Tag: Death Penalty
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Miscarriage
If there’s a subject on which I’ve taken more than my fair share of crap from fellow conservatives, it’s on the Death Penalty. I support it for every possible reason, with one exception – the inevitability of executing the innocent. There is no rational doubt that Cameron Todd Willingham was innocent of the arson murder for…
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Number Six
With the tragic resolution of the Wetterling case, we’re starting to see the inevitable flurry of calls for the return of the death penalty to Minnesota; it’s the same flurry we see after every grisly, heart-wrenching crime. I’ve said it before; I support the death penalty for every reason but one. And it is, unfortunately, an absolutely…
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The Kill Cult
Joe Doakes from Como Park emailed me about something Glenn Reynolds wrote, that I wanted to write about anyway: Libertarian, explained in six sentences: “So, I’m skeptical of the death penalty’s administration because the criminal justice system is a disaster. But, assuming guilt, I don’t really care much about the morality of killing people. The…
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Guesswork And Voodoo
I’m a conservative, but I oppose the Death Penalty which is why I oppose the Death Penalty. In this case, because “settled science” has become unsettled, leading one to the undeniable recognition that many innocent people were convicted, and one innocent man executed, for murders it appears the “science” of the time did not prove…
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144
A Louisiana man released from Death Row because… …he didn’t commit the crime for which he spent 26 years on Death Row: State District Judge Ramona Emanuel on Monday took the step of voiding Ford’s conviction and sentence based on new information that corroborated his claim that he was not present or involved in Rozeman’s…
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Yes, I Still Oppose The Death Penalty…
…but there are people in this world who I wouldn’t mind hearing had been chained in a basement and eaten by mice. Just saying.
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Restatement Of Principles
I’ve opposed the death penalty for a long time. I actually support it, for every reason but one – the inevitability of executing the wrong person (and it appears all but inevitable that there’s been at least one and possibly two erroneous executions in recent years). Executing the wrong person is a double crime;…
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Inevitable
People ask me why I oppose the death penalty I say “because of the inevitability that we’ll convict and execute an innocent person, which is both morally wrong and absolutely avoidable”. The reply is “give me some reasons to believe that could ever happen”. And I respond “I’ve got 141 of them since they re-legalized…
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I’ll Make An Exception
As most of you know, I oppose the death penalty. And even that’s not quite right – I favor it for every reason but one – the inevitability that an innocent person will, between human imperfection, the politics of the prosecution system, bad defense, the emotions of death-penalty cases and just plain bad luck, be…
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A Firebrand’s Work Is Never Done
So at the convention last night, we were debating one of the final resolutions of the evening – a proposal by a delegate to remove language supporting the Death Penalty in the current GOP platform. It wasn’t my resolution – I submitted two at the caucuses, both of which passed easily – but I spoke…
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Unlamented
This story passed almost un-noticed in the past three weeks: John Evander Couey is dead. He passed away due to complications from anal cancer on September 30. Couey was convicted of kidnapping nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford and burying her alive. Couey took Jessica from her bedroom to his nearby trailer in February 2005, triggering a massive…
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Kill The Death Penalty
This post is an expansion of a comment in a thread way down below. Partly because my monkeying with my code this morning put a crimp in my morning blogging schedule. Partly because the subject deserves it. I oppose the death penalty, not because I break with most conservatives on the issue, but because I am…
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Why I Oppose the Death Penalty: Part CCXLII
The reliability and justice of the death penalty is only as the integrity of the prosecutors who press for it. And as we see in this case, we have a way to go: Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced that 51-year-old Albert Johnson had been arrested for the brutal rape and murder of two three-year-old…
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Death Penalty and National Self-Esteem
So I was reading this week-old op-ed by Vince Beiser in the Strib, about the arc the Death Penalty has had in this country over the past forty or so years. Beiser notes that the Death Penalty withered away on its own, for a while; indeed, in 1968 there were no executions in the US. …
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It’s A Dangerous World
Craig’s List has been the source of a few really bad dates and some really great deals on household stuff. But naturally, there’s a dark side Katherine Ann Olson had answered online ads for nanny jobs before without trouble. But one posted on the popular Craigslist.org website for a job in Savage may have cost…
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Challenge
I was pretty smug about what I believed when I went to college. There, I encountered a number of professors who agreed with my smug, self-satisfied beliefs – and one who challenged them, assaulted them, turned them on their heads. Of course, I went into college a liberal – and Doctor Blake was a self-described…
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Limits of Dogma
In the past, I’ve been open about the fact that I support the death penalty for every reason but one; the likelihood – indeed, the inevitability of eventually executing an innocent person. When there is any conceivable doubt – and the fact that 200 people have been exonorated from death row in the past 31…
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No Do-Overs
On few issues do I get as much crap from fellow conservatives as my stance on the Death Penalty. I support the death penalty for every possible reason, except one; the likelihood of executing the innocent. And that, as it happens, is dispositive to me. Since an equally-safe-to-the-public method – life in Supermax – exists,…
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200 Reversals
As has been noted many times in this space, I suppor the death penalty for every possible reason except one – the possibility, indeed (given human nature) likelihood of executing the innocent. And that is the only problem that matters; since life incarceration without parole is every bit as secure as the death penalty, and…
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Where Jubilation Is Due
As I’ve noted elsewhere, I oppose the death penalty for one reason, and one reason only; the likelihood of executing the innocent. And of course, when people are executed for crimes of which there’d seem to be very little doubt – Saddam Hussein, for example – I’ve solemnly intoned that I find no joy in…
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Rodriguez: Death
Alfonso Rodriguez the death penalty for the 2003 kidnapping, rape and murder of Dru Sjodin. “Today is the most difficult day of my life,” U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson said this morning in handing down the sentence. He rejected a motion for a new trial. Rodriguez abducted Sjodin in November 2003 from the parking lot of…
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Dead Pool
As noted many times in this space, I oppose the death penalty for exactly one reason; the likelihood, across 50 states and thousands of counties and 300 million people, of executing an innocent person. As long as any chance of this exists, along with any acceptable alternate approach, capital punishment is to me morally unacceptable.…
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Misplaced Priorities
I support the death penalty in every possible way – except one . We’ve been through this before. Ed and I talked about this a few weeks ago on the show, on the news that Missouri, California and Florida have enacted moritoria on the death penalty; we’re both unusual among conservatives in opposing the death…
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A Rare Thing
I rarely disagree with Dennis Prager (although I’ve broken with him about abstinence and the death penalty in the past). Less often still do I agree with Keith Ellison. So mark your calendars; Ed and I are with Ellison on his current flap about taking his oath of office on the Quran. Ed recaps some…