Hasta la vista baby!

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Skybird

a penalty: again, you speak bureaucratics only. the basic principle of a penalty:
Mother: "don't do that!"
Child does it.
Mother gives the child a clap (penalty): "I said don'T do that. Now stop it, or the next penalty will be worse."
Child alters it's bahvior and never do it again, to avoid the penalty.

That's also the understanding of penalty as a sanction in order to alter the subject's behavior in sociological and psychological science, and animal experimentation as well. Just think of Skinner, f.e.

What if the lesson is not for or not just for the misbehaving child but for other children as well?

That's just one aspect of the death penalty. Think Angels with Dirty Faces.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Abraham

You can make a choise. People on death row usually would like to make one too, but can't.

Nor can their vicitms, etc.

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by Abraham

You can make a choise. People on death row usually would like to make one too, but can't.

You loose choice when you are convicted by your peers. The victim/s
had no choice either.

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Nor can their vicitms, etc.

Originally Posted by Bradclark1

You loose choice when you are convicted by your peers. The victim/s
had no choice either.

Thank you, Lady and gentleman, for proving Skybirds point - which I support - that the most appealing motive for the death penalty is pure revenge...

Next, let's discuss this weird imbalance between black and whites on death row...

Is Lady Justice (color)blind when administering capital punishment or are there some dirty, rotten residues of racism left in this capital lottery...?
Statistically, me being a white man, I guess I stand a better chance avoiding capital punishment raping and consequently killing a black woman then a black man doing the same thing to a white woman...
Even innocents (like me) stand a - be it statistically small - change of being executed for being at the wrong time at the wrong place or looking like the wrong person or meeting the wrong jury or being a wrong person but not the perpetrator...

[bradclark1]

So you think the perpetrator should have bargining rights?

Thank you, Lady and gentleman, for proving Skybirds point - which I support - that the most appealing motive for the death penalty is pure revenge...

Spending the rest of your life in an 8'x10' cell isn't revenge? And to be sticky you haven't heard me condone the death penalty. I said the convicted should not be given any choices. This is kind of a play on words but this is one of those weighty issues I can't make my mind up about.

The black and white thing. Give a guess. Are your prisons color conscious?

[mog]

Originally Posted by Skybird

You talk about searching and finding a flaw in the court'S procedure and sentence. If Schwarzenegger would have found that, it would not be a mercy, but a juristical mistake.

That's right, and if Schwarzenegger could see no problem with Williams' trial, then he must assume that Williams was guilty. In that case, the only grounds for stopping the execution would be if Williams had sufficiently reformed himself. He never admitted to the murders, therefore he never apologised, repented, or felt any remorse for them. Given this, there is no way Schwarzenegger could have granted clemency.

[August]

Originally Posted by Abraham

Next, let's discuss this weird imbalance between black and whites on death row...

Nothing imbalanced about it. The ratio reflects the percentage of capital crimes committed by various ethnic groups, not the racial makeup of the population.

I oppose the death penalty for the simple reason i think that life in a 8x10 cage is a better punishment than a relatively quick and painless death by injection.

As for Arnold, he's bound to uphold the law of his state. He can't overturn a courts sentence without a valid reason.

[Abraham]

To all:
Holland is far from perfect and Dutch prisons are pretty colored.

My cynicism towards the death penalty in the U.S. (and elsewhere) is based on a number of recent (Dutch) cases in which convicted "murderers" had to be set free after years in prison because a flawed proces of police investigation (they are only humans), presenting evidence to court by prosecutors (they are only humans) and decision making by judges (they are only humans). For your information: the Dutch legal system does not know trial by jury!.
Furthermore I've read an alarming psychological Dutch case-study ("Dubious Cases, the psychology of criminal evidence") about the subject.

As soon as there seems to be some evidence often the prosecutor decides to throw the whole weight of the prosecution after it to reach a conviction. Any doubts raised - or even counter evidence found - after that decision are considered mentally disturbing and sometimes lead to a stubborn negation of fresh evidence and a suppression of creative thinking of the decision makers. Fresh thoughts imply the admission that an earlier decision may have been flauwed...

