And the world loves America even less

[Azazello1313]

So tell me this. Are you saying it is better to spend billions of dollars on caging up the worst elements possible in society on the off chance some might be innocent rather than applying that time, energy and huge amount of taxes towards education, housing, healthcare, etc.? To me it seems to suggest that either people believe there is unlimited money to throw at the criminal justice system or that it eases the conscience more by killing no one on the chance that someone might be innocent than not caring that you are not helping children, education, sick, poor, etc.. Instead of advancing society, it is merely holding society further hostage. Seems like being incredibly kind in 100% the wrong direction to me.

 

problem with that argument is that it costs more to impose the death penalty than its alternatives. so I turn your questions right back around on you. is it worth the extra billions we spend imposing the death penalty simply to sate your sense of "justice"?

[Azazello1313]

Being put away for life based on being wrongly accused and being killed for it arent too much different IMO. I would rather be dead than get a tube steak in my ass until I go of natural causes

 

Prison is an upgrade for some of these Aholes. 3 square , medical, dental. Why should these people ever see another sunrise when there victims were disposed of like trash. Some of these Aholes are better off in prison then they were on the outside. 3 squares, medical, dental.

 

uhh, which is it, whomp? is 3 squares and a tube steak in the ass an upgrade or isn't it?

[whomper]

Being put away for life based on being wrongly accused and being killed for it arent too much different IMO. If it isnt getting reversed I would rather be dead than get a tube steak in my ass until I go of natural causes

 

 

True justice. Prison is an upgrade for some of these Aholes. 3 square , medical, dental. Why should these people ever see another sunrise when there victims were disposed of like trash. Some of these Aholes are better off in prison then they were on the outside. 3 squares, medical, dental.

 

 

uhh, which is it, whomp? is 3 squares and a tube steak in the ass an upgrade or isn't it?

 

 

In post one I am speaking as if it was me. I would rather be dead than in jail for life. Jail wouldnt be an upgrade for me. In post 2 I said for some of these aholes prison is an upgrade over there normal lives as a free person.

 

Post 2 was also a direct answer to your question of what is the benefit of having the death penalty. After a while these people will just get used to incarcerated life and it wont even feel like hard time. That isnt a possibility when they execute you for a heinous crime

[DMD]

problem with that argument is that it costs more to impose the death penalty than its alternatives. so I turn your questions right back around on you. is it worth the extra billions we spend imposing the death penalty simply to sate your sense of "justice"?

 

Well I know that people love to say it costs more to kill a guy than to completely support him for life but that would only apply, correct me if I am wrong, to only those who managed to go through the endless appeals? Does every death row inmate do that? Just because they file an appeal does not mean it is allowed or that anything happens. Exactly how many of those death row guys actually do manage to get numerous appeals and what is the actual cost? In the cut and dried cases we refer to previously, why would the legal system allow an appeal? I would suspect they would not. How many retrials are there? 1 in 1000? 1 in 10,000?

 

How true is it that it costs more to kill than to swaddle them for 50, 60 years in some cases? And does that apply to everyone? I think it is a mostly a strawman where you hold up what happened to one inmate and pretend it covers everyone.

 

I just read an article where the % of people supporting the death penalty did not change even though they found ONE case where they contend an innocent man was killed. 300,000,000 people in the country, 3500 people on death row and they found one. No wonder the sentiment did not change. It was 0.0002 % of death row inmates.

 

Again - for those slam dunk cases previously brought up - how much do those really cost? Are we pretending the cost for one or two is the same for all 3500?

[whomper]

Az, let me ask you this. Obviously it's a hypothetical but if we had a flawless system and you knew there was 0 chance of error. Would you support the death penalty ?

[bpwallace49]

Gubmnet cant even get health care (or much of anything else) right in this country . . .. . but giving them the OK to kill citizens is strangely popular.

 

 

 

This aint the wild wild west people . . . . frontier justice might be a bit behind the times.

