Crime and Punishment: Oklahoma (& Texas) style!

[Stubby]

How many death sentences have been carried out in the last 150 years?

I don't know this is the place to debate theology with someone who is avowedly ignorant on the subject, but I will just note that you are misrepresenting Iadajo's position, which concerned ending a conflict with lethal force, and you are misrepresenting the historic Christian position on capital punishment, to suit your own twisted view of crime and punishment.

The statement by Christ to turn the other cheek, comes from his Sermon on the Mount, the preamble to which was that "I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it" which is to say, he is NOT going to contradict Moses. It was Moses who taught "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" as the basis for the limits of retributive justice and Christ was not contradicting that.

It's a fine point but important to note what the text actually says. Jesus does not here say "It is written" which is a reference to the law he has said he is not going to break, but rather the specific hebraism is the euphemism "you have heard it said". This latter is an explicit reference to the teaching of the Pharisees. The religious conservatives of Jesus' time, were teaching that "an eye for an eye" should be applied to personal relationships, as result of their anxiety over Roman abuses of the citizenry. Rather, Moses was very explicit that "en eye for an eye" was never to be used in personal relationships, but reserved for courts of law. Applying the proper measure for a court in personal relationships is the fastest way to vigilante justice. It is this which Jesus was teaching against, and you are making the same mistake--confusing what is an appropriate measure for justice in the courtroom, with what is appropriate for personal relationships.

So obviously, you're in the position to be correcting no one.

Actually my comment was directed at paperburn.

This morning I realised my religious comment was going to derail but alas i am too late to change it.

So you could just comment on the evidence of innocent people being executed by government instead.

In the last 150 years, ~ 12000 people have been executed in the US.
Why did you want to know?

[Diogenes]

Media blackout: Oregon mall shooter was stopped by an armed citizen

While reports of Tuesday's shooting at the Clackamas Town Center Mall in Oregon, dominated the national media, until Friday's horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, one very important detail has been repeatedly (and intentionally) left out of the MSM's coverage.

The shooter, Jacob Tyler Roberts, was confronted with an armed citizen, at which time he ran away and shot himself. By the time police arrived on the scene, Roberts was already dead.

That armed man was 22-year-old Nick Meli, who was at the mall shopping with a young woman who was babysitting her friend's baby.

http://www.examiner.com/article/media-b ... ed-citizen

[Diogenes]

Why national media ignore San Antonio theater shooting

Now aren’t you wondering why this wasn’t a lead story in the national media along with the school shooting? Here’s why – the off-duty officer, Lisa Castellano, pulled out her gun and shot the man 4 times before he had a chance to kill anyone.

http://blogs.e-rockford.com/tedbiondo/2 ... -shooting/

[Diogenes]

Man with long arrest record identified as church gunman


AURORA COLORADO

Parker was shot and killed by an off-duty Denver police officer, Antonio Milow, who was a member of the church and happened to be armed.

http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_20469864

[GIThruster]

So you could just comment on the evidence of innocent people being executed by government instead.

In the last 150 years, ~ 12000 people have been executed in the US.
Why did you want to know?

I was just curious what percentage of capital crimes were wrongfully prosecuted that we know of. 1/2000 is a pretty low number. 0.05%. It's certainly not low enough, but the same argument you're making can be made for any/all wrongful incarceration. It is never going to be justified. Locking an innocent up for a single day is not okay. It will never be okay and yet it's the necessary requirement for there to be rule of law.

There is nothing acceptable in wrongful incarceration just as there is nothing acceptable in wrongful execution. The fact these things can go wrong, however; does not mean we have to abandon them. It means rather that we need to be much more diligent to make certain innocents don't suffer at the hands of criminals and at the hands of the justice system itself.

[Diogenes]

Democrat are a bigger threat to public safety than are guns.



