Bored teens kill baseball player

[BigBlueBrock]

I do not support capital punishment for the following reasons:

• Its efficacy as a deterrent is highly questionable (in fact, the vast majority of criminologists believe it is ineffective as a deterrent and that abolishing it would have no effect on the rate of homicides).
• It costs taxpayers much more money than life in prison, once you consider the legal fees while the case is tried and then appealed, not to mention the time spent on death row.
• The system, and this is the most important reason for me, is fallible. It cannot be guaranteed that an innocent person will not be executed and ONE innocent person being executed is too high a price to pay.

There are no conditions within which I would support the execution of a criminal.

[badrose]

http://www.smh.com.au/world/chris-la...822-2sdud.html

[CitizenBBN]

I do not support capital punishment for the following reasons:

• Its efficacy as a deterrent is highly questionable (in fact, the vast majority of criminologists believe it is ineffective as a deterrent and that abolishing it would have no effect on the rate of homicides).
• It costs taxpayers much more money than life in prison, once you consider the legal fees while the case is tried and then appealed, not to mention the time spent on death row.
• The system, and this is the most important reason for me, is fallible. It cannot be guaranteed that an innocent person will not be executed and ONE innocent person being executed is too high a price to pay.

There are no conditions within which I would support the execution of a criminal.

-- It'll deter the guy we kill, and a lot of the lost deterrent effect is that we so hide away such things. I'm betting the deterrent was better when everyone turned out for the public hanging.
-- Justice isn't always about the money, and I could fix that too given the power to fix a few laws.
-- The only point that has some appeal for me. But is putting someone in a hole for the rest of their lives is a much better outcome for the innocent man? Besides, as your 2nd point highlights, the procedures in the modern era for capital punishment are so lengthy and involved those odds are exceptionally low. Not non-zero but pretty close.

It doesn't get me worked up much either way, but I have no moral issues with the group ending the life of someone who deserves it. If it's life in prison fine, but I fail to see the point of it for people like this. I don't want them breeding and I don't want them sharing our air.

There are plenty of cases where we KNOW who did it, they admit they did it, we have witnesses they did it, and it was a heinous enough crime they deserve to die. Go get a rope and build a nice gallows out front of the court house and pick a nice Saturday afternoon so folks can come. Charge $25 each for the food vendor spots and we can even cover the cost of the rope and wood.

The Ft. Hood case is a good example. He admits he did it, there's no debate he did it, there was no investigation of who did it b/c he was standing there with the gun. The guy who kidnapped those girls and held them is another. He lived in the house, the girls were chained up in the house, we know he did it, they say he did it, he doesn't deny it, there's no doubt. None. The only possible out for them is an insanity defense, and if that fails and they are convicted I can have this wrapped up in a week or so depending on the weather.

These 3 killed a man in cold blood probably as a gang initiation. If there's no doubt they did it then let's get the trial wrapped up and I'll put 3 bullets in a 45 and we'll be done and we'll for sure send a deterrent message to every other kid thinking about it. I doubt it will dissuade many b/c we're talking about people who aren't rational and can't make such decisions, percolating the inhuman trash to the top as it were, but it may save some people and if not we got this wrapped up with some justice for the murdered person.

Yes, I have a harsh view on such things, but it's a harsh world and there are some people in it who are beyond redemption. I have no idea why a civilized society shows any concern or compassion for them whatsoever. To me they are no different than shooting a rabid dog. Proper societies cannot tolerate such behavior and need to make it clear in the strongest possible terms.

[BigBlueBrock]

-- It'll deter the guy we kill, and a lot of the lost deterrent effect is that we so hide away such things. I'm betting the deterrent was better when everyone turned out for the public hanging.
-- Justice isn't always about the money, and I could fix that too given the power to fix a few laws.
-- The only point that has some appeal for me. But is putting someone in a hole for the rest of their lives is a much better outcome for the innocent man? Besides, as your 2nd point highlights, the procedures in the modern era for capital punishment are so lengthy and involved those odds are exceptionally low. Not non-zero but pretty close.