[Azazello1313]

I just read an article where the % of people supporting the death penalty did not change even though they found ONE case where they contend an innocent man was killed. 300,000,000 people in the country, 3500 people on death row and they found one. No wonder the sentiment did not change. It was 0.0002 % of death row inmates.

 

one case where a conclusively innocent man was put to death. now, how many cases where someone was convicted and sentenced to death and then later exhonerated before the sentence was carried out? those are in the hundreds, if not thousands. there aren't so many in the first category because, you know, once a dude is gone the wind kinda goes out of the sails of the effort to prove his innocence.

 

of course, it sounds like if it was up to you, those wrongly convicted individuals would be dead already -- those damned costly appeals and whatnot.

[Azazello1313]

Az, let me ask you this. Obviously it's a hypothetical but if we had a flawless system and you knew there was 0 chance of error. Would you support the death penalty ?

 

I don't think I would support it, because I think killing is wrong when you have other alternatives. but it wouldn't bother me much, if at all, if there was no possibility of error.

[whomper]

I don't think I would support it, because I think killing is wrong when you have other alternatives. but it wouldn't bother me much, if at all, if there was no possibility of error.

 

 

Fair enough

[Azazello1313]

read some of the stories here, here and here.

Edited September 30, 2011 by Azazello1313

[DMD]

one case where a conclusively innocent man was put to death. now, how many cases where someone was convicted and sentenced to death and then later exhonerated before the sentence was carried out? those are in the hundreds, if not thousands. there aren't so many in the first category because, you know, once a dude is gone the wind kinda goes out of the sails of the effort to prove his innocence.

 

of course, it sounds like if it was up to you, those wrongly convicted individuals would be dead already -- those damned costly appeals and whatnot.

 

 

First - the contention was that he was innocent by his lawyers and not by the trial and appeals process. It is not that he was found innocent and then shot.

 

There are a number of cases where convicted criminals were later exonerated - but on death row? There are only 3500 people currently on death row in this country. I would seriously doubt hundreds or thousands of them have been exonerated. You are holding up drug, rape, etc. cases and applying it as if it were death penalty. For death penalty cases, they were trying to find ONE that would qualify. Not hundreds. Not thousands. ONE.

 

You did not answer the question.

 

Again - how much does it REALLY cost? Are we to believe that all 3500 death row inmates are getting appeals and retrial? Or are we applying what a few cost against all 3500?

 

And - which is better? Spending money on 3500 death row inmates or using that money for the good of society? Are you not saying that it is better to waste all that money on the chance one might be guilty (and benefiting the 3499 others) rather than applying it all to good causes?

[Azazello1313]

First - the contention was that he was innocent by his lawyers and not by the trial and appeals process. It is not that he was found innocent and then shot.

 

There are a number of cases where convicted criminals were later exonerated - but on death row? There are only 3500 people currently on death row in this country. I would seriously doubt hundreds or thousands of them have been exonerated. You are holding up drug, rape, etc. cases and applying it as if it were death penalty. For death penalty cases, they were trying to find ONE that would qualify. Not hundreds. Not thousands. ONE.

 

here is a list of 138, under the following criteria:

 

For Inclusion on DPIC's Innocence List:

 

Defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either-

a) their conviction was overturned AND

 

i) they were acquitted at re-trial or

ii) all charges were dropped

they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence.

 

You did not answer the question.

 

Again - how much does it REALLY cost? Are we to believe that all 3500 death row inmates are getting appeals and retrial? Or are we applying what a few cost against all 3500?

 

this should help you out:

 

Recent Cost Studies

•A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000).

(December 2003 Survey by the Kansas Legislative Post Audit)

•In Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment.

(2004 Report from Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Office of Research)

•In Maryland death penalty cases cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases, or $3 million for a single case.

(Urban Institute, The Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland, March 2008)

•In California the current sytem costs $137 million per year; it would cost $11.5 million for a system without the death penalty.