Member of Biden's Gun Control Task Force Has a Son Convicted of Planning School Mass Murder

President of the National Assocation of Police Officers and Boston Police Officer Thomas Nee is a member of Vice President Joe Biden's gun control task force, which was created by President Obama in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Nee's son, Joseph Nee, was convicted in 2008 for planning to commit mass murder of students and teachers at Marshfield High School in Massachusetts, similar to that of Columbine in 1999. After spending nine months in prison, Nee's conviction was upheld by the Supreme Judicial Court.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavli ... e-n1483006



http://www.patriotledger.com/news/x26964680

[Diogenes]

I was just curious what percentage of capital crimes were wrongfully prosecuted that we know of. 1/2000 is a pretty low number. 0.05%. It's certainly not low enough, but the same argument you're making can be made for any/all wrongful incarceration. It is never going to be justified. Locking an innocent up for a single day is not okay. It will never be okay and yet it's the necessary requirement for there to be rule of law.

There is nothing acceptable in wrongful incarceration just as there is nothing acceptable in wrongful execution. The fact these things can go wrong, however; does not mean we have to abandon them. It means rather that we need to be much more diligent to make certain innocents don't suffer at the hands of criminals and at the hands of the justice system itself.

I have long regarded the legal system as incompetent and in need of reform. Something I have long noticed is that convictions may be had on evidence with certitude, and sometimes on evidence with a great deal of weakness to it.


I have long thought that convictions on what I regard as weak or uncertain evidence should get prison sentences pending further resolution, such as better evidence to either acquit or confirm. Death penalties should be utilized only in such cases that the evidence is certain and compelling.


I've seen the legal system misfire plenty of times. It needs to be improved. It's methodology isn't working correctly.

[GIThruster]

I think the death penalty really is reserved to those situations were we are certain. As long as people are involved, they will make mistakes. Both the jury and the judge need to be extremely wrong to execute an innocent man. The fact it has happened should not surprise us. The fact it happens so seldom is the real surprise.

Just FYI, my instructor for the ethics of crime and punishment at university was one of the brightest guys in the department. It was a graduate class taught the brightest students. The prof had been teaching for 30 years. He was on his game.

He had come to the position that no one should ever be incarcerated for any crime. After decades of considering the issue, he came to believe that punishment was never justified for any crime. This is just to illustrate how trying to feel good about yourself when making law, leads one into utter stupidity. Making law is not about feeling good about yourself, how sophisticated you are for opposing the death penalty or what a good kind person you think you've become--above notions of capital punishment. The justice system is about punishment. It's about justice. It's about deterrence. It's not about the people who make the laws. It's about the crooks who break them. Making laws that make the lawmakers feel good, is stupid in the extreme, and that is the mistake that is happening all over decadent Europe for decades now.

[choff]

I'll concede the argument, you have convinced me you are correct on guns in schools. One point I would make, perhaps people on antidepressants should be on hospital supervision, especially if they have access to firearms and any other risk factors. As per the other thread, this common factor gets scant coverage by the media. It might violate their civil rights, but should society take the risk.

[GIThruster]

. . .perhaps people on antidepressants should be on hospital supervision, especially if they have access to firearms and any other risk factors.

That's a difficult call. I was just reading something that says the numbers of people on anti-depressants have doubled, but that those in actual therapy for depression has dropped dramatically. people are taking them for reasons other than depression. It is true that in a small percentage of people, some anti-depressents do cause thoughts of suicide and homicide. It would be interesting to look at the numbers of shooters who were using anti-depressnts when they killed someone. Too, I would note the trouble is larger than one would guess at first. There are lots of people with depression who do not own guns, but are married to those who do and thus have access to them. How far do you go to stop depressed people from acting out in the worst ways possible? How would you go a bout stoping a depressed woman from using her husband's gun to off herself or someone else?

I would note though that access to a gun is not the make/break thing with these troubled people. How many times have we heard about a mother killing all her kids because of depression? I can't recall a single incident like this related to guns. They used knives and drowning. I doubt we'd have a higher statistic if every home had guns in it. I think we'd have more gun deaths, but not more deaths--and there is the rub. Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

[choff]

Perhaps there should be a warning for young men on antidepressants not to play violent video games. While playing violent video games will not cause a normal young man to commit violent acts, a depressed young man who has just taken his antidepressant medication and sat down to play violent video games for a few hours may just be rewiring his brain to commit violence in real life. There was a time when mass shootings were far less common and if the introduction of antidepressants corresponds to the increased incidence it has to be addressed.