Often all attention of a faulty court decision is focused upon somebody innocent having been in jail (or executed). At least as dangerous for the society is the fact that the real culprit of a serious crime is still walking around and not seldom commits another crime.

The disturbing truth is that there is no foolproof way of finding the truth in criminal cases, and since death penalty is by definition final any later found miscarriage of justice can't be redressed.
Although I regard the US legal system as one that gives better legal protection to suspects than many other western systems, including the Dutch (at least when you have a competent and motivated lawyer), miscarriaged of Justice have happened in capital punishment cases and are bound to happen in the future.
Only that should be enough to stop this retarded form of revenge.

[Bort]

The death penalty is so politically charged, I can understand why it was expedient for AHHNOHLD to send TW to the death chamber, though that certainly doesn't mean that I support it, or that I would have done the same in his position. I once supported the death penalty, but what caused me to be for abolition was the circumstances in here in Illinois (where 12 people had been executed, and 13 had been found innocent and freed from death row). When George Ryan, the Republican governor of Illinois commuted the sentences of all 167 prisoners on death row in 2000 to life without parole. I was overjoyed by this move, but I was also saddened that Ryan was only able to make do the right thing because his political career was over, he was being invesigated for fraud by the FBI (he is now on trial) and therefore he no longer had to worry about his angry political base. Too bad fear of reprisal renders most politicians spineless, even when the necessary action seems so obvious. I still really won't be satisfied with the whole issue until my state and my country are free of the anachronistic practice of the death penalty.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Abraham

Thank you, Lady and gentleman, for proving Skybirds point - which I support - that the most appealing motive for the death penalty is pure revenge...

No. Your rationale was simply unimpressive.

[Abraham]

--- deleted ---
First time as a General Topic Forum moderator I really have to bite my tongue ...


Abraham with his moderator hat on.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mog

That's right, and if Schwarzenegger could see no problem with Williams' trial, then he must assume that Williams was guilty. In that case, the only grounds for stopping the execution would be if Williams had sufficiently reformed himself. He never admitted to the murders, therefore he never apologised, repented, or felt any remorse for them. Given this, there is no way Schwarzenegger could have granted clemency.

I myself only apologize for things that I have comitted. He denied that he had commited those murders he had been sentenced for. Wouldn'T have been be the first trial leading to false outcomes and sentences. TW did something much more significant and important than confessing to a crime that he said he had not done - that is changing himself, and having influenced hundreds if not thousands of young people not to join a gang and start a wrong career like he himself had done. With that he has given more than a 1:1 compensation and have given something precious and valuable back to the community - the lives of thousands of your young ones, thousands of family saved that way. But these lifes count lesser, obviously, than an excuse for crimes the offender rejects to have done. And that is absolutely queer, in my understanding of ethics and values.

[Abraham]

The problem is not (the decision of) Schwarzenegger, the problem is a legal system that still supports the death penalty.

[Skybird]

there is a difference in understanding in legal penalties in America and Europe, or Germany, it seems to me from this discussion. In Germay penatlies are given to save the community from a danger, or change someone by giving him "some time in the cooling box" to think things over. If this ideal really always works can be discussed, but in many cases individuals are given a second chance for rehabilitation. But when hearing August say that death penalty should not be given because becaue it is not as painful as living in a box for the rest of one'
s life, I can only shake my head about this craving for cruelty and the hunger for revenge and payback that is on display here. "Bread and games" - I think if theirt would be Collosseums in Amnerica, some people would like to see sentences beeing taken care of by lions and beasts and gladiators.

Stastistics have shown time and again that many, many death sentences were given by mistake. Sometimes they read 14%, sometimes they read 30%. No matter what, the message is: the system does not work reliable. Even this does not make people stop and think it over. If you were the one beeing sentenced for nothing, you certainly would think different. But so it is only about "tough American justice". there are plenty of less flattery terms I can think of to describe what it is. And also, statistics also fail to give the smallest proof that death sentence has a deterrent effect. There is not a single murder or rape or drug deal that has been prevented by it.

Can you give back a life you have taken by mistake? Does killing another one change things? No? Then be more hesitant to kill.

[Skybird]

your tongue heals quickly!