Executions R not us

[O Really]

Fair enough, O Really, it's the "Wrong question" for me.

If you did not have other objections to the death penalty would about .5% (or 4%) wrong convictions, odds of 1 in 200 (or 1 in 25) be acceptable to you? Others can answer, too.

Well, the percentages related to total convictions, not just death penalty cases, but sure - I think .5% is acceptable. And even the article implied 4% might be a bit high. Probably 75% of the wrong convictions are due to eyewitness problems. Since practically everybody in the country has a camera on their phone, you could disallow any unsupported eyewitness testimony. And you still have to convince 12 people "beyond a reasonable doubt" of guilt. I don't think absolute perfection is possible in this process (or maybe any process).

[Mr.B]

"You tried to deny that you chose a childish phallic insult out of all the ones available to you and got busted by your own source. The rest is just you whining in lieu of admitting how stupid you were and how penis-obsessed you are. I'm not bothered by it, I think both your defensiveness and your vulgarity are hilarious, Miss Manners."
And you're trying to deny that you chose a "childish phallic insult" to be offended by, despite the other definitions in the link. Why are you whining and lying so childishly? You won't admit how stupid your assumptions are despite my clarification and you're only failing to admit how stupid you are and how penis-obsessed you are, and your babbling on and on shows you're only in it for who-knows-what kind of gratification. Your pouting, obsession and defensiveness with the subject is what is hilarious. Are you going to babble on until lightning strikes?

"So...of those four, which of them were wrongly accused?"

I don't know, and you neither do you. The point you run away from is that many have been and more will be. Since you brought it up and are finally back on the topic of government killing are you going to keep cowering from discussing Kenneth Ireland and Damien Echols?
I didn't mention them because my post was concerning those found guilty without a doubt....did you miss that? There's no doubt in my mind that many more will be wrongly accused and convicted; our justice system isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean that those who are rightly accused and convicted should spend their days on our dime...they get to live their lives however unpleasant it may be, but they get to live; something they denied someone else, possibly in a horror-filled manner.

"Did the killers have the right to take those lives..."
"No, duh, that's why life in prison is fine with me."
Fine with you, yes. Fortunately everybody is not of the same mind-set. Why should a low-down murderer get to live a life as a ward of the taxpayer while his victim's families suffer a lifetime of anguish; that doesn't bother you?

"Do you sincerely believe that convicted murderers should be given the "kid glove" treatment?"

I appreciate how frequently you repeat the same stupidity, it saves me effort.
...Life in prison is hardly "oh well!" (or "kid glove" treatment) Only someone uninformed about our prison system would post that.
And I appreciate how frequently you repeat the same stupidity, it saves me effort; Lord knows you need all the help you can get.
It's amazing how that "Oh well" remark is still floating around in your belfry and has no hope of your ever comprehending it.

Thanks for the laughs.

[Mr.B]

"I wasn't offended....."
Since one of the definitions was of your choosing and you seem content to dwell on this subject, I suppose you weren't offended, so we all have to assume your obsession with phallic symbols is overwhelming. Knock yourself out!

"I merely pointed out that you, this forum's prissy Church Lady, chose a phallic insult as a way of diverting from your "Back-pedal much?" stupidity. I think it's a hoot that getting busted turns you into the foulmouthed little child that you claim to abhor and repeatedly scold others for being."
Now that's a hoot! You must have missed where I said "If I had wanted to compare you to a phallic symbol, I would have just called you a dick-head and got it over with...." that would have been your so-called "phallic insult"

"....you just can't admit that you are so bloodthirsty that you wish people who are in fact innocent get speedily killed by Big Brother, too."
I've always heard about children with over-active imaginations, but dang, you really take the cake!

"Given how nasty US prisons are, something that you are clearly ignorant about, and that as you admit, "many more will be wrongly accused and convicted," no, it doesn't bother me that murderers will spend life in prison while costing we taxpayers..."
I didn't ask you if sending someone to prison 'bothered you'; let's try this again, I'll type it very slowly so maybe it'll sink in (tape up that hole on the other side of your head)....."Why should a low-down murderer get to live a life as a ward of the taxpayer while his victim's families suffer a lifetime of anguish; that doesn't bother you?"

"You'd just prefer that they were dead, too."
That over-active imagination thingy at work again.

"You sound like a Middle Eastern terrorist in thinking that blood revenge makes a family whole again."
So the Middle East is where you find terrorists? Interesting.
It doesn't make them ''whole again", but there is the satisfaction of knowing that the one who murdered another will never get the opportunity to harm another; unfortunately his/her 'Big Brother' death was pampered, compared to the horror, pain, and possibly torture of his/her victim(s). You bleeding heart panty-waists can't/won't acknowledge that the victims suffered terribly at the hands of their murderers; you only have compassion for the murdering animal that's about to be put down. Again, I appreciate how frequently you whine and repeat the same stupidity. You liberals are a strange breed.