[Stubby]

As you say there are going to be wrongful convictions. But you can't say wrongful incarceration is in the same league as wrong execution. That is just ludicrous.

As digot says, the system is broken Exoneration summary
Just look at the amount of professional misconduct, forensic ineptitude.

As for the rate of wrongful execution, who knows what DNA evidence would have demonstrated about the older cases. You can't even retest these old cases because DNA was just 3 letters back then so the kind of evidence needed was not collected.

Since its introduction in 1989, DNA testing has exonerated 301 people in the US. 18 of those served on death row, 16 capital cases resulted in life in prison but there are many non-capital cases murder cases also.

If these people has committed their 'crimes' in the 1960s, they would be dead now. Don't think these are the only ones. Alabama, Alaska, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Dakota DO NOT have DNA testing access laws. Most laws affecting DNA testing access were enacted in the new millennium.

There is no doubt that some people on death row are sadistic animals that personally I would have a hard time shedding tears over.

There is no doubt that some people on death row seem to be sadistic animals because they were portrayed that way by the prosecution and yet are completely innocent.

How you differentiate between the two? One is revenge, the other unconscionable. If people like some here who want to reduce the time between conviction and execution, please know that, on average, the exonerations happen 11 years after their convictions.

[GIThruster]

True. I think first you'd want to establish a correlation between mass murderers and anti-depressant use. I'm not aware of any link here. I think there is an almost unique situation with mass murderers as opposed to simple murderers. Mass murders who go after large groups of kids are looking to maximize their evil. There's something driving them beyond depression. There's a special hideousness about a woman who were drown her 4 kids and then kill herself, but I think it pails in comparison to the guy who calmly plans to murder as many people as possible.

In any event, mass and serial murder is nothing like a new phenomenon. I doubt its linked much to anti-depressents.

[Diogenes]

As you say there are going to be wrongful convictions. But you can't say wrongful incarceration is in the same league as wrong execution. That is just ludicrous.

As digot says, the system is broken Exoneration summary
Just look at the amount of professional misconduct, forensic ineptitude.

As for the rate of wrongful execution, who knows what DNA evidence would have demonstrated about the older cases. You can't even retest these old cases because DNA was just 3 letters back then so the kind of evidence needed was not collected.

Since its introduction in 1989, DNA testing has exonerated 301 people in the US. 18 of those served on death row, 16 capital cases resulted in life in prison but there are many non-capital cases murder cases also.

If these people has committed their 'crimes' in the 1960s, they would be dead now. Don't think these are the only ones. Alabama, Alaska, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Dakota DO NOT have DNA testing access laws. Most laws affecting DNA testing access were enacted in the new millennium.

There is no doubt that some people on death row are sadistic animals that personally I would have a hard time shedding tears over.

There is no doubt that some people on death row seem to be sadistic animals because they were portrayed that way by the prosecution and yet are completely innocent.

How you differentiate between the two? One is revenge, the other unconscionable. If people like some here who want to reduce the time between conviction and execution, please know that, on average, the exonerations happen 11 years after their convictions.

Another rare area of agreement.

[Diogenes]

I'll concede the argument, you have convinced me you are correct on guns in schools. One point I would make, perhaps people on antidepressants should be on hospital supervision, especially if they have access to firearms and any other risk factors. As per the other thread, this common factor gets scant coverage by the media. It might violate their civil rights, but should society take the risk.

The Mental health issue used to be resolved by involuntary committal to an institution. The book "One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest" was instrumental in maligning all such institutions, and as a result creating an upswell of social condemnation resulting in their practical demise.

As usual, Liberals present a one-sided view of a problem, the public overreacts, and it ends up making things worse, or if not worse, just as bad but in a different way.


In a similar regard, our society now seeks to regulate those tools which people use to commit evil acts, rather than trying to minimize the Mens Rea behind such acts. As Burke pointed out:

"
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered."