The Son of the Bride of the Ghost of the Death Penalty Thread

Hi all. This was the thread I was looking for before on the death penalty but missed. Maybe a better starting point for death penalty discussion relating to the Tuscon shooting or just in general.

Reposting my comment from the other thread, The Illinois state senate passed legislation yesterday banning the death penalty in our state. Our now incarcerated former governor George Ryan placed a moratorium on the death penalty a decade ago and Illinois has not executed anyone since. The new law, hopefully to be signed by the current governor, is a logical final step in this process.

Again, George Ryan's moratorium was based on Low's reasoning about the death penalty, that although the state has a duty to establish legal guilt for crimes, mistakes are possible, indeed have likely occurred, and the state perhaps should not take on the risk of executing an innocent person.

Please consider reposting recent your comments added to the other thread here.

 

I don't know, man. I used to be proud of my country's anti-death penalty reputation, but after the handiwork of Theo Van Gogh's murderer... broad daylight, middle of the city, dozens of witnesses, and he butchered the guy like a pig. That guy signed no social contract. And for the past seven years, I've been paying taxes to feed him.

So I don't know.

 

Some people deserve death, there's no question. But there are so many other issues that get caught up in the process. Convictions based on faulty evidence, convictions based on deliberate police misconduct, condemnation of the mentally disabled and mentally ill, executions for crimes committed by minors, issues of racism in death sentences (at least in the United States).

It all makes for a problem too messy to allow us to rely on the infallibility of our system of due process.

 

I don't get you, Jabba. In every other thread you warn of the very real problems of an overcrowded world - and then when there is a decent, state-sanctioned way of cutting away the rotten flesh, you go all armchair philosopher...

 

I'm a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma, topped with pommes frites, cheese curds and chicken gravy. That's also going to be my last meal request if and when I ever make it to death row.

 

For me, the issue is that, while there are things someone can do that means I think they're deserving of the death penalty, it's also a flawed and imperfect system. I don't think that it's unethical for someone that took another's life under extreme or particular circumstances to, as a punishment, have their own taken. The problem is that there's no way to get the law to carry this out only when we're really, really sure, and to know that we're accurate. You can hope that in the sentencing phase, that would play a factor, but it's not something I can count on.

 

Illinois Bans Capital Punishment

Illinois governor Pat Quinn signed the abolition into law today. For those of you with sketchy memories of events from a decade or more ago, former Illinois governor George Ryan bravely faced a life in jail as a political prisoner rather than allow one more person to be executed in the state.

Soylent Green futures rose on the news.