Jedi Believe, death penalty section

Ion Eldor wrote:

Kitsu Tails wrote: Why should I have to pay taxes taking food out of my family and friends mouths and hearth to feed, cloth, shelter and drug up these insane killers?

I don't think that's how taxes work.

http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-state-tax-dollars-go

Prisons, juvenile justice programs, and parole and other corrections programs make up about 4 percent of state budgets, or $49 billion. These costs grew significantly over recent decades as states sent more people to prison and left them there longer.

Kitsu Tails wrote: http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-state-tax-dollars-go

Prisons, juvenile justice programs, and parole and other corrections programs make up about 4 percent of state budgets, or $49 billion. These costs grew significantly over recent decades as states sent more people to prison and left them there longer.

Yeah, i also think something's terribly wrong with a penal system so oversized and overstuffed that almost 3 percent of the population are in prison or under parole . Something's definitely not right with that, and, if you ask me, the existence of privately-run facilities should be banned.

Ion Eldor wrote:

Adder wrote: putting someone to death has no advantage over jailing someone for life

Jailing someone for life make no sense. The point of imprisonment is rehabilitation .

Only for individuals capable and willing to be rehabilitated. However, incarceration routinely breeds repeat offenders, and life imprisonment is typically reserved for the class of criminal (or the class of crime, depending) that would make rehabilitation a risky, and possibly completely failing, gesture. As is capital punishment.

steamboat28 wrote: Only for individuals capable and willing to be rehabilitated. However, incarceration routinely breeds repeat offenders, and life imprisonment is typically reserved for the class of criminal (or the class of crime, depending) that would make rehabilitation a risky, and possibly completely failing, gesture. As is capital punishment.

I get what you mean, but i can't agree. Everyone is capable of being rehabilitated, whatever harsh may be the crime committed, there's light in every and the last of us, that's what means that all life is precious. You may be in darkness, but who's to say you can't be saved. You may need help, love, compassion, and yes, maybe that killer will never repent,but even if that's true, that doesn't mean we must not give our compassion. Not to change him, but to change ourselves.

http://www.borgenmagazine.com/poverty-capital-punishment/
"..some say the fundamental crisis for the death penalty is not the ethics of its existence but the ethics of its application. In a 2001 article in the Journal of Economic Issues, Jeffery and Colleen Johnson argue that, “this game [the death penalty]is played with clearly loaded dice. Our criminal justice system, like every other institution in American society, is infected by prejudice and discrimination.”

"..wealth or a lack thereof often plays a fundamental role in the sentence handed down by the court."

http://deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=83
In 2001, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg commented: "People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty . . . I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial."

http://www.oadp.org/facts/13-reasons
"One of the most frequent causes of reversals in death penalty cases is ineffective assistance of counsel. A study at Columbia University found that 68% of all death penalty cases were reversed on appeal, with inadequate defense as one of the main reasons requiring reversal."

"Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, 138 innocent men and women have been released from death row, including some who came within minutes of execution."

"The highest rate of death sentencing occurs in counties with low population densities and a high proportion of non-Latino whites.

A person convicted of the same crime is more than three times more likely to be sentenced to die simply because the crime was committed in a predominantly white, rural community rather than a diverse, urban area."

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
"Seattle University study examining the costs of the death penalty in Washington found that each death penalty case cost an average of $1 million more than a similar case where the death penalty was not sought ($3.07 million, versus $2.01 million). Defense costs were about three times as high in death penalty cases and prosecution costs were as much as four times higher than for non-death penalty cases."

http://deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=54
"In 1990 a report from the General Accounting Office concluded that "in 82 percent of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e. those who murdered whites were more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks."

"In cases where only one victim was killed and no felony was involved, those who kill non-Latino whites are over eleven times more likely to be sentenced to die as those who kill Latinos"

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/race-and-death-penalty
"According to a recently updated study by Professor Katherine Beckett of the University of Washington, jurors in Washington "were four and one half times more likely to impose a sentence of death when the defendant was black than [] they were in cases involving similarly situated white defendants."


http://www.innocenceproject.org/free-innocent/improve-the-law/fact-sheets/dna-exonerations-nationwide
"There have been 337 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States.

