Bravo Governor Newsom!

[BoSoxGal]

I know some here will be bent out of shape about this, but I applaud this courageous step by the newly elected Governor of California:

Newsom Suspends Death Penalty

[Bicycle Bill]

Not necessarily bent out of shape over it, but doesn't this cheapen human life?

Take Charlie Manson.  Until he finally died of old age, he spent almost twice as much time behind bars as Sharon Tate (one of his victims) spent on earth.  Brutally murdered by Manson and his followers, where was the justice?  She was dead, her life cut short, while her killer was permitted to live and provided the basic creature comforts for almost forty years.

Read the Declaration of Independence.  Our founding fathers documented the three most important facets of human existence — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  And I think there's a good reason why they listed "life" first; without life you can have neither liberty or happiness.

No, the death penalty should remain, and once a person has received such a sentence, you could almost make a case for the fact that failure to carry it out in a timely manner is a form of cruel and unusual punishment.  Now I'm not saying that they should go back to the days where the condemned was walked directly from the courtroom to the gallows — I'm perfectly willing to allow a reasonable time for appeals and judicial review — but if you callously and cold-bloodedly take someone else's life, then I feel it is only fair that your own life becomes forfeit.

-"BB"-

[Lord Jim]

“The death penalty is inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian.”

What arrogant, total, utter, and complete bullshit...

So "inconsistent" with "what it means to be a a Californian" that it has been upheld by a majority of the voters each and every time it has come before them in this state...

A shameful and disgusting misuse of executive power that earns this self-righteous cretin the nickname "Trump Jr."...

A complete mockery of justice, and a slap in the face not only to the voters of this state, but of course to the victims and survivors of the murderers he has smiled upon...

The executive order is likely to trigger legal challenges by pro-death penalty organizations and county prosecutors who have been forceful advocates for capital punishment in California. In February, the association representing deputy district attorneys in Los Angeles County accused California’s elected officials of foot-dragging on enforcing the death penalty because they “smugly substitute their own values over the ratified votes of the majority.”

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, called Newsom’s actions “an abuse of power.” Although Newsom has the constitutional authority to grant reprieves to condemned inmates, he does not have the power to order the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to shutter the death chamber or halt efforts to establish a lethal injection protocol, Scheidegger said.

California law requires corrections officials to maintain the ability to carry out executions, he added.

“He’s following in the footsteps of other governors who abused this power because they were frustrated by a law that they just personally disagreed with,” Scheidegger said.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol ... story.html

I will of course support any and all legal challenges to overturn this arrogant executive overreach, and I hope (and expect) a recall petition drive will be organized in short order.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well, it's certainly arrogant, assuming and anti-democratic. But this chap doesn't have a monopoly on that. I see nothing wrong (again) with "Death by incarceration", but that doesn't seem to be the desired outcome of the majority of the population.

OTOH, don't we reject "majority rule" when it comes to the infringement of the rights or life choices of the minority? Sauce for the goose?

[Long Run]

I'm sure this is a principled stand and has nothing to do with his nascent run for POTUS and pandering for liberal votes.

[Burning Petard]

BB, you made a heavy logical mistake here by referral to the Declaration of Independence. It states that Life is a right given to all man by their creator and it is inalienable.

Seems to me the death penalty is denial of a right granted by God.(if you give some authority to the Declaration of Independence) Now that is arrogance.

snailgate

[dales]

Polly Klass's father was none too happy about "Gruesome Newsom's" edict.

Can't say as I blame him.

[wesw]

the death penalty is a hard one.

some people don t seem fit for life, like manson.

but many innocent people have been executed, I firmy believe.

California puts everything else to a referendum (tho the govt doesn t seem to care),

so why don t they put every death penalty case to a vote of the people.

sounds reasonable to me.

killing is different than murder.

we d better be right if we kill someone.

if a crazy person was butchering people near me, would certainly shoot him if I caught him red handed.

I wouldn t want to be wrong tho.....

geez, I ve broken most of the other commandments at least once....

[Joe Guy]

I guess it boils down to two things:

Newsom should be congratulated for being true to his moral convictions, or

Newsom should be criticized for acting against the will of the voters.

Personally, I condone him for doing all he can for something he believes in but I don't think he should have done it.

[ex-khobar Andy]

the death penalty is a hard one.

some people don t seem fit for life, like manson.

but many innocent people have been executed, I firmly believe.

I'm with wes on this: there's always a risk that an innocent person could be put to death. I've no doubt that at the time a popular vote would have agreed that Emmett Till deserved to be lynched for whistling at a white woman. Timothy Evans was wrongly hanged in 1950; and we have seen too many stories lately (like this one) of people exonerated after 30+ years in jail.

[BoSoxGal]

156 individuals have been exonerated from death row--that is, found to be innocent and released - since 1973. In other words, for every 10 people who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S., one person has been set free.

http://www.ncadp.org/pages/innocence

Texas murdered actually innocent death row inmate Cameron Todd Willingham, a particularly horrifying story of how a father devastated by the loss of all his babies to an electrical (small appliance) housefire was wrongly convicted by redneck small town moron fire investigators based on totally bogus science.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.texasm ... ngham/amp/


Considering what I saw myself of the criminal injustice system and the many morons and racists who populate the investigative and prosecutorial arm of the state, I have no doubt hundreds of innocent people have been put to death under the death penalty in this country. The death penalty is an affront to human decency, it violates the spirit of our founding national principles, it is outrageously expensive and serves no deterrent effect, and it forms the basis for a violent society in which life is cheapened. It is the epitome of hypocrisy to tell people not to kill people and then to kill them if they do.

Someday we will look back and wonder how we could keep company with the world’s most repressive regimes by holding onto this barbaric practice for so long.

[wesw]

geez, andy, I appreciate our agreement, but I am equally certain the even in the segregated and unequal south, emmitt till would not have been executed for whistling at a white woman if it was put to a vote in his state.

c'mon man....

how could you be certain of such a thing?



but back to the death penalty, I kinda agree with joe, too...

even if you believe that he should have followed the referendum, which I really don t, in some ways, because each case is unique, it is hard to come out with vim and vigour in support of frying some motherfuckers, ya know?

[Econoline]

geez, andy, I appreciate our agreement, but I am equally certain the even in the segregated and unequal south, emmitt till would not have been executed for whistling at a white woman if it was put to a vote in his state.

Ummmm...are you forgetting just who was ALLOWED to vote—and who WASN'T—in the segregated and unequal south when Emmett Till was lynched by a bunch of Mississippi voters, and his murderers were acquitted by another bunch of Mississippi voters?

c'mon man....

how could you be certain of such a thing?

[Bicycle Bill]

There's an old joke that says a valid defense against murder or manslaughter charges in Texas is to say, "But your honor, he needed to be kilt."

I dare say that there are several hundred people on death rows all across the country where there is absolutely no doubt as to their guilt and where that statement holds true — doubled, redoubled, and in spades.  And this latest nonsense about "but maybe the condemned feels pain or discomfort when the needles go in or the chemical cocktail is injected, so that is cruel and inhumane treatment" is just that — nonsense.  Hell, we are more humane and caring in putting down our aged pets than most of these killers were in the brutal commission of their crimes, and if it were up to me they'd be injected with battery acid through a rusty needle first, just so they get a little taste of pain before they receive the injection that sends them to see St. Peter.

It's time to make sure we keep the death penalty, and long past time that we start administering it in those cases where such a sentence has been handed down.  'Death Row' was supposed to be short-term housing; not a retirement village.

-"BB"-