Death Penalty. Where do you stand?

[Django]

DPD Officer killed in eastside shooting
^^This thread^^ on DISCUSS DETROIT was about Brian Huff who was killed Monday morning in the line of duty. The thread soon took on the argument that the death penalty should be brought back in Michigan. I didn't want to keep cluttering up that thread with politics when it should be dedicated to the officer so I started this one.

My deepest sympathies go out to the friends and family of Officer Brian Huff, as well as all police who put themselves on the line for our sake at measly wage. Please be careful, and for gods sake, count to ten.

Originally Posted by willmess01
Sorry to interject my beliefs BUT I am totally convinced that if the perp thought that he or she may fry in the chair [[if there is proof beyond a shadow of a doubt) that he or she would not pull a trigger so fast. Fact is we have an overloaded judicial system that lets people off too quick, lets them off altogether or can't catch them to begin with. We have too support the men and woman who are doing everything they can with very limited resources.

willmess01, I'm sure that may be the case sometimes but the numbers show otherwise. I myself am convinced that when a perp is at the end of his rope and willing to kill or put themselves in the position to possibly kill, they know that they wont have to spend their lives in prison because the state they are in will surely put them to death. Kind of like suicide by cop, or suicide by judicial system. I would think most criminals who carry a gun are the type that jus dont give a fuck. They are fully willing to gamble with their lives because, what do they have to lose?

The prison system in the US has become big business, largely due to the fact that the war on drugs has put so many ppl away and from the drug war came mandatory minimums, another scare tactic that hasnt worked. California is broke partially because of the three strikes law which automatically puts three time felons away for life. Get caught with a handful of dope three times and the taxpayer is going to be housing and feeding you the rest of your life. Rapists and murderers should of course be put away but I do not believe killing them will put you in anyone's good graces or do any real good. Anyone willing to kill another human being is sick, and as far as Im concerned, needs help.

If we are home of the free, why is it we have more ppl locked up than other country per capita? Were supposed to be setting examples for the rest of the world. We are supposed to be the leader, at least thats what we say, thats what we are taught. The more ppl who go through the prison system the more career criminals were going to be stuck with. Prison is just a college for criminals. Getting a job fresh out of prison is almost impossible, and anyone who spends a few years in prison is going to make some contacts and mix with others who no doubt will be doing bad when they get out. In essence we are creating criminals. Many will say shit like "mass executions" or fast track to the needle. We shouldnt be focusing on how to get rid of ppl who do shitty things but how to steer ppl to do good things. Thats what I believe anyway. I have no faith in this industrial prison system. It preys on the weak minded, and creates more ppl to store than it does teach ppl to live. The death penalty is just the easiest way to cope, its the first thing you want to do to someone who has hurt you so bad that there is no true recovery, its just revenge. Saying it will save us money is just an excuse to back up your need for revenge.

I love this country, but certain parts of it need a tune up. Eye for an eye, is there any thing more shallow than that way of thinking?

[gazhekwe]

Death is not a deterrent to crime. Who ever thinks they will get caught? Death is not a deterrent to speeding, or to drinking while driving, either. Plenty of people die speeding, or driving drunk, and still, it happens.

[oldredfordette]

1. Why is it worse to kill a cop than a child or an old person or anybody else?

2. Death penalty is murder.

[Stosh]

Django, you have just about hit on every single reason that there is to SUPPORT the death penalty. That type of person , as you put it:

I would think most criminals who carry a gun are the type that jus dont give a fuck. They are fully willing to gamble with their lives because, what do they have to lose?

Is what deserves to die. Plain and simple. Unrehabbables, which we are paying $35000 dollars a year to care and feed. That's money taken out of the city's budget, and the taxpayer's pockets.

And the over loaded judicial sysyem is that way because of what? MONEY. And, in the case of the Detroit district court, probable cause for incompetence. The murderer of that officer was out because the courts and police are seriously understaffed. And that's fixable. Less prisoners, less cash outlay, right?

Trying to equate the drug situation to this situation is quite simplistic. I'd vote to decriminalize pot, but the rest of it? Let them rot. It's their choice. Besides, the hard druggies are more concerned with theft it seems to feed their habit. I've yet to see a pothead do the same, have you? Thought so.

Why do we have more prisoners?? That's easy. Freedom. The basic freedoms we enjoy also enables the criminally inclined to do so without undue scrutiny.

