Some of you may not know, but Ohio passed the castle doctrine in Ohio in 2008. Yet somehow, our terrible justice system convicted this man of murder for shooting an intruder to his house, that was beating up his girlfriend. Not only that, but the perpetrator has been in jail for aggravated murder and drug trafficking violations. So this cracked out garbage human being breaks into a house, assaults someone, yet the system found his shooting to not be self defense? With no castle doctrine it should still be self defense, but with the castle doctrine the police should have shook his hand and thanked him for ridding the World of this piece of trash. This furthers my belief that our law system, including allowing morons on a jury, is absolutely ridiculous. Thankfully, the appelate court has overturned this charge and demanded a new trial, but this poor man has spent a year in jail already.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/09/appeals_court_overturns_murder_1.html

*Cleveland*

I truely hope these jurors are never faced with that kind of scenario!

Yet another case that affirms my belief that the death penalty is a bad idea. I mean, what if he had been given a death sentence and executed for this? It would be a tragedy. Hell, putting the dude in jail is bad enough.

I Wear Pants;910815 wrote:Yet another case that affirms my belief that the death penalty is a bad idea. I mean, what if he had been given a death sentence and executed for this? It would be a tragedy. Hell, putting the dude in jail is bad enough.

Why? The death penalty is never in consideration for these types of cases. Should we through out the whole judicial system because an innocent man spent time in jail? You want to through the baby out with the bath water. Reform is the answer. Like I said on the other thread innocent people being executed can be virtually eliminated and as a bonus the most heinous murderers will receive swift justice not wards of the state for decades. Limit and streamline.

majorspark;911479 wrote:Why? The death penalty is never in consideration for these types of cases. Should we through out the whole judicial system because an innocent man spent time in jail? You want to through the baby out with the bath water. Reform is the answer. Like I said on the other thread innocent people being executed can be virtually eliminated and as a bonus the most heinous murderers will receive swift justice not wards of the state for decades. Limit and streamline.

Unless you can show me a system wherein there is 0% chance of a mistake being made then I cannot abide the death penalty. It's not worth even one mistake.

And what I meant by it affirms my belief is that if juries and such get cases like this that seem pretty clear cut wrong sometimes, it stands to reason that they get even more complex cases that could involve the death penalty wrong at least as much.

That a person guilty of murder rots in prison for life instead of being executed is far more acceptable to me than executing even one innocent person (or person who might be guilty but the circumstances that actually happened would have made it so we didn't consider the death penalty).

I Wear Pants;911482 wrote:Unless you can show me a system wherein there is 0% chance of a mistake being made then I cannot abide the death penalty. It's not worth even one mistake.

For some reason I am confusing through with throw or I am an idiot take your pick. It must be late. O% of anything is not possible. You can't throw something out because it lacks perfection. End air travel and get rid of cars. Now you can feel better that you have saved some lives. Far more innocent people die in those circumstances than at the hands of the state. If I have time later I will lay out my idea of reform regarding the death penalty.

majorspark;911486 wrote:For some reason I am confusing through with throw or I am an idiot take your pick. It must be late. O% of anything is not possible. You can't throw something out because it lacks perfection. End air travel and get rid of cars. Now you can feel better that you have saved some lives. Far more innocent people die in those circumstances than at the hands of the state. If I have time later I will lay out my idea of reform regarding the death penalty.

Air travel and cars are not the death penalty. Comparing them is ridiculous.

And I noticed you used through instead of throw but it's late and I make more mistakes like that than most on this site so pointing it out would make me a dick which I try not to be (shocking, I know, for how big of an asshole I am).

It is not realistic to expect perfection from any system where human beings are involved.

But just because you cannot achieve perfection does not mean you should just give up and walk away.

I'm curious: can you name the last person the US executed who was later proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be innocent?

Writerbuckeye;912015 wrote:It is not realistic to expect perfection from any system where human beings are involved.

But just because you cannot achieve perfection does not mean you should just give up and walk away.

I'm curious: can you name the last person the US executed who was later proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be innocent?

I can expect perfection from a system when the outcome of any failure is the death of someone who might not have deserved it. Especially when there are perfectly acceptable alternatives.

And there's rarely people who are posthumously pardoned because, shocker, not many attorneys and judges spend time on the cases of executed people.

I mean shit, we executed 22 people for crimes they did when they weren't even legal adults yet after 1976.

And the death penalty certainly doesn't serve as a deterrent. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pdf

http://www.deathpenalty.org/downloads/DPIC Cost and Police Poll 2009.pdf

Just read some of that. Anyone who supports the death penalty and then claims to be fiscally conservative is a hypocrite.

I Wear Pants;912033 wrote:I can expect perfection from a system when the outcome of any failure is the death of someone who might not have deserved it. Especially when there are perfectly acceptable alternatives.

