Just to summarize my issue. I did not want to get into a debate on the merits of the death penalty since this has been hashed over so many times.
All I really wanted to do was to question the notion that it's hypocritical to be pro abortion and anti death penalty.The reason I'm not giving a point-by-point rebuttal to your last post is because of that limited point I wanted to make, and because my coding abilities are bad, which really sucks right now as a new member. A couple of points though.
The error rate for Illinois' death penalty was found to be 4.5 percent, as far as innocent people being on death row. I agree, this is way too freaking high. A lot of media were reporting "half were exonerated." This is not the case. Half received unfair trials. It doesn't mean half were innocent. I don't doubt there were innocent people on death row there. So it's good the appellate system worked. It would not have worked under Salem Witch trials or Nazi Germany.
When I made the statement - "I'm not talking about the weight of the evidence" - it was not an intent to say "the weight of the evidence doesn't matter," it was an attempt to limit the discussion to whether one could take the intellectual position that the death penalty is defensible in relation to the anti-abortion argument. I didn't want to get off on the usual tangents - such as "weight of evidence" so, looking back, maybe my "weight of evidence" statement wasn't clear.
One could go back and forth ad nauseum about our court system - is it arbitrary and capricious? Is it the least worst human judicial system in the world. Is it better in New York than in Mississippi? Suffice to say that for all it's flaws - it is a human endeavor after all - it is monstrously huge step up from Salem. A simple question you raise, "What's the cutoff point" could be debated forever too. Here's what some states lay out as the "cutoff point" - which are actually jury instructions that jurors consider during the sentencing phase, after a guilty verdict is returned:" Was the victim a child; was the killing random? Were multiple people killed? Was the crime committed to cover up another felony? Was the crime committed in commission of a felony?
Some of these cutoff points, I agree with. As a juror, I would have no problem sentencing Tim McVeigh to death. As a juror, if the state was arguing the murder occurred during a robbery of a 7-11 and thus, it was committed during another felony, I would probably argue for the life sentence to my other jurors. See, this could go on and on ... see the example below as to how this could expand:
You write: I would be interested to see the evidence you have correlating the presence of the death penalty in a state with a reduction in crime within prison. Until you show such evidence, your claim is "abstract".
This was a response to my assertion that being placed in solitary for a homicide might cheapen the life that was taken. In other words, I was merely making this limited argument. A man commits one murder, he is sentenced to prison for life. In essence, sent to his room forever. A man commits a second murder, what's the punishment, he is sent to a worse room? Does this cheapen the life of the second victim, I ask. And yet, from this simple notion, you are asking me to provide evidence "correlating the presence of the death penalty in a state with a reduction in crime within prison?" I don't know if such evidence would address my point that the life of the victim in the second murder was cheaper because the punishment was less severe. And I suppose I could spend hours looking for that evidence, and it might indeed exist.
But for the limited purposes of my claim that "it happens all the time" what if I just do a Google search for the words "prisoner kills inmate." Why, there it is, I have to go all the way back to, lets see...way back in history to the date of March 21, 2005, a man from Grenada Mississippi kills another. If I do a Google search for "prisoner kills guard" I have to go back even further, to March 11, 2005 - the Atlanta incident. It isn’t the best research, I admit. But I submit my claim is not abstract.
OK, my point is this. I can see an intellectual argument being made against the death penalty. If you come from the position that - even though you disagree with the death penalty - that the issue is a no brainer and there is no intellectual argument that can be made for it, then we're never going to be able to talk about the initial point re
P/abortion.
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This message has been edited by AdminPhat, 04-10-2005 03:35 AM
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