The more ppl who go through the prison system the more career criminals were going to be stuck with. Prison is just a college for criminals. Getting a job fresh out of prison is almost impossible, and anyone who spends a few years in prison is going to make some contacts and mix with others who no doubt will be doing bad when they get out

.

So you advocate letting all crimes go unpunished? Way to go...

I love this country, but certain parts of it need a tune up. Eye for an eye, is there any thing more shallow than that way of thinking?

Sounds to me like someone's going fishing. Not a chance in hell.
And Gaz,death is an absolute deterrent to crime. Comparing that penalty to the drunk and sppeder is just not right. These people feel that nothing will happen if they do that. Unlike a murder, who conciously takes a life.

[Stosh]

1. Why is it worse to kill a cop than a child or an old person or anybody else?

2. Death penalty is murder.

So is murder. Go figure. It's not worse. It should be applied for all capital murder cases equally.

[gnome]

One of the things that makes me proud to live in Michigan is to know that we were the first english speaking government to ban capital punishment in 1847. I would never consent to bringing back capital punishment and not because I'm against taking extreme means in self defense.

The difference is in the temperature of blood. Cold collective blood is State sanctioned extermination. There is nothing defensive about it.

[Stosh]

One of the things that makes me proud to live in Michigan is to know that we were the first english speaking government to ban capital punishment in 1847. I would never consent to bringing back capital punishment and not because I'm against taking extreme means in self defense.

The difference is in the temperature of blood. Cold collective blood is State sanctioned extermination. There is nothing defensive about it.

Where all our problems started, I'd think. Not everyone is prepared for that action Gnome. Cold blooded? Hardly. Extermination? Don't make me laugh.

It's a fine line that you walk with that argument.

What gives YOU the right to be Judge, Jury, and Executioner??

You must be better than everyone else, or a jury of peers tasked to find, beyond a shadow of doubt, the guilt of a cold blooded murderer.

Cold ass blood indeed. Tell that to the widow the police man killed. Tell that to his kids, who's taxes are going to [[if they stay here) pay for their Dad's killer's room and board. FOR LIFE.

And it's every bit defensive. It's the role of the state to protect it's citizens. When the citizens are threatened, it's the state's job to protect us. So, they should.

[Jimaz]

There is no excuse for designing a detention system that can possibly fail, without permitting the death penalty, to prevent a murder convict from murdering again. Life sentence is necessary and sufficient to accomplish that end.

Killing beyond what is sufficient to prevent future murder is itself murder.

There is no excuse for murder, even, and especially, by the state.

[jcole]

If the death penalty is state sanctioned murder, then so is the murder of anyone who is killed by a second offender who is paroled, and quite honestly, I'd rather see the state sanction the murder of a murderer than another innocent victim.

[Stosh]

There is no excuse for designing a detention system that can possibly fail, without permitting the death penalty, to prevent a murder convict from murdering again. Life sentence is necessary and sufficient to accomplish that end.

Killing beyond what is sufficient to prevent future murder is itself murder.

There is no excuse for murder, even, and especially, by the state.

Then I suppose that we should raise taxes again to pay for all this largesse?
Research capital murder. And the NARROW confines of that statute. There are some that deserve life in prison, and some that deserve to die. I feel that an eye for eye response is needed.

Tell me if you love child killers and rapists that well.
How about mass murderers? Like them a whole lot?
Hugging a killer isn't my idea of a fun Sunday. Maybe you can have them over for tea?

[Stosh]

Here's the TOUGHEST law of it's sort in the country.
Texas capital murder statute:

With one exception, the only crime for which the death penalty can be assessed is "capital murder". Capital murder is specifically defined by the Texas Penal Code as murder which involves one or more of the elements listed below:[3]

• Murder of an on-duty public safety officer or firefighter [[the defendant must have known that the victim was such)
• Intentional murder in the course of committing or attempting to commit a felony offense [[such as burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, arson, obstruction or retaliation, or terroristic threat)
• Murder for remuneration or for promise of remuneration [[both the person who does the actual murder and the person who hired them can be charged with capital murder)
• Murder while escaping or attempting to escape a penal institution
• Murder while incarcerated with one of the following three qualifiers:
  
  • While incarcerated for capital murder, the victim is an employee of the institution or the murder must be done "with the intent to establish, maintain, or participate in a combination or in the profits of a combination",
  • While incarcerated for either capital murder or murder, or
  • While serving either a life sentence or a 99-year sentence under specified Penal Code sections not involving capital murder or murder.
• Multiple murders [[defined as two or more murders during the same "criminal act", which can involve a series of events not taking place at the same time)
• Murder of an individual under six years of age
• Murder of a person in retaliation for, or on account of, the service or status of the other person as a judge or justice of any court

[Jimaz]

Life sentence is necessary and sufficient to accomplish the end of preventing future recurrence of murder.