The product is justice. Allowing the most heinous criminals to escape it is not an acceptable alternative. Do you have any doubt whatsoever about the guilt of the like of Ted Bundy, Richard Allen Davis, the murders of the Petit family in Connecticut (who burned those poor girls alive while tied to their beds after sexually assaulting them)? Admitted guilt, caught in the act, unquestionable DNA statistics, led authorities to bodies buried in remote locations. I could go on and on with solid cases like this. The answer is to reform the system to meet the death penalty on these individuals at the expense of letting other likely murders who deserve death instead serve life.

The death penalty needs to be more limited than it is today. I would advocate the creation of a trained death penalty appellate system that solely deals with death penalty cases operating under strict rules of no doubt. Checked by the state executive, the state supreme court, the federal executive, and the federal Supreme court. Limited in scope to keep the courts dockets low in order to meet the death penalty out in a couple of years at most. Not decades. This would also help in death penalty expenses.

I Wear Pants;912033 wrote:And the death penalty certainly doesn't serve as a deterrent. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pdf

If the death penalty were swift it would serve as somewhat of a deterrent. That said the main purpose of the death penalty is to meet out justice. Heinous murders like John Couey would likely not have been deterred by the death penalty. After raping a young little girl several times he buried her alive on his property under a couple feet of earth. She was found with her skeleton fingers poking through the trash bag trying to dig her way out.

I Wear Pants;912033 wrote:http://www.deathpenalty.org/downloads/DPIC Cost and Police Poll 2009.pdf

Does this poll figure in all the countless savage murders that seek to save their own skin by pleading guilt to avoid the death penalty? Thus saving the taxpayers a costly trial? Heinous murders like the Green River killer and here in Ohio Thomas Dillon.

I Wear Pants;912033 wrote:Just read some of that. Anyone who supports the death penalty and then claims to be fiscally conservative is a hypocrite.

What? The department of defense wastes money too. It needs reformed. Am I a hypocrite because I do not want it to be eliminated? Aside from that there is a cost for justice that a just and moral people absorb. If you want to look at just the cost and being fiscally conservative (which is what you are implying) we can save a lot of money by just foregoing the judicial process and marching criminals out back. One bullet in the head saves a lot of dough.

How in the hell did the prosecutor even take this to trial let alone a jury convict the man. there was a case in Toledo a couple of years ago (2009 maybe) in which a man shot a fleeing robber and killed him and the man was NEVER charged because of the Castle Doctrine. The robber was running away in this case. But in the Cleveland case the intruder was beating up the man's GF and gets shot and that is murder? SMFH

dwccrew;912619 wrote:How in the hell did the prosecutor even take this to trial let alone a jury convict the man. there was a case in Toledo a couple of years ago (2009 maybe) in which a man shot a fleeing robber and killed him and the man was NEVER charged because of the Castle Doctrine. The robber was running away in this case. But in the Cleveland case the intruder was beating up the man's GF and gets shot and that is murder? SMFH

I'm thinking both cases you mentioned were wrong. This guy never should have been charged and you shouldn't shoot someone running away. (Though obviously murder might be a harsh accusation for that guy)

Case in point I would be ok with seeing convicted murders like Scott Peterson (convicted on convincing circumstantial evidence) get his sentence commuted to life in order to see the most heinous criminals with no doubt of their guilt meet swift justice for their crimes. But it is a state power. It would be interesting if a state actually took up this model of justice.

majorspark;912613 wrote:
If the death penalty were swift it would serve as somewhat of a deterrent. That said the main purpose of the death penalty is to meet out justice. Heinous murders like John Couey would likely not have been deterred by the death penalty. After raping a young little girl several times he buried her alive on his property under a couple feet of earth. She was found with her skeleton fingers poking through the trash bag trying to dig her way out.

There is zero evidence to support this.

What? The department of defense wastes money too. It needs reformed. Am I a hypocrite because I do not want it to be eliminated? Aside from that there is a cost for justice that a just and moral people absorb. If you want to look at just the cost and being fiscally conservative (which is what you are implying) we can save a lot of money by just foregoing the judicial process and marching criminals out back. One bullet in the head saves a lot of dough.

The department of defense provides a noted benefit (national security) so eliminating it entirely would be stupid. What benefit over life imprisonment does the death penalty have? None other than your personal sense of justice which isn't shared by everyone. Then there's the possibility of innocence being executed which makes it even more obvious what the right thing to do is.

I Wear Pants;912734 wrote:There is zero evidence to support this.

No there isn't. We have not tried it in a century or so. But that does not matter anyway. The purpuse of the death penalty is to meet out justice. If it deters its just window dressing.

When an idividuals rape and kill a family and leave young girls to burn alive tied to their beds, are caught red handed in the act, and admit to the crime. There is no doubt as to their guilt. I would not loose a wink of sleep if we gave them 90 days of appeals in a streamlined death penalty appellate court and hung them at high noon. Just read about these POS on Fox this morning. There are many more like them.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/26/teenage-victim-in-connecticut-home-invasion-took-several-minutes-to-die/#ixzz1Z7M37psu

I Wear Pants;912734 wrote:The department of defense provides a noted benefit (national security) so eliminating it entirely would be stupid. What benefit over life imprisonment does the death penalty have? None other than your personal sense of justice which isn't shared by everyone. Then there's the possibility of innocence being executed which makes it even more obvious what the right thing to do is.

