The death penalty?

Because juries are not fail-proof. I believe they get it correct the majority of the time, but I want "super proof" before I'm willing to execute someone. Casey Anthony is a classic case. Florida was trying it as a "death penalty" case, yet the case was entirely circumstantial. I don't like that.

No, business is doing really well as evidenced that it took me over twelve hours to respond

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To me Casey Anthony is the exact opposite of what a death penalty case should be. The entire trial was circumstantial. There is no way that someone's life should be on the line with circumstantial evidence. Now if she had used a flip cam and recorded herself putting the duck tape over the kid's face, and then vlogged in the car while driving out to the everglades and then taped her dumping the body and saying "bye bye" while driving off, that is a different story.

 

I'm not sure where you're going with this. I would hope that no one actually loses sleep when a brutal murderer is put to death. Relative to the crime, the death penalty is neither excessive nor inhumane, but locked up and with the key thrown away, John Wayne Gacy was a threat to no one (excepting fellow inmates, perhaps).

That said, your statement really does nothing to answer my assertion that the death penalty provides no tangible benefit to society. Many people oppose the death penalty, even when the victim was their son, daughter, brother or sister. For those individuals, the execution can worsen their feelings of loss rather than helping them move on and heal. On top of that, when a man like Cameron Todd Willingham is found to have been improperly convicted and executed, was in fact provably innocent of the crime, this takes the death penalty into a very different direction, making it a source of controversy rather than closure.

 

"No tangible benefit" is an opinion. There are at least as many people who do get closure from an execution and a great deal of people who such a punishment reinforces their belief that law enforcement and the judicial system are "looking out for the little guy." These are benefits.

Was Willingham really innocent? In October of last year:

Although I was in Texas at the time I really didn't follow the case. I have no respect for a man who would run at the first sign of smoke, watch his house burn down and never even once try to save his children. The man even took the time to push his car away from the house so it wouldn't get damaged while his children were inside the house dying. With or without his wife's statement (and whether or not she was truthful) I don't care that Willingham was executed. He was a waste of sperm.

I've always believed capital punishment was a lightning rod issue like abortion. There are very vocal groups on either side of the argument and variations of when such things should and should not be acceptable -- but the majority of people sit in the middle and don't want to see it go away but don't want to see it abused either.

I think Illinois fell in that latter category when it became obvious the death penalty was biased (although my opinion is the death penalty is more related to income status than race). I think the majority of people want the death penalty to be there for heinous crimes, they don't want it to take 20 years and they don't want the system to be biased.

 

In Europe this is a non-issue. Death penalty is forbidden by the ECHR so no EU country can really even consider reinstating it. Not that there has even been any sort of serious discussions about the matter. It's outdated and quite frankly a barbaric punishment, a bit like lynch mobs really.

 

I have said it many times before -- the only surefire way to keep a stone cold killer from killing again is to kill him first. In the case of Clifford Olson, had the justice system actually done its job and protected society by either killing him or actually locking him up for life after his first murders, several people would never have fallen victim to his depravity.

Forgiveness is great, but not when it endangers the lives of innocents by letting the guilty roam free to re-offend.

 

Forgiveness goes hand in hand with rehabilitation. It doesn't mean you don't arrest someone or set him free because the person is polite. It's a rigorous process with psychologists and you're only released when the person no longer poses a threat to other members of society (or at least no more than an average person. The argument is instead of killing someone, let's try to help him/her become a productive member of society again.

And the argument that a life sentence is a drain on public funds is a valid one. At this point it becomes a choice that we make as a culture or society, like a public health care system. As a solution, I can only think of using the inmates as a labor force (although a bit more humane and less like the slavery work inmates did in early 20th century). Let the inmates work on roads or something so it helps society, and the prisonners would get a pay that would go towards their food and lodging.

 

Two problems with this: First, prisons cannot compete with private enterprise -- with a zero cost labor force a prison work system can destroy local business, it's been done before. Second, labor force outside the prison is a safety risk (especially with lifers).

 

Exactly. Think "Shawshank Redemption".

 

Julius Rosenberg was guilty, its only his wife which can be debated, liewise Cameron Willingham was also most likely guilty, the fire service has disputed the claims from the 'expert' hired to investigate since he overlooked evidence recorded from the scene.

rubbish, Ive never found a single person who believes that rehabilitation actually works. And why should we be forgiving a potentially dangerous person? and dont try telling me that you wouldnt mind living near these people, no matter how much psychological rehabilitation they undergo, you will always have doubts about whether they will reoffend, would you want a serial child rapist and murder living near your children. Why should people get second chances? if it was a dog you'd shoot it, they dont get second chances even when their victims live but we kill them, why arent we killing our animals?

yes the pussie EU, the land of taking money from honest workers and giving it to lowlifes and lazy bums and paying criminals solicitor bills and living costs.

 

UK abolished the death penalty long before the EU had any say in such matters.

