Do you remember Karla Faye Tucker?

[Blythe]

I happened to recall this case yesterday:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karla_Faye_Tucker

I actually remember that her pending execution in 1998 was in the news even back here. I was a Christian at that time and I remember praying for her at the hour she was being given the injection...

Never heard of the Tucker case before, so it was enlightening. I'll drop my two cents in on the topic.

Do you remember that case? Do you think that she should or shouldn't have been executed?

After doing some reading, she was guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, and it was highly likely that her remorse was feigned. I don't like the death penalty. I really don't. In very extreme circumstances, though, when a criminal does not seem like they would genuinely reform and has committed a crime heinous enough, I understand the reasons behind the death penalty. I don't like it, but I understand it. I honestly prefer life sentences over the death penalty.

What's your opinion on death penalty in general?

The death penalty is a cruel necessity at best, in my opinion. I am against it, for personal reasons that I do not care to elaborate on.

BTW. I also recall from the news that the were pickets outside the prison at the time of her execution. While anti-death penalty pickets are nothing wrong, I can't help wondering about the people who were waving the "Let the B***h die" plackards. Is it a humane thing to do..?

If people were waving signs like that...for me, that crosses the line from insisting on a necessity about the safety of others/concern over taxpayers dollars and moving right into "angry mob with signs." The former is a concern about what is right, the latter is bloodlust.

[Rogue]

So, you don't believe in criminals reforming? And every person who claims that they changed in prison is lying just to get sympathy?

And if that happened, wouldn't you want other people to treat you with a basic degree of decency? Of would you be okay with them saying "B***h had it coming, she's obviously evil and should rot in prison"?

I do believe in criminals reforming. I just have a realistic view on it. And I don't believe someone with such a blatant disregard from life isn't capable of this level of manipulation.

As for the decency, I mentioned nothing on picketing. I said she deserved the death penalty. I honestly wished that trials and executions weren't publicized. Because making criminals famous isn't okay. Making a murderer famous isn't okay when people who make wonderful discoveries aren't celebrated.

Either way, my belief on the death penalty is that the crime has to fit and the criminal has to show no remorse for their actions. If a criminal brags about their exploits, they don't show remorse and reading a book won't change that. To believe so is naive in my opinion.

Also, there's no point in being reformed if you're not going to be reintroduced into society anyways such as with Life with no chance of parole sentences.

[meikle]

Personally? Bring back the more extreme punishments for crime. As for criminals having human rights? Some of them do not deserve them. They certainly did not respect their victims' human rights so why should they be accorded them?

We can't call ourselves better than criminals if schoolyard "she did it first" is the best justification we have for the things we do.

I appreciate that in light of overwhelming evidence to support the fact that the death penalty is inefficient, ineffective, and literally kills innocent people, people still maintain that sating their blood lust is the most important part of the criminal justice system.  Like Retribution is literally okay with innocent people dying because "Well, nobody's ever going to frame me."  This is insane.

Either way, my belief on the death penalty is that the crime has to fit and the criminal has to show no remorse for their actions. If a criminal brags about their exploits, they don't show remorse and reading a book won't change that. To believe so is naive in my opinion.

On the other hand, if the criminal does these things under the influence of drugs, while addicted to drugs, with the purpose of getting more of those drugs, then taking those drugs away from them for over a decade will probably change things.

Welcome to the US, the only first world nation that treats drug addiction as a moral failing rather than the health issue that it is.

Also, there's no point in being reformed if you're not going to be reintroduced into society anyways such as with Life with no chance of parole sentences.

Maybe this means that we shouldn't give life without parole to anybody.  If someone never truly reforms, that's what parole hearings are for.

[Rogue]

You know what. I'm just going to drop this article here.

I don't believe that a rapist or murderer deserves life. If they did, they would respect the lives of others.

However, my logic has been shot down so I will switch my position.

[Iniquitous]

Will I ever kill someone? The only way I would ever kill someone is in self defense - and I know the law well enough (father was a cop, brother was a cop, uncle was a deputy sheriff, my cousin and her husband are deputies) to know what is considered self defense and what isn’t. So no, I am not going to out and starting shooting up a walmart or getting so crazy jealous that I blow the brains out of a guy and another woman/man/goat/cow/whatever.

Will I ever deal drugs? Um. No. Why? Because I am a law abiding citizen.
Will I ever drink and drive? No. Again, I am a law abiding citizen.
Will I ever text and drive? No. Read above.
Will I ever perform terrorist activities? Nope. I am not an religious/political extremist.


Seriously? The chances of me ever ending up in prison is, well, zero. So, no I do not need to stop and go “well gee, what if I were to ever go out and brutally murder someone - wouldn’t I want some leniency for me?”. And in all honesty, if I was to ever flip my lid, completely lose it and do some heinous crime - I deserve the punishment.

As for the extreme punishments? I am all for stockades, I am all for making examples of people who break the law. Put ‘em on display. Embarrass them. Public canings? Sure. I honestly feel that if people were made examples of then other idiots would stop breaking the law.

And while I do understand that addiction is a medical and mental disease, there comes a point where that becomes an excuse. The alcoholic that has been arrested five times for drunk driving gets back out on the road drunk and kills someone. Sorry - at that point screaming ‘but I have a disease!’ doesn’t cut it.

Not even touching the whole ‘death penalty is anti-Christian’ beyond saying ‘an eye for an eye.’

[meikle]

Every time I see a debate like this I wonder where all the love and concern for the victims is because it seems to be all reserved for the criminals.

You know what. I'm just going to drop this article here.

I like #8.  We could reroute the billions of dollars we're presently spending on killing people toward supporting people, but that would be too sympathetic to criminals.

Seriously? The chances of me ever ending up in prison is, well, zero

If you believe that you have to commit a crime to end up in prison, you are delusional.  Reality simply does not support this at all.  You don't even have to commit a crime to end up on death row.  When discussing criminal law, we must always be conscious of the fact that whatever punishments we are willing to hand down to criminals will also happen to innocent people.  If you aren't willing to see the punishment dealt to yourself or someone you love -- even if you're innocent, even if they're innocent -- if that's absolutely not a worthwhile risk for the gain of keeping execution on the books, then you should not support it.

[Iniquitous]

Actually, I didn't asked about you being *falsely* accused. You need to realize that you might end up in prison for doing something criminal for real.

I will redirect you to what Beorning stated previously. I will not be breaking any laws that will land me in prison. I said nothing about being falsely accused/convicted. But, with that said, I agree with Retribution - I am not, nor will I ever, put myself in questionable situations that could lead to me being falsely accused. It's that simple. I am a law abiding citizen - I do not go to bars or clubs. I do not hang out with people of questionable repute. I do not act out. I do not go to places of questionable repute. I obey traffic laws, I follow the laws concerning weapons and registration. I do not threaten people, I do not get into fights, I do not have a life filled with drama, I do not have friends that have lives filled with drama.

And I already stated above - if I did the crime, I deserve the punishment. It's real simple. If I become a mass murdering fuck then by all means execute me. I deserve it. As much as I love my children, if one of them becomes a mass murdering fuck - they deserve the death penalty. I wont love them any less, but they would deserve it.

[meikle]

As much as I love my children, if one of them becomes a mass murdering fuck - they deserve the death penalty.

The issue is, one of them might end up laying on a steel table with a tube feeding sodium pentothal into their bloodstream for something they did not do.  They don't have to be a mass murderer.  They don't have to do anything.  They might be framed.  They might be unlucky.  They might have the same name as someone who did something awful, they might end up being picked off a list of faces mistakenly.  They might get a bad lawyer.

They might die on a steel table having done nothing wrong.  It has happened before.

And you're okay with that potentiality.

It's the death penalty.  It's not, "Do you think some people deserve to die?"  Of course some people deserve to die.  It's, "Are you willing to risk the lives of people you love, innocent people, to make that happen?"  Do you trust your government so much to never fuck that up?  I don't.

[Iniquitous]

Point blank answer.

Yes.

Because I believe that some people do deserve to die. Because I believe that some people cannot be rehabilitated and put back into society. Because I do not believe in paying for these people to live at my expense - I pay for their medical, I pay for their dental, I pay for their food, I pay for their cable, I pay for their recreational equipment. I do not agree with that. If they cannot be rehabilitated and put back into society then I should not be expected to pay for them to live a nice long life in prison.

[meikle]

You pay significantly more to kill them than you would to keep them alive, so your fiscal argument is stupid.

You're willing to kill your own children for it.  This is not reason, this is bloodlust.  Okay.

You cannot be okay with killing other people for hurting people if you're also okay with hurting innocent people yourself.  This is monumentally hypocritical.

[Rogue]

IO, please go read my article before you make that judgement.

Specifically the first like 5 points. Because it's more expensive to kill people than to keep them... unfortunately.

[lilhobbit37]

Personally I don't know whether I'm for or against the death penalty. I don't like the idea that killing people is ever ok. However, that said, I also don't want to pay for someone to live in prison for their whole life either.

If they did a crime that they can "pay penance" for and then return to society and be a positive addition, great. But if they did a crime such as this one, they can NEVER be put back in society. No one can take the chance that she really is reformed. Her entire life would have been in prison. Period.

When that is the case, do they deserve to live in prison their whole life? What positive thing comes out of us NOT killing them? They are never safe to release into society. That is why there IS a life WITHOUT parole option. Because those criminals are criminals that can not be trusted to NOT hurt people.

This isn't a case of maybe she didn't do it and really is innocent either. She did it. It was never in question. So using the "innocent people get killed" argument does nothing in this case. This is not a case of circumstantial evidence. She DID do this crime.

As for the whole blood lust thing, I disagree that anyone for the death penalty is just out for blood. It costs more to kill someone because of people like you who just keep throwing "well, they might be innocent" around, thereby making it so the courts have to do all sorts of crazy proceedings before they can actually complete the sentence given to the individual. I understand that in the past before dna testing there were many people found guilty who weren't. We also have people like OJ Simpson who WERE guilty and got off even while bragging as to how they got away with it. The system will never be 100%.

But I don't agree that it should take 10-20 years to carry out the sentence for someone. It makes the sentencing nearly pointless. Her murder partner died long before he could actually be killed.

Anyways I think I'm going off on a tangent, but those are my thoughts on the whole thing.

[meikle]

If they did a crime that they can "pay penance" for and then return to society and be a positive addition, great. But if they did a crime such as this one, they can NEVER be put back in society. No one can take the chance that she really is reformed. Her entire life would have been in prison. Period.

Why?  Because it was brutal?  Because she was on drugs?

In practice, she killed two people.  We release people who do much worse than that pretty much all the time.  Consider the case of the kid in Texas who killed 4 people under the influence of a drug, was sentenced to parole.  Should he also be executed?

This isn't a case of maybe she didn't do it and really is innocent either. She did it. It was never in question. So using the "innocent people get killed" argument does nothing in this case. This is not a case of circumstantial evidence. She DID do this crime.

This is not the only death penalty case, however, and whenever the death penalty is given, people believe exactly this at the time.  There is no 100% certainty.  There is never 100% certainty.

But I don't agree that it should take 10-20 years to carry out the sentence for someone. It makes the sentencing nearly pointless. Her murder partner died long before he could actually be killed.

People have been exonerated for being innocent of the crimes they were accused of after more than 10-20 years.  You are okay with killing them.

You are okay with killing innocent people.

. It costs more to kill someone because of people like you who just keep throwing "well, they might be innocent" around, thereby making it so the courts have to do all sorts of crazy proceedings before they can actually complete the sentence given to the individual.

Terrible, terrible people like me who don't want it to be easy for the government to kill citizens.

[Iniquitous]

Let me just say this first and foremost.

You are not going to change my opinion. You can call it bloodlust all you want. I call it being practical ... and I'll say why again since it seems that someone is only reading what they want to read.

IF a criminal cannot be rehabilitated and released back into society then they should be put to death. Some criminals do not deserve to live. Period.

[lilhobbit37]

Not to someone like you obviously.

