its true that cannabis does affect some people that way kiki but it also has the opposite effect in others. Almost every person I know across all ages smokes it. I have seen people who are aggressive or aggressive in drink totally go the opposite way with cannabis and I know of at least one guy given it medically to help keep his aggression tempered.

Alcohol causes more problems than cannabis.

But its true it causes mental problems for some people.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

I have a cousin who smoked marijuana and only marijuana. He became psychotic and is now on medication for the rest of his life. A psychiatric nurse I know has had patients permanantly affected like this from just one joint. It is a horrible drug and it can destroy people and families. A lot of people argue "I smoked marijuana and it didn't damage me." Perhaps not. Perhaps they do have some damage to their brains that they cannot see. I think it's like tobacco. You can smoke your entire life and not become seriously ill from it or you can be one of those who are who will pay the price early. No one can predict how their bodies will react and it's just not worth it.

I see marijuana as being more akin to alcohol. For the majority of people, alcohol is a slightly mood altering substance that they enjoy in moderation. For a minority, alcohol is something that changes them into people they'd really rather not be.

In some cases I know, while it may look like they tried marijuana and then had psychiatric problems, the truth is more along the lines that they were already experiencing troubling symptoms of mental illness, they tried marijuana in an attempt to self medicate, it didn't work and they decompensated from there.

As a society, we've decided that it's okay for people to buy alcohol; we hold anyone who does something wrong under the influence responsible for their own actions. Because the majority of people can handle alcohol, we've decided that the onus is on the minority who cannot to avoid it.

While it may be possible that moderate marijuana use causes some type of subtle brain damage, it must be incredibly subtle because it hasn't been found. Moreover, there are some pretty famous users whose marijuana use did not seem to impair their intellectual achievements (Carl Sagan, for one, was rumoured to be a pothead).

Marijuana does have a couple legitimate uses for which there are no effective substitutes--as an anti-emetic, for instance I know someone undergoing chemotherapy who has a prescription for the pharmaceutical equivalent, marinol. Doesn't do her much good because when a person is highly nauseous, keeping a pill down is more of a challenge than they can handle. When she can get hold of pot to smoke, her post-treatment nausea becomes a minor inconvenience rather than a three day ordeal where her life basically stops.

I find it ironic that the whole campaign against marijuana use started off from the selfish interests of a single company: DuPont. When they came up with the first effective, reasonably priced substitute for hemp rope, the company decided to try to get farming hemp made illegal in order to boost their sales. The whole "reefer madness" campaign was the result.

Since then, the anti-marijuana attitude has run amok. Many billions of dollars have been spent on "education," enforcement and punishment, which could have been spent with much greater effect in other areas.

Still could--think of the backlog of evidence for DNA testing. In some states, the waiting list is as long as 5-6 years (longer than the statute of limitations for many crimes!). If we could take the money being dedicated to controlling marijuana use to upgrade and expand lab facilities, that backlog could be eliminated in a year.

I'm not trying to make light of the tragedy your cousin experienced. It was a tragedy but it's akin to the same tragedy that alcoholics and their families experience. As a nation, we've decided that alcohol should be legal even though there are certain to be people who have a bad reaction to it.