"you were saying that life in prison for the killers is an "oh well!" to the victims."
You poor goof-wad; you still don't understand what I wrote....dang you're thick today! (and yesterday, and the day before that, and the day....)

[O Really]

To be fully accurate, O Really, your first link also stated that .5%

...is probably low. "Our sample was stacked in favor of obtaining conservative estimates," Huff said. Most of those surveyed -- including prosecutors and law enforcement officials -- "have every reason to defend the system's accuracy and underestimate error," he said. Only 9 percent of the respondents were public defenders, who might be more critical of the criminal justice system...

I can see the case for arguing that some number of wrong convictions is acceptable for all crimes, perfection is impossible. But, those wrongly imprisoned still have the possibility of living valuable lives, whether or not their innocence is eventually proven.

However, my question was specific to the death penalty. Are any wrong convictions acceptable given that the sentence is irreversible and, if so, and if you didn't have other objections to the death penalty as carried out here, what number of innocents killed would be okay?

I didn't claim the .5% was accurate or valid - in fact my first question was, does anyone know the real number. But OK, let's restrict the question to death penalty cases. Would I find an error rate of .5% to be acceptable? Yes, as long as there continues to be an effort to avoid errors entirely. I'd like to disallow unsupported eyewitness testimony in death penalty cases. I'd like another court to conduct an evidence and process review (not in the appeal process) to look for any rats in the barn that might have occurred in the original trial. I'd like an automatic change of venue for death penalty cases. Don't try the guy in the neighborhood where he sliced up the baby. If, after best efforts within the law and due oversight, there were still .5% errors, sobeit.

(And of course, all that is predicated on our violent society continuing to seek its blood revenge. If you want to ask me how would I vote if provided the opportunity, I'd vote against the government killing its citizens)

[neoplacebo]

.5% still means for every 200, one of them shouldn't be there. And for what's it's worth, I'd rather be dead than spend "life" in prison, even if I were that 1 of 200.

[O Really]

.5% still means for every 200, one of them shouldn't be there. And for what's it's worth, I'd rather be dead than spend "life" in prison, even if I were that 1 of 200.

Yeah, me too. Problem is, they mostly have to do both, due to the long, long appeal time. There ought to be an option for the prisoner to swig the cocktail they give people in WA and OR who are ready to leave the building.

[O Really]

Since 1976, states have killed 1,264 convicts. So maybe 6 of them didn't do it?

[neoplacebo]

Since 1976, states have killed 1,264 convicts. So maybe 6 of them didn't do it?

Could be...wasn't the .5 some sort of average; if so, it could then be less than 3 or even more than 9. I think. Perhaps we should all link to some Texas execution forum; they're the pros.

[Mr.B]

"Since 1976, states have killed 1,264 convicts. So maybe 6 of them didn't do it?......If you want to ask me how would I vote if provided the opportunity, I'd vote against the government killing its citizens..

Unfortunately, these things happen; whether by design or actual honest mistakes. The majority of those executed deserved their punishment though; but according to Vrede, none of them deserved what they got, simply because there are others wrongly accused. Vrede feels that no matter how heinous the crime, prisoners should only be given life sentences; although to be fair, he did state that life in prison is no picnic. The key word here, as I pointed out earlier, is life, they should get to live, according to Vrede, despite having snuffed out the life/lives of others.

The main question here is, who should be responsible for executing prisoners? I'll answer that by saying that's why we have laws. Laws were passed centuries ago to deal with those who snub their noses at the rights of others to live and work to better themselves.....the sin of greed, lust, and power is responsible for
the commission of crime. Supposedly responsible people were/are elected/appointed to enforce these laws, because without enforcement and punishment, crime would soar to unbearable heights. Unfortunately, some of these 'responsible' people themselves were/are overcome by the same lust, greed, and desire for power; therefore, some innocents are unjustly punished; but for the guilty, we have to have a measure of trust for those appointed to exact punishment....
simply put, the same government who passes and enforces the very laws that were/are designed to protect the innocent.

I see no point in "discussing Kenneth Ireland and Damien Echols". However sad their particular cases are, they are two people out of millions...
Their cases still doesn't mean that we shouldn't have capital punishment for violent offenders.

[Mr.B]

"Your only response was to post a gif of Neil deGrasse Tyson..."

....who is saying..."whatevvvver"!

[O Really]

Way back in the day, I had a criminal law professor who quoted, "when you're young and inexperienced, you're going to lose some cases you should have won. When you are experienced and very good, you'll win some you should have lost. And overall, justice is served."

I suspect you'd disagree with that, eh?

[neoplacebo]

Way back in the day, I had a criminal law professor who quoted, "when you're young and inexperienced, you're going to lose some cases you should have won. When you are experienced and very good, you'll win some you should have lost. And overall, justice is served."

I suspect you'd disagree with that, eh?

