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 they committed.

22 thoughts on “Guesswork And Voodoo

  1. You cannot be pro-state sponsored murder and be conservative. The death penalty is Big Government’s ultimate weapon, and history has PROVEN it has been applied against innocent people with malice of intent.

  2. agree with swiftee – government should never get comfortable executing its citizens!

  3. You should get what you deserve. How about accidental death from a raptured anus for death row inmates then?

  4. It will always be possible to execute an innocent person, which makes the death penalty a nonstarter.

    By the way, that’s a world-class typo, jpa.

  5. This would be the same government that is administering our immigration policy, right?

  6. D and JPA: proofreading laugh of the day.

    TBS: Why yes. Yes, it is. Healthcare, weapons laws and non-profit statuses, too.

  7. To paraphrase Mr. D: it will always be possible to incarcerate an innocent person, which makes incarceration a nonstarter. Imprison ten people for a five year term unjustly, and you’ve effectively killed a man.

    I’d encourage less worry about the method of punishment, and more concern about the Mike Nifongs and Angela Coreys of the world working to railroad innocent men.

  8. No True Conservative supports the death penalty? Nonsense. The Founding Fathers outlawed cruel and unusual punishment which, in those days, meant torture: disembowling, the rack, drawing-and-quartering. Hanging was not considered cruel nor unusual, it was swift and common.

    Now Libertarians, sure, they oppose giving the government power for much of anything. But Conservatives accept there are cases where the ultimate penalty should be imposed, even though we know mistakes will be made in a system administered by flawed human beings.

    The alternative to a flawed societal justice system isn’t perfect justice, it’s individuals handing out their own justice. Look at Chicago last weekend to see it in action.
    .

  9. Mitch: Healthcare, weapons laws and non-profit statuses, too.

    Avery Liberal: Are you insinuating that government run healthcare is a death sentence?!

    Vietnam Veteran: According the VA, it is. And an arbitrary and capriciously enforced one at that.

  10. To paraphrase Mr. D: it will always be possible to incarcerate an innocent person, which makes incarceration a nonstarter.

    You can free an innocent person who is incarcerated. Not a lot of recourse for an executed person.

    I’d encourage less worry about the method of punishment, and more concern about the Mike Nifongs and Angela Coreys of the world working to railroad innocent men.

    Trust me, BB, I can multitask on this issue. And the presence of Nifongs and Coreys supports my position.

  11. Under a plutocrat like the present guy, owning a gun and going to church COULD become a capital offense. There’s the larger danger.

  12. Mr. D; yes, but you can no sooner give a man back five years of his life than you can give him back his life itself. No?

    I am also less sanguine than you are regarding whether our society as a whole can both address corrupt police and prosecutors and end the death penalty. Case in point; how many police and prosecutors have been fired or gone to jail for their part in sending 13 innocent men to death row? I’ve not heard of any,

    Besides, Biblically speaking, Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13 both presuppose a government that ought to execute certain criminals–the key issue Biblically is that the requirements for conviction are met, not the punishment.

  13. you can no sooner give a man back five years of his life than you can give him back his life itself. No?

    I have yet to hear any of the 200+ Death Row inmates released in the past few decades say that’d rather be dead than have lost the years, sometimes decades, they spent in the joint. Life can be a pretty good thing, if you’re alive to enjoy it.

  14. Mr. D; yes, but you can no sooner give a man back five years of his life than you can give him back his life itself. No?

    Of course you can’t give him back the five years. But you can end the injustice at the point he walks free. Dead men aren’t known for being ambulatory.

    I am also less sanguine than you are regarding whether our society as a whole can both address corrupt police and prosecutors and end the death penalty. Case in point; how many police and prosecutors have been fired or gone to jail for their part in sending 13 innocent men to death row? I’ve not heard of any,

    I am not sanguine about corrupt police and prosecutors. The issue isn’t whether these miscreants have faced punishment; the issue is preventing injustice in the future. You cannot unring the bell, but you can take the mechanism for one form of prosecutorial abuse out of their hands. And while Nifong only went to jail for one day, he did go to jail and he lost his career. That’s something.