 

last I checked the UK was a european country, the governmetn of this country is as ***** as it gets when dealing with crime and punishment, the justice system in this country is a joke - infact the the venom in my comment was directed at the Uk government which, has acutally passed a 'tax' which will go solely to charity....doesnt that defeat the idea of charity? The idea of it being given through good free will? now I know that everytime I use a functional mundane item like a carrier bag, either I pay money to charity or the stor increases prices to pay money to charity.... all the while trying to make up an £81billion deficit while cutting wages and jobs in public servies.. despite this prisoners are better fed and live in better conditions then the army, and are serving pitiful sentences for serious crimes.

I call it the pussification of society, noone is prepared to do what needs to be done, either through moral fear, policitical fear or financial fear..

and that is why I don't vote!

 

Closure is not a tangible benefit, but controversy and culture war flare-ups are a tangible detriment. When I speak to tangible benefits, I speak directly to benefits that are measurable. Reduced rates of capital crime would certainly qualify as a tangible benefit of the death penalty, but we have no evidence that the death penalty reduces capital crime.

There's a very significant reason for this -- murderers are not rational actors measuring their "gain" from committing murder against the chances of being caught and the severity of the punishment in the event they do. In most cases, the punishment never figures into the equation, either because the murder is a crime of passion committed without forethought or because the pre-meditated murderer has no intentions of getting caught. The deterrent effect only goes so far. If there was no penalty for murder, the rate would go up without doubt, but there is a point of diminishing returns.

Take speeding, for example. We could virtually eliminate all speeding overnight by instituting the death penalty for it, but would we need to go that far? Who would speed if the penalty was life in prison? 5 years? Castration? Forced sterilization? Permanent revocation of a drivers license? The maximum deterrent effect for a misdemeanor like speeding is reached well before the death penalty ever comes into play.

Regarding the Willingham case, you've made how little you've followed the case abundantly clear. Unable to get to his children's room from within the house, Willingham ran out and tried to access their room via one of their three windows. When he broke the first window to get in, there was a backdraft. Willingham had to be physically restrained from going back into his house and was, in fact, handcuffed for his own protection because of his repeated and forceful attempts to enter the house.

It is true that the community came out with lots of hearsay evidence that was incidentally never included in the trial after the city's verdict was called into question -- on the grounds there was in fact no evidence of arson, that the arson investigator built his narrative more on mysticism than actual science, that there was in fact no evidence that an accelerant was ever used. Communities close ranks and try to cover for each other, especially when they are convinced that, despite the evidence, they did the right thing -- or when admitting their error is too painful.

I thought a man of science would hold the ruling of an independent panel of 9 arson experts appointed by a pro-death-penalty republican governing body over hearsay that wasn't unearthed until a decade after a trial. I guess I was wrong.

 

Not entirely true Drew. The testimony of the arson investigator followed narratives of what was believed at the time. Tremendous strides have been made over the past ten years or so in arson investigations (primarily through controlled burnings of abandoned housing). One item to take away from the panel of arson experts is liquid accelerant is not necessary to start a fire even in the case of arson.

Several eyewitnesses tesitfied (and never recanted) that Willingham did not attempt to enter the house until after emergency personnel were in sight. He was seen to actually be fairly calm during the initial minutes of the blaze. The chaplain at the scene described Willingham as being somewhat unbelievable in his emotions as if he was putting on a show, Willingham waited until it was obvious he could not enter the house and personnel were available to stop him before he ever attempted rescue. Add to that his oldest daughter was in his room when she died, even by his own admission she woke him and he left her behind.

The guy was a piece of garbage and as I said before I really don't care whether or not he's dead. I don't believe he was completely innocent (although he may have been only guilty of abandoning his children out of cowardous). On the other hand, I'm not completely convinced he admitted guilt to his wife. I personally believe he is yet another example of the class bias inherent in the judicial system -- a decent attorney would have gotten him life or even acquitted him. Willingham couldn't afford a dream team.

I don't think the way the death penalty is currently administered is an effective deterrent. I do believe it gives a significant amount of our population comfort and closure in heinous crimes. But I believe it is not administered fairly. If someone wants to use the Willingham case to raise the bar on death sentencing, I'm all for that -- to preach "we killed an innocent man" is conjecture.

Edit: One thing I was thinking about, breaking out windows in a burning structure serves a very sinister purpose in this instance -- it provides another means for oxygen to get to the fire. Breaking out windows fans the flames and makes the fire burn hotter and faster. That Willingham was breaking out windows as the fire department was arriving was suspicious. Anyone who makes a lot fo fires (boy scout, hunter, etc.) knows a vented fire burns hotter and faster ... but then Willingham could have been "overcome" so he was not thinking clearly ... or he was thinking very clearly ... or he was an idiot.

 

T2, this is America. Provable guilt matters. There are several possible narratives for what happened and none can be conclusively proven*. "Willingham was a murderer who burned his children alive" is but one of many possible narratives. "Willingham was a coward that panicked when it mattered most" is another. "Willingham was an idiot who inadvertently hastened the deaths of the children he was trying to save when he broke the window to their room" is yet another. Of course, opening their door would have likely hastened their deaths, too, by causing the same backdraft, but I digress. His house was on fire.