The noted benefit of the death penalty is meeting out do justice. And when you talk about the possibility of innocent lives being lost the department of defense has that hands down. I would say its well over a million by now. You would be hard pressed to find several hundred innocently executed. With a reformed system and modern technology you could make that number statistically negligable.

Statistically negligible is not good enough. In something where the alternative is perfectly acceptable I cannot abide the death penalty unless it was absolutely flawless. Which is impossible.

And why are you still comparing the death penalty with the department of defense? Not comparable as the death penalty has a perfectly good alternative whereas the department of defense does not (though you know my opinion that we need to lower spending on it drastically).

You might want to check this out...

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_2e1b2f72-e836-11e0-b062-0019bb30f31a.html

Apparenly even the crime-riddled city of St. Louis respects private property and owners.

I Wear Pants;912624 wrote:I'm thinking both cases you mentioned were wrong. This guy never should have been charged and you shouldn't shoot someone running away. (Though obviously murder might be a harsh accusation for that guy)

Castle Doctrine - You're in my house,and I have a gun, you die. Don't wanna die, don't steal shit from people.

I Wear Pants;912624 wrote:I'm thinking both cases you mentioned were wrong. This guy never should have been charged and you shouldn't shoot someone running away. (Though obviously murder might be a harsh accusation for that guy)

Whether or not you feel they are morally wrong, I am commenting on the Castle Doctrine and how in one case, the Toledo incident, the Castle Doctrine was followed; yet in Cleveland it was ignored.

It's been awhile since I've discussed this topic.

I am for the death penalty in theory, and I don't see a viable alternative, but I don't currently see the death penalty as a practical option either.

In essence, I don't think there is a system out there that I would defend.

Suppose 20,000 men convicted of murder are executed, and 19,999 of them were guilty. That means that 19,999 guilty men and 1 innocent man paid for 20,000 guilty men's crimes.

That is not justice.

If there arose such a way as to verify guilt, I would be 100% okay with capital punishment. Until then, I'd rather put the animals in a pen, and simply remove a few of the amenities in prison (though prison is hardly as cushy as people seem to think).

Sometimes the inmate justice system works things out as well, without any commissioning from the powers that be.

O-Trap;914844 wrote:Suppose 20,000 men convicted of murder are executed, and 19,999 of them were guilty. That means that 19,999 guilty men and 1 innocent man paid for 20,000 guilty men's crimes.

I do not agree with this statement. Each man is not paying for one another's crimes. They are each very seperate. 1 innocent man would be paying for one guilty man's crime. The other 19,998 are paying for their own individual crimes as well.

Prisoner A isn't getting executed because Prisoner B murdered a family, he's getting executed for whatever he did.

i don't think you can look at it as a collective like that, unless you meant it in some other way and i am not understanding you correctly.

dwccrew;915422 wrote:I do not agree with this statement. Each man is not paying for one another's crimes. They are each very seperate. 1 innocent man would be paying for one guilty man's crime. The other 19,998 are paying for their own individual crimes as well.

Prisoner A isn't getting executed because Prisoner B murdered a family, he's getting executed for whatever he did.

i don't think you can look at it as a collective like that, unless you meant it in some other way and i am not understanding you correctly.

Sorry. I used a large volume for two reasons. (1) I wanted to establish that I recognize a large baby in the bathwater. (2) I wanted to point out that capital punishment is not synonymous with justice, even if it's simply a tiny fraction of a percentage point off. If the 19,999 are executed justly, and the 1 is still executed unjustly, then the whole of the action is not just.

That one fraction of a percentage point in error is permanent and has resulted in the most extreme form of punishment administered by our government. Small example though it may be, where would the justice be for that innocent man?

O-Trap;914844 wrote:Suppose 20,000 men convicted of murder are executed, and 19,999 of them were guilty. That means that 19,999 guilty men and 1 innocent man paid for 20,000 guilty men's crimes.

Suppose 20,000 men convicted of murder were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and 19,999 of them were guilty. That means that 19,999 guilty men and 1 innocent man paid for 20,000 guilty men's crimes.

By your logic that is not justice.

I Wear Pants;912792 wrote:Statistically negligible is not good enough. In something where the alternative is perfectly acceptable I cannot abide the death penalty unless it was absolutely flawless. Which is impossible.

I don't find the alternative perfectly acceptable in the most heinous cases. When two punks molest a child, rape and strangle their mother, tie the girls to their beds, burn them alive, are caught red handed in the act, and admit to the crime. No doubt as to their guilt. When John Couey rapes a young girl then buries her alive and an autopsy reports her skeletal fingers protruding from the plastic bag trying to dig her way out. I could go on and on with these no doubt heinous crimes.

Due justice is not served on these heinous murders with no doubt of their crimes by giving them 3 square meals a day, a warm bed to sleep in, access to a library, forms of entertainment, communication with the outside world, etc...