The average length of time served by exonerees is 14 years. The total number of years served is approximately 4,595.

The true suspects and/or perpetrators have been identified in 166 of the DNA exoneration cases. Those actual perpetrators went on to be convicted of 146 additional crimes, including 77 sexual assaults, 34 murders, and 35 other violent crimes while the innocent sat behind bars for their earlier offenses.'

Ion Eldor wrote:

Kitsu Tails wrote: http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-state-tax-dollars-go

Prisons, juvenile justice programs, and parole and other corrections programs make up about 4 percent of state budgets, or $49 billion. These costs grew significantly over recent decades as states sent more people to prison and left them there longer.

Yeah, i also think something's terribly wrong with a penal system so oversized and overstuffed that almost 3 percent of the population are in prison or under parole . Something's definitely not right with that, and, if you ask me, the existence of privately-run facilities should be banned.

I agree there. And there are a great many being put to jail who are innocent or put in for too long or any number of things.

But people like Isis who participate in mass killings (enjoying it I might add) Id kill them in a heart beat. They are harmful to keep alive, they don't deserve a single ounce of my money charity or otherwise, and they take up space and time when they don't deserve a single breathe of it.

Sadly the real fact is....There is such thing as real evil and we should very much see it eliminated.

just my thoughts, as always.

I had a whole long post written with multiple quotes and links to articles about how executing someone actually can cost more than life in prison but somehow I lost it. What follows was the really important part. (although I had some great quotes from Batman and Gandalf. :laugh: )

In the end for me it comes down to one quote that I read on a thread here when I first started.

Do I believe that some people deserve to die for their crimes? Yes. Do I believe that human beings as a species is capable of correctly doing this? No.

I'm pretty sure that whoever wrote that isn't around any more but if they were I would thank them. That line right there is what made me join. The death penalty was a sticking point for me on the doctrine and that blew my mind.

That said, I do firmly believe in defending myself and my family, with lethal force if necessary. But there is a big difference between an active struggle for your life and executing someone.

Kitsu Tails wrote: There is such thing as real evil and we should very much see it eliminated.

Is there?

"Remember, your focus determines you reality."
"You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."

I'm sure ISIS people think that what they do is right, that they're doing the right thing. Maybe what we need to do is show them we don't believe in mass killings. That it's not the way, that it leads nowhere.

"An eye for an eye, and everybody ends blind".

I oppose the death penalty for many reasons, many of which are linked to my religious beliefs.

However, if none of those beliefs existed, I would still be compelled to oppose the death penalty (to the point of favouring an immediate moratorium on executions in the United States) for one major reason: the fairly significant likelihood of executing innocent men and women. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row

These people often spent a decade or longer on death row before being exonerated, convicted of crimes that they did not commit. I'm sure there are many others who were not as fortunate as those on that list - already executed, funded by our own taxes. If the system kills innocent people, is it really "justice"?

I'm against capital punishment for a few reasons, but the most obvious problem with it, IMO, is that it is state sanctioned murder. We already question our state and federal government's abilities to do the simplest of things. Why would we trust them to determine who deserves to die? They can't even balance a checkbook. The right to life should not be decided in a politically charged and highly corruptible environment.

The second issue that informs my opinion is the hypocrisy of many lobbyists and supporters of capital punishment also resist gun control. The most common reason touted about for the 2nd Amendment Right to Bare Arms is to defend one's home and family from criminals or an oppressive government. And yet, supporting capital punishment is admitting that we are unable to defend ourselves from these maniacal murderers and so we should give the oppressive government the permission to kill them before they do any additional harm. It's equivalent to saying "deny life to others so that my liberties may remain intact."

And this doesn't even begin to touch on how many capital cases involve the use of a firearm in the crime...