Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Dubiously guilty man set to die Sept. 23!

As the Trommites would say, Troy Davis was just transmuted to a higher state.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/troy-davis-execution-stay-denied-supreme-court/story?id=14571862

The zombie "justice" system claims another life.

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Thanx to any of you who took an action.

Thanks, Kid Charlemagene, for bringing this issue some attention. Many posters here are probably too young to remember when the use of the death penalty wasn't considered a done deal in the United States and when liberal politicians weren't afraid to say that they opposed it. The Davis case raises questions that illustrate the reasons why some of us oppose the death penalty.

It's sad that Capital Punishment persists when its a given that no justice system is perfect.

I don't believe in CP anyway, but I always find it strange that those who feel its morally OK can't see that it's still subject to such tremendous flaws.

If it hadn't been abolished here for instance, David Milgaard would most definitely be dead right now.

I once supported CP, but then I learned how many times the wrong person is convicted, and even executed.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Agreed so much.

It's revolting to me on so many levels that we can't even keep people housed, employed and fed in America, but you can always find some creep who'll dance for joy at an execution.

Sorry, but despite it's many many flaws, I think that the justice system is better with Capital Punishment than without much like I think the flawed 'Democratic' Goverrnment is better than Communism, a Monarchy or a Dictatorship. There are indivduals that are beyond repair or redemption and I see no need to store them and pay for their upkeep for the rest of their lives. If you wish to change/improve the system, then work on the trial process, not the sentencing (unless you wish to extend the Death Sentence to include child molesters, rapists and terrorist of any kind). IF there was a failure in this instance (and I AM NOT convinced there was), then it was in that part of the process.

No, sorry.

Legal executions are a mark of barbarism, IMHO.

A legal execution of an innocent person is doubly barbaric, and never acceptable.

Agreed.

Not to mention that it's not proven to deter crime. There's a lot of supporting data that shows a relationship between the death penalty and violent crime. For instance, states without the death penalty have less violent crime.

There is one huge deterent it provides that those against ALWAYS ignore: There has never been a repeat offense by someone that has been executed. Now, Look at the number of murderers that have repeated the offence and tell me that it isn't a deterent. The same could be said of rapists or of child molestors. They can not repeat the offence if they are dead... Can they?

Agreed with that part of your statement, and only that part. That is why a jury, the judge and the prosecution should be damn sure that they believe the party is guilty and that it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Also why there should be serious reprecussions for anyone found to have not done their job in the prosecution, defense, or judgement of the case through choice or error.

And in my opinion, an execution is the logical way to deal with a person that can not be fixed and released back into the population due to the threat they pose to others. It is more cost effective AND it is less cruel to the Criminal themselses. If you want to torture them (and I have to admit that I often entertain the notion) then by all means, keep them locked up for the rest of their lives with no hope of ever re-entering into society and always aware of that fact. Now THAT would truly be cruel punishment.

I reject your logic, not to mention the idea that cost alone should determine national policy.

One of my major issues with legal execution is that it encourages human beings to develop god complexes, as you illustrate neatly in your untenable assertion that life imprisonment is less cruel than death. How can you possibly clarify this? Are you psychic? And is every prisoner in jail the same?

My logic is simple and unasailable by any reasonable person: A dead offender can not re-offend.
As for the cost being the only factor.... can you not read? Look at my my statements again. Cost is not the only reason I give. My belief in the cruelty to the imprisoned is mentioned in my reply to you and my concern for future victems of the guilty is mentioned in another of my posts. And how dare you accuse me of having a 'God complex'? Is not your belief just as arogant? Are you psychic enough to know which accused are guilty and which are innocent? That is what the judge and jury are for and if you can do a better job of it then please do. I also hate to think of the innocents that the system has failed... on both sides. But it is the best system I know of and I do not know how to improve it.
Basicly, I think this comes down to 1 issue though: You have your opinion and I have mine and I don't think either one of us is going to change the other's mind. So, we can agree to disagree about thiss issue and let it go. Or, we can take this further, get really nasty to each other about it and still not change the other person's mind.
So what will it be?

