Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

[ex-khobar Andy]

Juries have got it wrong before and will do again. No amount of 'sorry' works if a death penalty is wrongly given. Think Donald Trump and the Central Park 5; or Timothy Evans (UK) as in 10 Rillington Place.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I'm sure that ISIS is just as certain that they are making the world a better place by getting rid of people who don't have the exact same notions of God as they do. I don't want to be on the same side of the argument as those guys.

[Jarlaxle]

I wouldn't argue against taking the death penalty off the books in the entire US.

I support it, but only in very limited circumstances.

[Jarlaxle]

Except that a murderer who is executed is highly unlikely to ever do it again.

A murderer who is serving a life sentence (with or without parole) is also highly unlikely to ever do it again. (The point of the parole hearings is to determine whether the convict remains a threat to society.)

At a cost of how much per year to warehouse the scum vs the few bucks it would cost for the electricity to juice up Ol' Sparky, or the vial of chemicals or the box of .30-06 shells it would take to make it an absolute certainty that they would never do it again?
You could even throw in a fancy-shmancy funeral for the dead sunuvabitch — nice casket, gravestone, and all — and still be money ahead.

-"BB"-

How many innocent people are you willing to kill to sate your blood lust?

[Bicycle Bill]

A murderer who is serving a life sentence (with or without parole) is also highly unlikely to ever do it again. (The point of the parole hearings is to determine whether the convict remains a threat to society.)

At a cost of how much per year to warehouse the scum vs the few bucks it would cost for the electricity to juice up Ol' Sparky, or the vial of chemicals or the box of .30-06 shells it would take to make it an absolute certainty that they would never do it again?
You could even throw in a fancy-shmancy funeral for the dead sunuvabitch — nice casket, gravestone, and all — and still be money ahead.

How many innocent people are you willing to kill to sate your blood lust?

Let's see ... we killed how many 'innocent' people in Hiroshima to avoid putting how many more thousand American military lives at risk in the invasion of the Japanese home islands?   And then, how many more 'innocent' people did we kill three days later in Nagasaki because the Japanese warlords couldn't put their hands up and surrender fast enough?

For that matter, how many 'innocent' people did we allow to die in the past 18 months because we couldn't quit (and still can't quit) squabbling about just how bad COVID was going to be?

Now, how many people have been released from prison because they were improperly convicted?  And even more telling, how many of them were convicted of a capital crime where the possibility of execution would have been present?

So I suppose the answer is, how many have you got?

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

A murderer who is serving a life sentence (with or without parole) is also highly unlikely to ever do it again. (The point of the parole hearings is to determine whether the convict remains a threat to society.)

At a cost of how much per year to warehouse the scum vs the few bucks it would cost for the electricity to juice up Ol' Sparky, or the vial of chemicals or the box of .30-06 shells it would take to make it an absolute certainty that they would never do it again?
You could even throw in a fancy-shmancy funeral for the dead sunuvabitch — nice casket, gravestone, and all — and still be money ahead.

-"BB"-

How many innocent people are you willing to kill to sate your blood lust?

Of course the information is widely available and easily accessible that the death penalty costs many times over what life without parole costs, because we cannot throw out due process especially in light of the incontrovertible evidence that we have been sending innocent people to death row for many decades and have likely executed countless actually innocent people thanks to the corruption and/or incompetence in our police and prosecution and judicial ranks.

There is zero rational benefit to the death penalty which is why over 100 nation states are abolitionist on the issue and the states which are not are some of the most inhumane regimes ever to exist in human history. And the USA keeps company with them.

[Big RR]

I agree BSG. And BB, are you really supporting throwing away the due process that we have in our justice system and murdering innocent people because we might occasionally kill someone who is guilty? You really want the government to have that unrestricted power? If so, there are a lot of other countries you could move to which might suit your philosophy, but I will fight like hell to permit that due process to be eroded.

[Jarlaxle]

At a cost of how much per year to warehouse the scum vs the few bucks it would cost for the electricity to juice up Ol' Sparky, or the vial of chemicals or the box of .30-06 shells it would take to make it an absolute certainty that they would never do it again?
You could even throw in a fancy-shmancy funeral for the dead sunuvabitch — nice casket, gravestone, and all — and still be money ahead.

How many innocent people are you willing to kill to sate your blood lust?

Let's see ... we killed how many 'innocent' people in Hiroshima to avoid putting how many more thousand American military lives at risk in the invasion of the Japanese home islands?   And then, how many more 'innocent' people did we kill three days later in Nagasaki because the Japanese warlords couldn't put their hands up and surrender fast enough?

For that matter, how many 'innocent' people did we allow to die in the past 18 months because we couldn't quit (and still can't quit) squabbling about just how bad COVID was going to be?

Now, how many people have been released from prison because they were improperly convicted?  And even more telling, how many of them were convicted of a capital crime where the possibility of execution would have been present?

So I suppose the answer is, how many have you got?

-"BB"-

That was some impressive tap-dancing. Going to answer the question now?