Non-zero is still not zero. And life in prison has the advantage of the innocent man still being alive if/when more advanced forensics arise that bring new truths to a case. Already since the advent of DNA testing, it has been determined that the wrong man was put to death in times gone by for crimes he didn't commit. Too high a price, no equivocation.

As far as the deterrent part... You really think kids/men living in an environment of gangs and drugs and guns are deterred by capital punishment if they're caught? Please. They live with that fear every day of their lives if they're caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. A rope waiting for them in the courthouse square is meaningless when the reality of their lives is life and death on the edge of a knife.

You and I also have very different ideas of what constitutes a proper society.

[CitizenBBN]

Non-zero is still not zero. And life in prison has the advantage of the innocent man still being alive if/when more advanced forensics arise that bring new truths to a case. Already since the advent of DNA testing, it has been determined that the wrong man was put to death in times gone by for crimes he didn't commit. Too high a price, no equivocation.

As far as the deterrent part... You really think kids/men living in an environment of gangs and drugs and guns are deterred by capital punishment if they're caught? Please. They live with that fear every day of their lives if they're caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. A rope waiting for them in the courthouse square is meaningless when the reality of their lives is life and death on the edge of a knife.

You and I also have very different ideas of what constitutes a proper society.

I'm not suggesting we use the criminal procedures from the 1960s again. I explicitly proposed using it only for the most obvious and unequivocal cases. When the guy was wrestled to the ground with the gun in his hand in the lobby of the building and everyone saw him randomly shooting people, there's no risk of later finding out he's innocent via DNA evidence.

I said it would be largely meaningless. the deterrent effect isn't an overwhelming motivation for my views. Justice is the overwhelming motivation. People who commit such horrible acts on others don't deserve to live. However it will deter some, and since it also serves the goals of justice it is just a nice bonus that some few may decide to not murder someone to join a gang. I don't consider the death penalty a solution for the current drug/gang war situation in the US, I have proposed other solutions for it. This is about meting out justice.

I have no doubt we have very different ideas on what constitutes a proper society. It troubles me on a daily basis that I live more in yours than you do in mine and things move to yours more every day. Which is why I would ideally subdivide the nation into the two groups and start over, resetting our society to the vision of the Founders.

Edit: Fwiw that's not personal, there are simply two primary visions of how society should function within the Western world view, and they aren't going to see eye to eye ever. They are too fundamentally different in their assumptions and priorities. I don't feel ill will towards anyone who accepts the other one. I only feel ill towards politicians and those who lie about what which view they really hold. People are free to make their own choices, I just don't want one group dragging the other along.

[Darrell KSR]

I remembered debating--not that I had any real experience in it; it was part of speech class for me--capital punishment, way back in my high school days.

Yes, we had electricity. Yes, paper was invented.

No, we didn't have air conditioning in the school. OK, so I'm old.

Anyway, the best that I remembered back then, my research showed capital punishment had virtually no deterrent effect. The best argument was that it eliminated one person who was likely to commit another crime, but in "big number" terms, that was negligible.

I was a proponent of capital punishment way back when. My reasons are different than BBB's; as I am almost exclusively an opponent today just for my own moral reasons. While I do not shed a tear for a serial killer or other ilk to die from a government-sanctioned killing, I simply do not see that as our role here on earth. Others disagree, and that's fine. It's not a matter of logic and reasoning; it's a belief system I hold.

People make it awfully tough at times to hold this belief system. I fight it constantly.

[CitizenBBN]

Most studies show little deterrence effect, but they didn't study my version of how to do it either. lol.

It's like smoking education. Telling 15 year olds they'll die when they're 60 instead of 80 means nothing to them. The punishment is too far removed from the action in too many ways to be as effective. There are things that can make it more effective, but IMO "deterrence" in a justice system is about a broader set of swift and sure justice and punishments, and capital punishment in a microcosm can't carry all that weight.

Deterrence is all about "what you have to lose" and when you have little to lose it's hard to deter someone. I don't have a single drink and drive a vehicle b/c I could lose a lot. Not worth the chance. If you don't have a livelihood to protect, aren't afraid of being in jail for a night or a year, it's tough to deter behavior. Add in the profit motive in things like the drug trade and it's even tougher.