There are alternate means of preventing convicted murderers from repeating their offenses.

Besides ... keeping people from repeating their crimes is nowhere near as effective as never having the crimes in the first place.

what would gates say about all this??


nothing, as he also was murdered unjustly. thanks alot fabian.

Other than life imprisonment, not any that work nearly as well. And, the imprisoned can possibly escape.

Agreed, and since you obviously believe you have that solution (being smarter than all of us and our entire legal system).... Please share it with us.

Did I acidently hit a nerve? Is there something you feel guilty about?
Why not kill everyone? Because:
1. I don't believe (and never stated nor even suggested) that EVERYONE will be guilty of something (let alone be a danger to other people like murderers, rapists and child molestors are) 'sooner or later' and I sure would like to know what part of my posts (or your lack of reading comprehension) made you think that.
2. Despite what you (or another poster) seem to believe, I do not feel I have the God-like (or even Tom Cruise from 'Minority Report'-like) ability to know what someone is going to do.... but after they do it I definately have an opinion on how to keep them from doing it again.

P.S. If you plan on editing out your snotty, unreasonable comments... you should do it before they are quoted by the person you made them to.

*removed*

Now that was good.

This was obnoxious and uncalled for. If you can't engage in a debate without resorting to such base tactics, you really shouldn't bother.

I hear this statement often in regard to a variety of issues. Taken at face value, it implies that the speaker believes she/he knows all there is to know about it (or doesn't care to learn more), and doesn't think the situation can be improved (or doesn't believe it's worth thinking about). It's a defensive statement used to try to close discussion. Different forms of it are widely used in political rhetoric.

No matter how good a system is, when judgments about people's lives are involved, if there are faults in the system, we should be paying close attention and working to make it better. A good friend of mine came close enough to an unjust verdict that I know the possibility is real. And the "system" in his case was as much about the political aspirations of the DA as it was about justice. Perhaps more so. I was appalled at what I saw, including the ways in which the DA used my Muslim friend's name during the trial to color the perceptions of the jury members.

Troy Davis was accused of killing a police officer. Because of that, finding him "close enough" to guilty was good enough for a lot of folks. I think if enough people care enough, we can find ways to improve that.

[snip]



And if you kill an innocent person and call it justice, you can't bring that person back from the dead if you're subsequently proved (or exposed) as wrong.

Your logic is flawed, and hideously ugly.

[snip]

Yeah. I sat on Grand Jury for a month several years ago, and the seeming emphasis on just pushing as many cases through as fast as possible was scary at times. There was a day during the process when one juror besides myself felt extremely skeptical about some of the witness' testimony, and we ended up asking a lot of questions and refusing to tell the Assistant DA that the case was suitable to go to trial.

You could tell the Assistant was unhappy with us, and some of the other jurors were, too. That wasn't even a trial related to violent crime, either. Just some possible low-level money shenanigans at a local business. The fact that two jurors rejected the case as presented also didn't mean that the County had to throw out their case. They still had the option of going back to the drawing board and trying to retool their presentation enough to impress another grand jury.

I'm still not sorry for telling the guy "No." That's what I was sworn to do, after all. Not to rubber stamp everything a person in authority handed me just because they had authority.

NoLongerLegion, you are simply wrong.


Tom Cruise was NOT the precog in Minority Report!


(This spectacular avoidance of the issue and micro-focussing on a tiny inconsequential error brought to you by the Republican National Committee.)

And it was in response to his nasty, obnoxious and uncalled for comment of:
Which is between him and me, so why are you concerned about my impoliteness, but not his? Maybe you should just butt out?

True, but he did believe he had the right to intercede before a crime was comitted, acting on the information from the 3 precogs. We saw how well that worked... not to mention the guy he arrested in the beginning that likely wouldn't have committed the crime if they simply stepped in and got him councilling instead of dragging him off to be frozen and imprissoned for his 'crime'.