    Besides, Biblically speaking, Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13 both presuppose a government that ought to execute certain criminals–the key issue Biblically is that the requirements for conviction are met, not the punishment.

    I do not dispute that there is Biblical support for capital punishment. I do not trust our current government to meet many requirements, let alone Biblical ones.

  15. Mitch, agreed, but the principle remains; you can no sooner give a man back years of his life than you can give him his life back. The point you’re making is that the death penalty cannot be revoked; my response is that neither can an injust imprisonment.

    To argue “well, I’d prefer to lose five years than lose my life” is just sophistry to evade that point. Of course each person would prefer a lost week to a lost month, a lost month to a lost year, and so on. None of that changes the fact that it is lost forever, and that a corrupt prosecutor will be corrupt at all levels to preserve that all-important conviction rate.

    In the case you link, I’m finding it incredible to believe that the defense attorney didn’t question the claims of 60 gallons of gasoline being lit eight times around a small cabin. Where were the containers, and how did the perp avoid incinerating himself if he stuck around? How did he avoid an electrical contact or such igniting it before he got out of range? Had nobody in the prosecutor’s team ever lit a fire with gasoline and thus didn’t have a working BS detector?

  16. That was no typo!

    How about we split the perps – get caught with blood on your hands at the scene of a cirme – get fried/hanged/shot/quartered/tar and feathered. Circumstantial – life.

  17. Oh, and stiff sentences in general population for Nifongs and Corey’s of this world.

  18. Mark, as glad as I am that Mike Nifong is no longer a stain on the legal profession, the major reason that he’s disbarred and broke is because he had the bad sense to pick on innocent people whose parents were willing and able to not only win the case, but also to keep pushing until he was disbarred and bankrupt. One day in jail (about the same as the guys he persecuted, really), nobody else gets punished.

    Can’t solve prosecutors like that by eliminating the death penalty. Something’s got to be changed on the other end of the process, and I’m afraid that changing sentencing simply obscures that.

  19. Per JPA’s comments, it’s worth noting that Deuteronomy prescribes “cities of refuge” for manslaughter where the person who accidentally kills can flee (or where there are not required witnesses to convict), and then stoning when you have intent and the required number of witnesses.

    It also notes that the penalty for perjury is the penalty that the perjurer tried to inflict on the victim. So if you pull a Nifong or Corey and lie about exculpatory evidence in a rape case, you get a sentence like that for rape or murder.

    Probably have to keep the heat on to get things like that going, but if we did, I’m guessing we’d see a lot less of this kind of chicanery.

  20. Can’t solve prosecutors like that by eliminating the death penalty.

    Never said you could. Separate issue.

    Something’s got to be changed on the other end of the process, and I’m afraid that changing sentencing simply obscures that.

    All I’m arguing is this — if you assume that we will always have potentially corrupt people in position, which I think is a safe assumption, given the fallen nature of man, it would be better to remove a tool by which they use their power to kill someone.

    Some day you and I will meet our Maker. I’d prefer not to let Mike Nifong, or Angela Corey, or Mike Freeman for that matter, have the ability to expedite that meeting.

  21. Again, Mr.D, the same applies for incarceration, especially given JPA’s comment about other methods of death in the prison system. To draw a picture, 39 people were executed legally in the U.S. in 2010. In 2009, over three thousand inmates died of various causes in prison, about 50 of them by homicide and another 200/year or so by suicide.

    Choose your poison.

  22. To draw a picture, 39 people were executed legally in the U.S. in 2010. In 2009, over three thousand inmates died of various causes in prison, about 50 of them by homicide and another 200/year or so by suicide.

    People die in prison and out of prison. Some die of natural causes, some are murdered, some commit suicide. Everyone dies eventually. The difference is whether the State orders the death.

    Choose your poison.

    If I were innocent, and I knew that the Innocence Project was working on my behalf, I’d absolutely choose incarceration and take my chances with the prison population. In other words, I’d choose the better of two highly undesirable options.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.