(California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice, July 2008)

The greatest costs associated with the death penalty occur prior to and during trial, not in post-conviction proceedings. Even if all post-conviction proceedings (appeals) were abolished, the death penalty would still be more expensive than alternative sentences.

•Trials in which the prosecutor is seeking a death sentence have two separate and distinct phases: conviction (guilt/innocence) and sentencing. Special motions and extra time for jury selection typically precede such trials.

•More investigative costs are generally incurred in capital cases, particularly by the prosecution.

•When death penalty trials result in a verdict less than death or are reversed, taxpayers first incur all the extra costs of capital pretrial and trial proceedings and must then also pay either for the cost of incarcerating the prisoner for life or the costs of a retrial (which often leads to a life sentence).

[Chavez]

Give DMD a break, Az - he's a Texan, they think anything above a parking ticket should end in an execution.

[Ursa Majoris]

problem with that argument is that it costs more to impose the death penalty than its alternatives.

You keep saying that and so do all the other death penalty opponents but is it true? Are there any real itemized numbers we could examine to see if that's really the case?

 

Edit: Never mind, should have read all the way to the end of the thread before posting. I'll have to take a good look at this.

Edited October 1, 2011 by Ursa Majoris

[Ursa Majoris]

•Trials in which the prosecutor is seeking a death sentence have two separate and distinct phases: conviction (guilt/innocence) and sentencing. Special motions and extra time for jury selection typically precede such trials.

•More investigative costs are generally incurred in capital cases, particularly by the prosecution.

•When death penalty trials result in a verdict less than death or are reversed, taxpayers first incur all the extra costs of capital pretrial and trial proceedings and must then also pay either for the cost of incarcerating the prisoner for life or the costs of a retrial (which often leads to a life sentence).

I'd need more data than this to believe it. I'm not convinced of this at all. You are trying to tell us that on the one hand there are hundreds of innocent people sentenced to death yet on the other you claim the prosecution spends much more on investigations. If that is true, aren't the increased investigation costs a signal that the case is being examined more thoroughly and thus a miscarriage of justice is less likely, not more?

[Chavez]

I'd need more data than this to believe it. I'm not convinced of this at all. You are trying to tell us that on the one hand there are hundreds of innocent people sentenced to death yet on the other you claim the prosecution spends much more on investigations. If that is true, aren't the increased investigation costs a signal that the case is being examined more thoroughly and thus a miscarriage of justice is less likely, not more?

 

 

It probably indicates the DA is leaving no stone unturned to make sure he can get the death penalty conviction and then campaign as "tough on crime!" next election cycle.

Edited October 1, 2011 by Chavez

[Azazello1313]

I'd need more data than this to believe it. I'm not convinced of this at all. You are trying to tell us that on the one hand there are hundreds of innocent people sentenced to death yet on the other you claim the prosecution spends much more on investigations. If that is true, aren't the increased investigation costs a signal that the case is being examined more thoroughly and thus a miscarriage of justice is less likely, not more?

 

It probably indicates the DA is leaving no stone unturned to make sure he can get the death penalty conviction and then campaign as "tough on crime!" next election cycle.

 

this is closer to the truth. if anything, the deeper a prosecutor's office gets into a case, the more committed they are to a conviction. the more time and money a prosecutor and an investigating agency spend on a case, the more it's a make or break moment for their career. spending several years on a murder case and seeking the death penalty and then deciding, you know, he actually probably didn't do it, would not exactly be a feather in the cap of any prosecutor. I can speak to all of this first hand.

 

and ursa, I am not telling you anything, the facts are right there at the links. 138 people on that list that have been 1) convicted and sentenced to death, and 2) later officially exhonerated. the names and details are right there. that doesn't even count people like the west memphis 3, who have never been officially exhonerated despite strong evidence of their innocence. likewise, the cost numbers come straight from official studies conducted by states. there may be other studies indicating a different cost balance (the site I pulled them from was definitely anti-death penalty) but I have never seen any. and my experience with DP cases compared with "regular" cases strongly backs the observation that WAY more money is spent prosecuting them. 3 to 1 or whatever those reports said would seem to me to be, if anything, on the low end.