I do think the deterrence effect is underestimated in some studies b/c it's really hard to measure "the population of people who would commit this act if the negative consequences were removed", but with capital punishment the other options (life without parole) are all part of a grand deterrent to not killing the guy who cut you off in traffic, the actual death penalty being only a sliver of it. If you have enough to lose then 20 years in jail is plenty scary enough and capital punishment is irrelevant, and if you don't care much either way if you go to jail for 20 years or are so irrational it doesn't factor, then the death penalty wont' factor in either.

For me it is part of the ideal of swift justice, but mostly I just believe some people don't deserve to live when they do things like this. My outrage that someone's life and liberty was taken for such low reasons overwhelms any sense of preservation of life I may have. This person who was killed was a good person who did nothing wrong, and just warehousing these kids for 25 years and then sending them back out to prey on another person isn't enough of a price.

FWIW that is the counter to the "innocent man" argument: the fact that there is no guarantee these monsters won't get back out into society and hurt others. These kids may get tried as adults but $10 says they get out of prison one day, probably a lot sooner than people would expect, and end up committing another crime. How many truly innocent people do we let be harmed before we start guaranteeing some people won't ever hurt another person? Of course that's a legal system issue, but that's how it works with these things.

In fact most such cases don't even have trials. They'll plead out and be released. In a system like that of course capital punishment has no deterrent effect. The system has to work as a whole and when it doesn't there won't be much deterrence.

[DanISSELisdaman]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...ng-on-twitter/

[Catonahottinroof]

I was at a hanging in the Bahamas in the fall of 1998, not exactly what i wanted to see on my fall Caribbean vacation. In Nassau Square, 2 men were hung about an hour apart. at that time, Bahamian justice was relatively simple. If you are convicted of a Capital offense, you get 5 years of appeal. At the 5th year and 1 day, you hang from the gallows. There has been a softening of that stance over the years and I don't think they've executed anyone in quite a while. Is it a coincidence in this softening they the crime rates there are now going up?

Capital punishment deters that one offender. The appeal process is so lengthy in the US many die before the sentence can be carried out. It's become a legal game of delay stall and deflect....therefore little in the way of deterrent as a result.

BTW, do you think Obama will inject himself into this debate as he did with Trayvon Martin? No racial points to score, so I doubt it...

[Darrell KSR]

Wow, how awful. I saw a beheading on the Internet once, and I wasn't even sure what it was real and it creeped me out.

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[Catonahottinroof]

Darrell, my wife and were staying at the Radisson on Cable Beach, beautiful golf courses there. We decided to take the hotel tour into Nassau that day rather than playing golf. Huge mistake on our part. So much so that we've never went back. The Caymans are now our island of choice.

[CitizenBBN]

Have to admit I never really saw it as a vacation destination. wow. Though historically it was a town gathering event, it was more in the "watch a train wreck" category and not in the "plan my week off work around the hanging" category.

At least one of these guys is a raging racist. Should I hold my breath waiting on the various groups howling in the Zimmerman trial, when there was no evidence of racism, to call on the DOJ to investigate and charge this as a hate crime?

[CitizenBBN]

Darrell, my wife and were staying at the Radisson on Cable Beach, beautiful golf courses there. We decided to take the hotel tour into Nassau that day rather than playing golf. Huge mistake on our part. So much so that we've never went back. The Caymans are now our island of choice.

I would think they might reschedule that tour in light of what was going to transpire or at least give you a big heads up. Personally I have no desire to go back to the Bahamas b/c when I was there it was fine but the service was lousy and it was really expensive. There are just better options available, at least to when I was there. The casinos have become a lot grander since those days.

[Catonahottinroof]

The Crystal Palace is next door to the place we stayed. It's a high rollers place. The hangings were huge news in the Miami newspapers when we came back, but it was kinda ho hum in Nassau. There were quite a few people there, some cheering, some lamenting....and my wife and in I....in shock...:/

[Darrell KSR]

Only been to the Cayman islands once, but it beat the Bahamas even before this. Wow, what a shock.

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