It is very possible that he failed to save his children because he couldn't access their room. It is also possible that concluded that calling the authorities in the hope of containing the fire and rescuing the children was more sensible than dying in the fire and potentially delaying the rescue attempt. Neither cowardice nor stupidity are crimes, even when the inaction brought on by fear causes the death of children, and we'll never know conclusively whether Willingham was a coward, an idiot, or a murderer. We
could have tried asking him, but that is no longer possible. He's dead. People have faulted Willingham for grieving "the wrong way," something we've seen provably innocent men and women crucified for in the court of public opinion many times, but we should step away from narratives when there are actual facts available.

The fact is that Willingham was convicted based on faulty science, and criticism of the science used to convict him from respected professionals already existed at the time of his execution. At the very least, Willingham should have been awarded a stay of execution and a re-trial. A new case would have been dismissed without trial, of course, because the arson investigation is the only evidence used to convict. It should matter to you that we convicted and executed a man based on faulty science. That it does not, that you are willing to write this man off as a a "waste of sperm" based on but one of many possible narratives, that you conclude that he deserved to be executed whether he was innocent or not, both sickens and appalls me. It should sicken and appall you, too.

* Then again, I also can't prove you aren't a wife-beater, a child molester, or a serial killer of prostitutes. There's a reason we place the burden on proving guilt.

 

Drew, in your arguments you are guilty of tactics you often point out are flawed in others. You gone to insults, misdirection, and strawman arguments. Your tactics here are quite beneath the debates you've shown in the past. That you don't agree with me is fine, that you would choose to use questionable tactics should not be.

For the record -- I've never said Willingham deserved execution, I simply said I really don't care about what happened to the man.

 

there was no faulty science, the original investigation was full and thorough, the 'expert' investigations did not have the original crime scene to work with, they simply postulated at possible doubts based on tests which could draw similarities with fire patterns, the 2009 investigation even admitted that they found insufficient evidence to prove that state Deputy Fire Marshal Manuel Vasquez and Corsicana Assistant Fire Chief Douglas Fogg were negligent or guilty of misconduct in their arson work, it is also worth mentioning that no other cause was found for the fire, an electical fire would have been easily identified. The fire service pointed out in a 21 page report about the commissions findings all of the evidence that they had overlocked from the original records from the scene of the crime.

Willingham also had a criminal history of violence

the other thing I want to say on this is that only die hard anti death penallty followers could believe that a report called "the innocence project" could possibly be an impartial unbias report, indeed the state mentioned that the work from the report looked more like the work od Willinghams defence staff rather then the work of an independent comittie.

 

How did I misinterpret those statements, exactly? I don't think I did -- and yes, I think that these statements deserve nothing but the scorn I've given them. I'm only mildly opposed to the death penalty, T2, and take no offense at your support of it. What I take offense to is statements like those.

We as humans are all too quick to judge the reactions of others in times of duress, but the reality is that none of us truly know how we would react ourselves until forced into that situation -- perhaps Willingham failed his test. Perhaps he murdered his children. Perhaps he was an idiot. Perhaps he panicked. Or perhaps he wasn't able to see "anything but black," as he reported. Perhaps the circuits popping throughout the home and the roaring fire stopped him from being able to hear as he tried to get to his daughters' bedroom, as he reported. In retrospect he would have been wiser to take his two year old and run, but perhaps he couldn't bring himself to abandon his other two daughters to the blaze.

Perhaps his hair caught on fire at this point, as he reported, and he was able to see little more than the glowing of the ceiling. Perhaps, as he reported, he could not hear his children as he called for them and could not find them as he felt along the floor and bed for them. Perhaps he was truthful when he stated that debris began falling from the ceiling at this point, burning his shoulder, and it was at this point that he fled the home through the front door. You served in the Navy just like I did. We both know about poor visibility in a fire. His report was consistent with what you'd expect to find in a burning home -- even on a sunny day. Sure, it is technically possible that he abandoned his children to the fire after escaping, but I'm not convinced. Doesn't running to a neighbor's house after escaping the blaze in order to make sure someone calls the fire department make sense? Wouldn't you do the same? I would.

It is documented that after ensuring that the fire department was called, he tried to access his daughters' room by breaking two windows with a pool queue. Maybe he intentionally broke those windows, knowing it would cause a backdraft and "finish the job" if smoke inhalation hadn't done so already, or maybe he just skipped "Backdraft" because he wasn't a De Niro fan -- and thus did not understand that his actions were likely to cause a flare-up. All we have is his word, and a lot of unknowns. The one "known" is that he was executed on faulty evidence. That alone should be alarming enough. I'm not suggesting that, solely because of this incident, you should abandon your position about the death penalty. I am, however, suggesting that you should care that he was executed.

 

umm...

really seems like he dont care

 

Edit: [Deleted post] It looks like you were correcting the post as I was writing mine.

Although from the accounts I've read Willingham did not go for help at all. Neighbors came to him after smelling and seeing smoke; he asked them to call the fire department -- those neighbors later testified under oath he did nothing to save his children until the fire department was nearby.

Whether or not the guy used a liquid accelerant is ultimately not a deal breaker to me. If you have enough flammable material in a house you can easily burn it down without accelerants.