Relying on the death penalty to correct, after the fact, for some defect in correcting detention policy is excusing the inexcusable.

All of the above hyperbole is beside the fact and highly suspicious of an ulterior motive.

[gnome]

Stosh, you are taking the general and extrapolating specifics from them. It is a flawed debating technique as it allows the opposing view to do the same. The result is a disjointed and meaningless discussion.

However, let us just discuss the murder of Officer Huff. If it would have been my choice, the perp would be on a slab now. Clean and behind the ear. But that wasn't my choice since I was not there. If it had happened, which it didn't, I would have understood, but we are not discussing maybies or might-haves, we are discussing what did happen.

Since the perp is now in custody, and will stay that way until he is very old, do you see anyway in which he will ever shoot anyone again?

You say we should kill him to insure that he never kills again; I say he will stay in prison and he will never kill again.

This is not an abstract situation for me. It is not a thought experiment on revenge vs justice and which is right. It is not impersonal. To me this is very real...; suffice it to say that capital punishment does not bring relief from grief. It doesn't "turn a page" "close a chapter" or "let someone move on". The grinding grief is a scabless wound that never heals.

On the subject of mass murderers. They need to be studied and tested and studied again. You only learn to cure an illness by studying it. But again, this is a red herring in our discussion today.

[firstandten]

We have discussed this subject before and the metrics of this situation tells us that capital punishment does not reduce crime, all it does is pander to the revenge factor of some people.

1) It is more expensive to put somebody on death row to go thru the appeals process [[ which the prisoner has by right) than it is to give that person life.

2) Non-death penalty states have a lower murder rate and is growing lower by year than death penalty states


http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/dete...r-murder-rates

I personally believe life in solitary confinement is a fate worst than death. Read up on what prisoners think of super-max style prisons.

I also personally believe that the only way the death penalty could possibly be a deterrent is to have public executions where any and every body could view it.

As a society however, do we really want to go there?

[oladub]

Sometimes police have to kill someone in the line of duty where other lives are being taken or threatened. Since the police are agents of the state, that could be interpreted as capital punishment. Otherwise, I'm totally against the death penalty.

I had an anthropology professor at Wayne State who told a story about interviewing an aged Indian medicine man on Walpole Island. The medicine man mentioned poison arrows the Indians used to use in that area. The interviewers got all excited because theay had never heard of poison arows in that part of Michigan. The medicine man, however, would not reveal the poison used because, he noted, white people already have too many ways to kill people.

Maybe some of you who are into capital punishment would be interested in a Chinese death van that can go from city to city for those special occasions.

[Django]

Chinese death van
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...eath-van_x.htm

The killer in the pic above got his finger cut off by his father at 13 years old for stealing. Maybe he stole a finger. They call him the nine fingered devil.

In another article it says they also kill by firing squad and then send a bill for the bullet to the family. The death van is free of charge, no pesky bill collectors.

[Zacha341]

China has a history of being particularly "efficient" and unapologetic in the matters of ending life. Such as the abortion vans that corral up women who've become illegally pregnant:
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/commentary/11623640/

Chinese death van
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...eath-van_x.htm

The killer in the pic above got his finger cut off by his father at 13 years old for stealing. Maybe he stole a finger. They call him the nine fingered devil.

In another article it says they also kill by firing squad and then send a bill for the bullet to the family. The death van is free of charge, no pesky bill collectors.

[Zacha341]

Interesting points. I think it needs to be stated that there is a difference between killing and murder, as you somewhat touch on. If I am defending myself from someone seeking to murder me in my home for example, and they die it is a killing in self-defense.

I'd not be happy about it, but the extremity of someones effort to harm me or my family would necessitate my response. Period.

Regarding capital punishment, the state has made mistakes in the past, so I am not as certain and resolute. However, some states are not so ambiguous about it... I hear in Texas they have expedited their capital punishment process! I'd like to see what stats are out there on the deterrent factor for that state?

One of the things that makes me proud to live in Michigan is to know that we were the first english speaking government to ban capital punishment in 1847. I would never consent to bringing back capital punishment and not because I'm against taking extreme means in self defense.

The difference is in the temperature of blood. Cold collective blood is State sanctioned extermination. There is nothing defensive about it.

[Stosh]

Life sentence is necessary and sufficient to accomplish the end of preventing future recurrence of murder.

Relying on the death penalty to correct, after the fact, for some defect in correcting detention policy is excusing the inexcusable.

All of the above hyperbole is beside the fact and highly suspicious of an ulterior motive.

Sufficient? Sure it is. Just ask the ones in prison that kill WITHIN the prison system too. Lifer murderers killing those that maybe are there for lesser reasons. Feel better now for keeping these cretins alive? I think not.

I'd have to ask myself what ulterior motive motivates you to be that suspicious...

[Stosh]

Stosh, you are taking the general and extrapolating specifics from them. It is a flawed debating technique as it allows the opposing view to do the same. The result is a disjointed and meaningless discussion.

Oh sure. The usual fucking "red herring" argument again.
Stick to the discussion and stick your bloviated, pompous schtick up your nose.

However, let us just discuss the murder of Officer Huff. If it would have been my choice, the perp would be on a slab now. Clean and behind the ear. But that wasn't my choice since I was not there. If it had happened, which it didn't, I would have understood, but we are not discussing maybies or might-haves, we are discussing what did happen.

Since the perp is now in custody, and will stay that way until he is very old, do you see anyway in which he will ever shoot anyone again?

You say we should kill him to insure that he never kills again; I say he will stay in prison and he will never kill again.

Once again, wrong. see my post above. Prison murders are all to common. Can you ensure that this guy wont kill again?? No. He could easily kill guards, or other prisoners. And that is a cold hard fact.

This is not an abstract situation for me. It is not a thought experiment on revenge vs justice and which is right. It is not impersonal. To me this is very real...; suffice it to say that capital punishment does not bring relief from grief. It doesn't "turn a page" "close a chapter" or "let someone move on". The grinding grief is a scabless wound that never heals.

Waaah. Oh boy, I need a mop to wipe up the croccodile tears. What a hokey pile of crap this above statement is. Let's face facts. Unless you've actually known the loss of a loved one by the hands of another, and have had their killer executed, exactly how could you possibly be able to project these feelings on to another? How the hell would you know? I have family in law enforcement, and I know EXACTLY how I would feel if they were shot and killed by a d-bag like that.

On the subject of mass murderers. They need to be studied and tested and studied again. You only learn to cure an illness by studying it. But again, this is a red herring in our discussion today.

I love the logic, or lack of logic, presented here. Years upon years of mass murderers are available for study. That has brought what result? Maybe you can study herrings. You seem to be an expert on the subject, IMHO.

Curing mass murderers doesn't work. Once you discover the mass murderer, he or she has already killed their victims. So now we are paying thousands for psychological testing, for what? So these psychopaths can be well adjusted members of society again? Or better yet perhaps guinea pigs for new anti-psychotic medications? Now THAT'S humane..

[Papasito]

Cold Blooded Murder?

An eye for an eye.

Looking at life in prison, knowing that you won't be executed, will effect someone's decision about murdering someone. You know you aren't going to be put to death, no matter how many people you kill. It takes a lot of worry away from the consequences of one's actions. Especially when you consider that a "life sentence" is approx 40 years, and for every day of good behaviour, you have a day knocked off your sentence. So, 1 life sentence = approx 20 years in prison.

[Sstashmoo]

Fry em'...

[gazhekwe]

I'll say it again. Death is not a deterrent to crime. Who ever thinks they will get caught? Death is not a deterrent to speeding, or to drinking while driving, either. Plenty of people die speeding, or driving drunk, and still, it happens.

[ndavies]

The problem with the death penalty is the judicial system is not perfect. We have killed innocent people. The risk of killing even one innocent person is reason enough that the death penalty should not be employed. Life in prison is reversible if the system has found it made a mistake. Death is not reversible.

Secondly it actually costs more to put someone to death than it does to house them for the rest their lives. All that extra money goes to the near endless appeals and the extra days court days needed to put someone to death.

If there is no heaven and hell we are letting people who kill off the hook by killing them. Better they should live in the hell that is prison for the rest of their lives contemplating how they got there.

[Johnlodge]

This is a tough question, and with some people sometimes I really think they should be removed from the Earth, as they serve no good and never will do anything but cause harm to others. But... I would have to cast my vote against the death penalty.

And I will say this for Catholics, they are at least consistent on this issue. Thou shalt not kill. One of those things that makes them cross "party lines", since it's generally the right who is for the death penalty.