This concept can be more easily understood if you substitute "poorly compensated" for "inexperience" and change "experienced" to "well compensated." I have very limited experience with the legal apparatus in general, but have known for many years that "justice" is quite relative; it relates to how much one can afford to spend in the quest for "justice." And, necessarily, the experience of becoming a successful attorney comes with years of study and work and, uh, experience. Justice is the desired result, supposedly, in all cases, but I suspect more than a few times justice gets a swing and a miss.

[Mr.B]

"You've been executing straw men left and right here, and running away when I point it out...."

I guess you've not noticed that no one else is weighing in on your silly whining.......

[O Really]

If "justice" can be averaged, a notion I question, I can't disagree. Would it be "overall justice" if one guilty person was freed and one was killed while one innocent person was condemned and another was freed? Or, can we say that Mexico is as just as the US solely because their prisons are harsher but their enforcement is less efficient?

...

If one must take the good professor's comment seriously, it really relates to the overall operation of the justice system. Admitting that it is not perfect, acknowledging that it can be affected by skills, effort and/or luck, but that in broad scope it provides justice for the society as a whole if not for each and every individual. Taken literally, no, you couldn't say that frying an innocent guy equals out with letting a guilty guy go free.

[O Really]

Outside of Texas, and maybe including Texas, it's really not that easy to get executed. Not just any crime has a death penalty potential, and a lot that could be death penalty are sentenced to life. The average prisoner on death row has spent 13 years there, and his odds of growing old in prison are pretty good. About 3,300 inmates were on death row in the United States, and there were 46 executions. "According to a study published in 2004 in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 5 percent of the 5,826 death sentences imposed from 1973 to 1995 were carried out in those years. By contrast, the study found, there was a 68 percent chance that death sentences in those years would be overturned by the courts."

Related, there are undoubted many thousands of people incarcerated that could be better punished by something else. And a lot incarcerated for crimes that shouldn't be crimes in the first place.

[Mr.B]

"Mr.B, you're the one that had to be dragged kicking and screaming back to discussing the topic from your whining about me, no one joined you in the latter, and no one has expressed your absolute and bloodthirsty support for the current US killing while several do agree with me that it's wrong in theory or in practice. Logic and comprehension much? I'm doing fine, thanks for your concern."

[bannination]

Way back in the day, I had a criminal law professor who quoted, "when you're young and inexperienced, you're going to lose some cases you should have won. When you are experienced and very good, you'll win some you should have lost. And overall, justice is served."

I suspect you'd disagree with that, eh?

This concept can be more easily understood if you substitute "poorly compensated" for "inexperience" and change "experienced" to "well compensated." I have very limited experience with the legal apparatus in general, but have known for many years that "justice" is quite relative; it relates to how much one can afford to spend in the quest for "justice." And, necessarily, the experience of becoming a successful attorney comes with years of study and work and, uh, experience. Justice is the desired result, supposedly, in all cases, but I suspect more than a few times justice gets a swing and a miss.

..... this......

[Mr.B]

"I guess his feelings got hurt but he's sure demonstrated that my caution was warranted."

Piss me off? Hurt my feelings? Hardly. I'm better than that. 0:-?> Besides, what's better than a war of words between 'friends'?

I suspect you're the one that got outed, pissed off, or your feelings hurt; why else would you have publicly posted what originally was a PM?

[bannination]

Mr. B. doesn't drink.

Hm....

[Mr.B]

"In case y'all are wondering why Mr.B suddenly became such a brat in the last 3 weeks....."

Who was wondering anything? Just because we had differences in opinions and swapped a few choice words, I'm the brat?
Believe me, I definitely wasn't all broke up over your refusal.
btw.....sorry you opted out on the 'brewski'; and it wasn't tea..... retiring again this month...fer good.

"I'm not the one that changed so dramatically, stupid. If I'm ever outed you'll know because all my posts will be erased and you'll never see me here again. Clearly, you aren't to be trusted to act ethically or rationally. Hence, all your childish attacks entirely unrelated to the topic at hand. I posted my own PM, which I'm fully entitled to do, as a possible explanation for your behavior. I could have posted it publicly in response to your public invitation in the first place. Quit whining."

Attacks?!? Are you serious? Now who's whining?

You must have thinner skin than I thought; obviously so thin it only has one side! (we know your opinions have one side....)
Like I said..."what's better than a war of words between 'friends' "?

So I've been "attacking" you, but you've never "attacked me"?
Let's see..."gay-sex obsessed, poop obsessed, obsessed this, obsessed that, you're stupid, bearing false witness ....etc., etc.,etc......"

So you favor only yourself to be allowed to call names and no one else??? Ain't gonna happen.

You wrote: "If I'm ever outed you'll know because all my posts will be erased and you'll never see me here again."
Kinda like telling a Yankee complaining about the South and threatening to move back North....what's stopping you?