[Ursa Majoris]

Leaving aside all the other aspects, let's just look at some potential costs.

 

Let's say that some guy aged 20 commits a capital crime and the wheels begin to grind. He gets convicted and sentenced to death. He goes through the appeals process, his conviction is confirmed over and over again and he is finally executed, age 33, thirteen years later.

 

Cost of case = original conviction + appeals + 13 years in the slammer + execution

 

If he went to prison for life without parole, he would still have some appeals, right? Let's assume he lives to the ripe old age of 76, then dies of some illness. So:

 

Cost of case = original conviction + appeals + 56 years in the slammer + a whole raft of health costs

 

I'm not so sure the "more costly" argument stands up as much as the DP opponents would have us believe. Did they factor in the cost of whole-life incarceration in a "supermax" and the likely health costs (and how ironic is THAT)?

[Azazello1313]

Leaving aside all the other aspects, let's just look at some potential costs.

 

Let's say that some guy aged 20 commits a capital crime and the wheels begin to grind. He gets convicted and sentenced to death. He goes through the appeals process, his conviction is confirmed over and over again and he is finally executed, age 33, thirteen years later.

 

Cost of case = original conviction + appeals + 13 years in the slammer + execution

 

If he went to prison for life without parole, he would still have some appeals, right? Let's assume he lives to the ripe old age of 76, then dies of some illness. So:

 

Cost of case = original conviction + appeals + 56 years in the slammer + a whole raft of health costs

 

I'm not so sure the "more costly" argument stands up as much as the DP opponents would have us believe. Did they factor in the cost of whole-life incarceration in a "supermax" and the likely health costs (and how ironic is THAT)?

 

while this cost analysis is really compelling, I'm not sure it trumps all the actual studies that have been done by all of the various states.

[DMD]

while this cost analysis is really compelling, I'm not sure it trumps all the actual studies that have been done by all of the various states.

 

and realize the slanted agenda of the website. And of the people released, it is not because they are innocent in every case but that they sometimes found rules of law regarding evidence and such lacking and there fore withdrew the conviction. The only intent of that site is to get rid of the death penalty so no shock what they elect to use for their argument.

[The Holy Roller]

and realize the slanted agenda of the website. And of the people released, it is not because they are innocent in every case but that they sometimes found rules of law regarding evidence and such lacking and there fore withdrew the conviction. The only intent of that site is to get rid of the death penalty so no shock what they elect to use for their argument.

 

Dammit DMD. It's 2:10 in the morning and you're arguing with Az. I need to know is Dez is going to play! Get back to your black magic predicting football stats and go play with Az Monday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DMD]

Dammit DMD. It's 2:10 in the morning and you're arguing with Az. I need to know is Dez is going to play! Get back to your black magic predicting football stats and go play with Az Monday.

 

 

 

 

Game time decision - he tweaked his quad in practice earlier this week so it set him back a bit. Most think he will play but how effectively is going to be really hard to gauge. I am not planning on using him on my team. Jason Garrett has never used injuries as strategies and there are plenty of writers watching every practice here.

 

And I have no idea why I am here. None of us are going to change our minds.

[gbpfan1231]

Why such an argument over cost?

 

I am all for death penalty and agree with Ursa - I am only for it when there is no doubt and yes there are instances where there is no doubt. Fort Hood - Dahmer - dude who shot giffords - guy dragging other guy behind vehicle etc...

 

If such a slam dunk and death penalty comes into play then I don't see why these people would have the time to go through all the appeals - if you do some sort of absolute rule then along with that absolute rule you limit the time frame and also limit the appeals. That in my mind would save money and do justice to these obviously useless people who do nothing but harm society.

[BeeR]

Game time decision - he tweaked his quad in practice earlier this week so it set him back a bit. Most think he will play but how effectively is going to be really hard to gauge. I am not planning on using him on my team. