<p>“Like what? (Compared with any murder case for instance.)”</p>
<p>Just off the top of my head, I can think of 4:</p>
<p>1.The accused were caught at the scene of the crime. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt of their guilt. Didn’t people think that about O.J. Simpson?</p>
<p>2.The horrific nature of the crimes, children were tortured and suffered terrible pain.</p>
<p>3.The accused seem to be victims, also. To what degree is unclear. Victims have different culpability. The “compulsion to repeat” is a real psychological phenomenon. Same as pedophiles. Their histories have to be revealed to make a judgement.</p>
<p>4.As the neighbor posted, this crime had other victims - the neighbors. This also is a consideration in their punishment.</p>
<p>As far as being caught at the scene of the crime, watch The Green Mile or read the book. That’s not perfect. Likewise, if the crime is horrific, you still need to catch the correct culprits. I think there is actually more risk that an incorrect person will be accused when the crime is horrific because of emotional influences.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the guilty should be punished. Not to deter. Not to save money. Just to scrub away some of the scum of society. Simple as that. </p>
<p>I am pretty sure that there are protections for the mentally ill and underage kids, but I haven’t done any reading in that area for the past year.</p>
<p>Again, back to The Green Mile, even gentle souls can recognize true evil and “bad men” and condemn them accordingly. </p>
<p>I haven’t seen the movie, but it’s probably useful to note that The Green Mile is a work of entertainment, not a historical record. I wouldn’t use fiction to bolster a policy discussion. (Even if it is “based on a true story,” I guarantee it has fictionalized elements.)</p>
<p>“I’m afraid my parser failed here – I don’t get your point. I’m all in favor of incarcerating guilty parties. I am NOT in favor of imprisoning 50 because I know one of them is guilty, but can’t tell which one. What are you suggesting?”</p>
<p>I guess I’m suggesting that I disagree with your original statement that you would rather see 100 guilty people **go free **rather than execute 1 innocent person. Perhaps you really meant that you would rather incarcerate 100 guilty people and one innocent person for life rather than execute all 101 people. </p>
<p>However, if you really meant that you would rather set free 100 guilty people rather than falsely imprison/execute one innocent person, I have a problem with that since in the case of al Qaeda or other serial killers, the net result would be a whole lot more than one innocent person dieing.</p>
<p>Alwaysamom- I guess it’s the “life without possibilty of parole”- is there really such a thing? Has any state or country really stuck to that sentence"</p>
<p>Yeah, there really is, and we really have. It’s costing us a fortune, of course, in health care costs - lots of those folks are now, really old, as in sick. </p>
<p>But governments always can come up with good reasons for killing people. (innocent or guilty doesn’t really matter.) If you want to find reasons, there are always reasons around.</p>
<p>“That’s only because our legal system is set up to drag out the process of carrying out the death sentence. So not only must they STILL be sheltered, clothed, feed, and provided for medically for years into the foreseeable future, while the appeals process grinds on and on, but staggering amounts in legal costs must be wasted in that process. That needs to change.”</p>
<p>how? make the death penalty easier to give? Therefore increasing the number on innocent people given the death penalty?"</p>
<p>Not easier. Swifter. I Obviously did not make this position clear in previous posts, but I believe we SHOULD NOT administer the death penalty in cases where guilt might be reasonably called into question. But, it’s not as if we don’t encounter countless cases of heinous murder each year whereby the identity of the perpetrator isn’t crystal clear. When there’s guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt, we shouldn’t be wringing our hands, worrying that we might be putting an innocent man/woman to death. Once guilt of this sort is established, we shouldn’t allow the perpetrator to spend years gaming the system, wasting precious resources and making a mockery of our legal system, and thumbing their noses at victims and their families.</p>
<p>Right now, we have a prison system whereby prisoners, for all intents and purposes RUN the prisons. They determine the social hierarchy. They commit murder within its walls. They engage in an active drug trade WITHIN ITS WALLS. They train less hardened inmates how to commit ever more heinous crimes once they are released. They run gangs and other types of organized crime FROM prison. Why is it that our society seems to have no recourse in dealing with the way that our prison system fails us over and over? Why is everything hunky dory as long as we don’t enforce the death penalty? Anybody have any ideas as to what we should be doing differently?</p>
<p>“Why is everything hunky dory as long as we don’t enforce the death penalty? Anybody have any ideas as to what we should be doing differently?”</p>
<p>I go with you part of the way. I once worked as Coordinator of the Pennsylvania Council to Abolish the Death Penalty. I left the position not because my views have changed (if anything, they’ve become stronger), but because folks always wanted me to make the argument about the poor innocent folks who might get killed, and I wanted to argue that a civilized society wouldn’t execute the guilty. When other civilized nations abolished the death penalty, it wasn’t because innocent folks were being put to death, but because they had come to the conclusion that societies were more civilized when they decided to forego the ultimate punishment.</p>
<p>But both murder and the death penalty are at the end of a chain of events that lead to two brutal events. I am now much more interested in what happens prior. No, it won’t eliminate the crazies in the world - we live in a big world, and there is always someone who would do just about anything! I also know that nations with strict gun control laws have much, much lower rates of murder. </p>
<p>Putting that aside, the big question is how we best intervene in the lives of people who are clearly very troubled before they get us all into trouble. That’s what I spend 40 hours a week on.</p>
<p>prisons are full of drug addicts, wow that is a good use of resources right there</p>
<p>as for solving a crimem huh?</p>
<p>its a good thing we are montoring and spying on people using our resources so wisely to check phone calls, while, gee instead we could be using that $ to go after some known criminals</p>
<p>when you put cops on terrorists watch etc, and take away $ from the likes of barrons piece, looko what we end up with</p>
<p>cops, PAs, all over worked- and if we have computers that can monitor my phone calls, why can’t we track an abuser</p>
<p>Under no circumstances would he have received the death penalty for his previous crimes, so I don’t quite understand what your point is. Are you supporting the death penalty for lesser crimes?</p>
<p>I actually agree with fundingfather - many people would be quite willing to execute a person or two, perhaps even without trial, if it made them feel safer. When you’ve had a Democratic President that felt that way about killing half a million children, and was willing to have his spokesperson say so publicly, why would we expect most people to feel differently? </p>
<p>Anyhow, other countries have found ways to deal with these situations better than we have, and without the death penalty which, in the main and regardless of one’s opinion pro or con, I think is a distraction. Maybe, as in health care, we could learn a thing or two.</p>
<p>Yup. That’s why, instead of focusing on the death penalty, we need to find effective ways to intervene in the lives of troubled folks earlier. The death penalty is just a distraction.</p>
<p>Mini’s view that the death penalty is “just a distraction” is shared by many in law enforcement, including longtime Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau:</p>
<p>“Yup. That’s why, instead of focusing on the death penalty, we need to find effective ways to intervene in the lives of troubled folks earlier. The death penalty is just a distraction.”</p>
<p>Nice thought but has not worked that well so far. In the news item I linked you missed the point completely. A. He was in the system for similar crimes–short of murder–and was put back on the streets and new crimes were overlooked. B. The threat of the death penalty led to a speedy solution of the murder case and finding the victim’s body which was a great relief to the parents. As opposed to Morgenthau the local DA’s are finding the DP threat a useful chip. Even the worst murderers fear it and will plead guilty to avoid it.</p>
<p>Anyone who clicks on my post #54, take a look at the title at the top of the paper.</p>
<p>I pulled this out of an old bookmarked file I had from previous research, to support the idea of “compulsion to repeat”, which I had argued earlier.</p>
<p>So I still don’t get it. Should he have been executed for crimes short of murder? (I won’t even ask if the DP deterred him from his crimes - obviously not.)</p>
<p>The worst murderers, with the DP hanging over their heads, will commit more murders to cover up their crimes.</p>
<p>Overall, I still think it is a distraction. Marginal benefits either way. Has no long-term effects on crime and crime rates one way or the other. Plenty of other things better to focus on.</p>
<p>No, he should not have been executed on the previous crimes. He probably should have been locked up for a MUCH longer time though and the system should have done a MUCH better job of following up on his later crimes. That might have prevented the killing. </p>
<p>Weren’t you the one extolling the low risk of sex criminals. Since then we have had several major cases of repeat sex criminals moving up to murder.</p>
<p>I agree with poetheart. Sociopaths or terrorists who deliberately and consciously destroy or threaten human lives thereby exclude themselves from human ranks and should be treated as such. Hence I dont see any moral dilemma with implementing the death penalty. On the contrary, I would consider it immoral to let these creatures live. </p>
<p>Of course, my opinion does not apply to those cases where guilt is not established without any doubts via court trial. But then, again, what about sentencing those people to life in prison without parole? What if wrongfully convicted person spends an entire life in isolation, which in some peoples opinion is a far worse punishment then the death penalty? Is this more humane or civilized then the death penalty? Perhaps those suspected criminals should not be punished at all, just monitored to avoid further crimes?</p>
<p>BTW, I am surprised by the number of respondents stating that they generally oppose the death penalty, but this case prompted them to change their opinion. Didnt they know that many death penalty cases are very similar to this one? </p>
<p>As for death penalty opponents, would anyone be willing to draft a legal document stating that if they or their dependents (list names of underage children) get kidnapped, sodomized, abused, raped, tortured and murdered, they would plead the court to excuse their convicted murders from the death penalty regardless of circumstances? I mean it. This act would be beneficial in several ways via: 1. Potentially saving someones life. 2. Supporting and enforcing their principles at their own expense. 3. Connecting with civilized world. In a sense, this would be no different from authorizing organ donation in case of accidental death by signing the driving license.</p>