There is no one arguing that she may have been innocent or falsely convicted.

No one thinks that.

And I already said yes there have been wrong convictions and deaths. I have never denied that.

Obviously there is a fundamental flaw in our prisons. People are so worried about the rights of criminals that prisons in America have become a place better than some people's actual home lives. Someone living homeless would be better off committing a crime so they are ensured 3 hots and a cot. 3 meals, free clothing, a bed, healthcare. Things that someone on the street has no access to or has to beg for. Being handed to them as "punishment" for breaking the law.

Now I can understand for SOME crimes, wanting to not have a harsh punishment. Rape and murder are not on that list.

Rapists and murderers should not get the decency of a mattress. They should not have pillows. They should not have blankets. They should be in a stone cell with bare minimum of essentials. No books. No libraries. No ability to learn and get degrees. No spending their time being "punished" getting access to things that many people can't afford.

I dropped out of college because I had no money. Yet an inmate can get that same education free during his/her "punishment".

So basically, I find the entire correctional system in America fundamentally flawed. It encourages law breaking, and encourages those released to return to their life of crime, because being in prison is easier than working in the real world.

[meikle]

My pragmatism ends at putting bullets into innocent people, yeah.  I call that insane, not practical.  What's even the point?  The system is meant to protect the innocent, it's broken if we're fine with killing the innocent to do it.

Obviously there is a fundamental flaw in our prisons. People are so worried about the rights of criminals that prisons in America have become a place better than some people's actual home lives. Someone living homeless would be better off committing a crime so they are ensured 3 hots and a cot. 3 meals, free clothing, a bed, healthcare. Things that someone on the street has no access to or has to beg for. Being handed to them as "punishment" for breaking the law. .. I dropped out of college because I had no money. Yet an inmate can get that same education free during his/her "punishment".

I will never understand how people believe that the solution to this is to hurt criminals more instead of to improve baseline human living conditions in the US.  Any other first world country in the world, crippling fucking debt would not be your only choice for continued education.  It is here because we value $$$ over people.  It's the reason our prisons are the way they are -- because we run them for profit, we imprison people who shouldn't be in prison in the first place to do it.

"It's too hard to kill criminals," isn't the problem you have, "It's too hard for people at the bottom to get by in the US" is.

encourages those released to return to their life of crime

WE don't allow those who are released to return to anything else.  Good luck finding a job if you're a felon.  Good luck getting by at all if you don't resort to crime.

But then you can go back to jail and start putting another fat paycheck into the warden's pockets, so the system is working as intended.

[lilhobbit37]

I'm not in the bottom first off. I live in the middle class.

And the problem isn't just the price of things in the U.S.

The problem is we are handing those expensive things free to the bad guys.

You keep focusing on the wrongly accused/innocent people.

There are thousands of people that ARE NOT wrongly accused or innocent.

You keep saying to treat all of them better because there MIGHT be innocent people there, who don't deserve to be treated bad. Don't kill them because someone innocent might die.

But if prison doesn't actually punish the offenders, what is the point of it?

Edit: It is very hard to respond to you when you keep editting your post to add more. Could you please wait and post it all at once?

There are plenty of jobs that felons can do. They may never be a CEO, but then again, since they get an education in prison, they might. But there are many jobs that people will hire convicts for. But it is easier for them to just go back to prison and have things handed to them than to have to pay rent, buy food, get out of bed and go to work daily, etc.

Some do. It isn't like there are NO reformed criminals.

But our prison system is set up so that prison is a vacation from crime rather than a punishment, then releasing them back to cause trouble to get back to vacation.

[Iniquitous]

Let's be honest here. Improving baseline living conditions in the US is not going to stop the sociopaths from going out and killing people. Whether you want to admit it or not, there are people out there that do not deserve to live. You can think locking them up in a mental ward for the rest of their lives is a grand idea - and hey, great. That's your opinion. I do not agree with it.

[meikle]

If you live in the middle class, you can afford to go to school.

A room with a bed, enough food to eat, and access to information should not be "expensive things".  That should be baseline living conditions.

