12/13: Tookie Monster
The blog welcomes H.G. to the real-time blog. But H.G., leave your Cotton Candy at Wrgley Field next time!
D.L.: The debate over the death penalty is the as old as Cain v. Able. Cain didn't receive the death penalty in that case.
A.C.: And it was a first degree, pre-meditated murder.
D.L.: BC turf battles got nasty, too. Cain proved that sticks and stones do do more than break bones.
A.C.: Wasn't he banished?
D.L.: The first verdict in the history of verdicts was life in prison.
A.C.: We need an island of banishment for lifelong exile. This is something I wouldn't mind if we copied from the French. Papillon* style!
D.L.: Uh....isn't that Camp Delta @ Guantanamo?
A.C.: I know statistics can be twisted, but it's interesting that murder rates have dropped dramatically in Chicago over the last two years when Illinois has essentially had no death penalty. So much for the deterrent argument.
L.E.: Do criminals really think about their punishment when they commit a crime?
A.C.: White-collar criminals do. You see a dramatic decease in corporate crimes after prosecutions of the Enron and Martha types.
H.G.: The death penalty just seems so barbaric. Isn't our society more advanced than seeking eye-for-an-eye vengance?
--Bloggers, what do you think? Should the death penalty still be part of our judicial punishments?
* For our younger bloggers, be sure to check out this movie featuring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. Your Dad's will be impressed!
posted by CitizenU @ 2:00 PM
14 comments
14 Comments:
There are two issues about the death penalty. I was talking to my counterpart at UChicago, EH last night and he was so flabergasted at the heinousness of some murders. Some people deserve worse than lethal injection and the death penalty serves less as a deterant but as a way for family members of murder victims to come to terms with what happened. Also, the cost of life in prison for the tax payers of the U.S. is far too great. In the case of Tookie Williams, it seems as though the justice system succeeded in rehabing a murderer and gangbanger. We should cut the problem before turns into a catastrophy by improving the education and welfare systems to get kids out of gangs. According to Freakenomics, the reason for the sudden drop in violent crimes since the late 80s is the reinstatemnt of abortion with Roe v. Wade. Not only did it save the lives of thousands of suburban teenagers from being ruined, but it also kept tens of thousands of hopeless children off the streets and out of jails.
No for many reasons. First, new technology is exonerating convicts all the time. Quite a few prisoners have been exonerated in the past few years because of DNA testing. What if they had been executed a year too early? The gov't would have put to death innocent people. Which it could still do, even if DNA testing is not relevant. People are framed, they're in the wrong place at the wrong time, or there are coincidences. Keep them alive just in case they are innocent. Second, how can we say killing is wrong and then go ahead and execute someone? I like how Sister Helen Prejean, "a Roman Catholic nun and prominent death penalty opponent", put it, "Gang justice is, if you kill a member of our gang, we kill you." (CNN.com) Tit for tat? What are we teaching kids? It's like spanking--"Don't hit your sister, hitting is wrong" while the kid gets belted. Plus, just like kids can be raised successfully without spanking, so can people in a country be governed without a death penalty. Great Britain is one example. No death penalty, and Great Britain is functioning pretty well. Also, it costs more to put a person to death, between appeals and such. And really, spending years in a locked cage while enduring all that goes on in prison life (some of it illegal in the outside world) is pretty bad.
I studied this far too much in college...I took a class entitled "Homicide" where we would discuss different aspects of crimes every week(felony murder, juvenile death penalty, death penalty for retarded people) and basically read every major death penalty case from the Supreme Court. Thus, I don't really feel like a long death penalty debate.
However, are some of you trying to imply that if we catch Osama Bin Laden, he shouldn't be given the death penalty? Or when Saddam is found guilty?
Yes.
The death penalty is itself cruel and unusual, simply put I believe it is not man's choice to decide when and how people die.
We shouldn't keep the death penalty. It's too harsh. I think there are other ways to punish a criminal. I agree that if because of Dna testing that proved people innocent and that they have been executed early, the system would have killed an innocent.
I am strongly against the death penalty because we never know for sure who is going to die and what for. We never know if that person is really guilty to a 100%. I have always thought that the death penalty was a harsh punishment and I still think today that it shouldn't exist at all. France got rid of it. I am not for innocent people to die.
Even though some of these people are terrorists and they might deserve the death penalty, it will not solve the problem. I think that life in prison might drive people crazy and it's better that way.
I do find it interesting that the same libs who cite European social progress in those nations' choices to eliminate the death penalty tend to ignore the fact that those nations also have many more restrictions on abortion than U.S. states (i.e parental notification + waiting periods.)
I was also reminded today that the same libs who wanted Terri Schaivo killed wanted to save Tookie's life.
The death penalty is barbaric and, as cheryl k pointed out, hypocritical. It brings out the worst in humanity; the philosophy of an eye for an eye and, in bowing to the victim's families need for 'closure,' vengeance.
The thing about the death penalty is that it's purpose isn't really served, even assuming those put to death are truly guilty.
As a punishment, I guess it's a pretty severe one...but...there's no real penance involved (forgive me, I just finished The Bone People). There's no hope of repentance, and no guilt to live with. Plus, it kinda turns the guilty into victims...which seems even less fair to me.
Even considering that the families of victims deserve closure, I don't think the death penalty gives that to them. I read an article at one point that said it really cure the broken hearts of families. Does revenge ever do that? Especially revenge by someone else's hands? Or does it leave them with finality, but still grief?
Do we all need blood on our hands to feel that justice has been served?
*nod*
Anonymous, it's not that the libs wanted Terry Schiavo killed. We didn't feel that it's the government's right to invade the privacy of healthcare. It's the same argument as abortion. We aren't "baby killers", we're just not for the gov't getting involved in matters involving one's own body. It's not up for the courts to decide on issues like abortion and taking a spouse off the feeding tube; it's the woman's and the family's decision.
Terri Schiavo was a privacy matter; Tookie was a death penalty matter.
I tend to be liberal, but on the death penalty, i am relativley conservative. I have no moral opposition to the death penalty. The only reason I might oppose it is due to the risk of killing someone who is actually innocent, because if even one innocent man or woman is killed, the entire system is ruined, and it has happened before. BUT, in extreme cases, like that of tookie, when there is absolutley no doubt as to the suspect's guilt, when it has been proven beyond contestsation, there are people out there who deserve to die. If somebody killed my mother and father and sisters, I know that I would not feel that the death penalty is "too harsh" as stated by another blogger. If anything, it wouldnt be harsh enough for me. There are individuals whom the world would be a better place without, and if a person is a murderer who has taken many lives, the world would be a better place for his death. As for the case of tookie, I don't care how much he changed. If he had truly changed, he would have realized that he had done terrible things and needed to pay the ultamite price for his ultimate crimes. I dont care how much they repent, that doesnt make it all right. Tookie did terrible things and deserved much worse than what he got. But the death penalty should be reserved for extreme cases where guilt is not even a question, otherwise the entire system stands a chance of being made meaningless by meaningless deaths.
A HUGE YES! Why not bring back public executions. I mean, if future criminals could see their fate why would they commit their crime. In the words of Arlo Guthrie "mother rapers...father stabbers...FATHER rapers..." These are the kind of people that litter our jails with their life sentences. We should make examples out of them. Teach the generations of tomorow that these behaviors are wrong and that there is no tolerance for them.Bring back public hangings.
Thats all I've got to say.
Peace,
Stevo
Samuel Johnson said,
"There's nothing like a hanging in the morning to clear a man's thoughts. Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
We need more straight-talk like this. In doing so mistakes are made, but the golden mean comes closer into view.
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