I am ALWAYS going to focus on PROTECTING INNOCENT PEOPLE because I'm not vengeful.  The justice system exists to protect the innocent, everything else is secondary to that.

I keep saying not to kill them, not to torture them, because there's no reason to do that.  How do these things help to protect the innocent?  They don't.  They only make violent people feel justified in not acting on their own violent impulses.  Fuck that.

The point is to keep innocent people safe from harm.  As long as criminals can't hurt people, the system is working.  Punishment is functionally useless.  It does not do anything for us.

[lilhobbit37]

Middle class means that I live in a comfortable house. I can afford a car. I can afford health insurance. I can afford car insurance, cable, and internet.

I do not have 2-3k a semester plus books to enroll in college. Not to mention to be able to do that I would have to work 40 hours a week and go to school full time to get my degree or else take twice as long as I should to earn it.

While prisoners just have to sit and do their studying while serving their time. Not earning a cent. While my tax dollars feed and clothe them.

I'm working hard every day so they can get a degree while I'm unable.

And this makes sense?

[Iniquitous]

Protect the innocent? Ok... YES! Kill the little shithead that killed so many in Aurora Colorado when he opened fire in the theater. Why kill him? Because I do not want to run the risk that some idiot thinks he is rehabilitated and puts him back out in society to do it again! Or he somehow escapes to do it again.

How about the guy in Manchester, Tn (not too far from me) who was arrested for EATING PEOPLE. Do I want to run the risk that he somehow gets released and starts back up on his spree of eating humans? No thank you!

Again, there are some people who do not deserve to live. The death penalty is for those people. I'd rather have the death penalty for those people than not have it and need it.

[meikle]

Sorry homeslice, if your budget stops at insurance and internet access, you're hanging out at the bottom.  If you're making $50k a year, you can afford to go to school.

And this makes sense?

NO!  It doesn't!  We should be investing in an educated class of people!  It is good for the economy and for the nation! 

The solution isn't to starve our fucking prisoners, it's to feed our citizens!

I'd rather have the death penalty for those people than not have it and need it.

We've already established that you would kill your own children to avoid having to pay to keep a criminal in prison so I can't really engage with you.  You do not seem to hold any sense of humanity or essential human value and don't respond to reason so ???

[lilhobbit37]

Just wanted to add a note. I live in Rhode Island. My state actually has prohibited the death penalty.

We had a shooting in my city a few years ago. Literally right down the street from where I worked. A man was shot and killed.

The feds got involved and wanted to prosecute the shooter federally and my state fought for him to be prosecuted in Rhode Island so that he could not get the death penalty.

Spent money the state didn't have to fight for him so that he could be tried here. We won. Our state is going bankrupt. All our finances are in the red.

But the man who shot and killed a man in cold blood will not be tried where he could get capital punishment.

It is for reasons like this I am against getting rid of the death penalty. And against spending 10-20 years of court proceedings before carrying out the punishment.

If someone did a crime bad enough to deserve the death penalty (and let's be honest here, this country doesn't hand out the death penalty for just anything) then why should we spend the millions and billions of dollars to protect them, even when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are guilty?

[Iniquitous]

You are an idealist. You seem to believe that if everyone is given a comfy house, a good schooling (assuming, of course, that they actually strive to learn anything in a good school instead of, you know, goofing off/skipping school/dropping out), and a spiffy middle class life is going to eradicate crime.

Wrong answer. It doesn't matter how good you make it for people, there are always going to be those that shun the law and will do what they want - be it legal or not. It's the human condition.

[meikle]

(and let's be honest here, this country doesn't hand out the death penalty for just anything)

No, let's be honest, this country hands out the death penalty essentially at random, and the biggest factor is "What color is your skin, what color is the skin of your victim?"

We don't know beyond a shadow of a doubt.  144 people since 1973 have been exonerated from death row for being innocent.  In only 18 of these cases was DNA relevant to their exoneration.  The argument that technological improvements have obviated the need for delays in execution does not hold up.

You seem to believe that if everyone is given a comfy house

No, it's not, and I didn't actually suggest this as a solution to any kind of crime.  You are bad at reading.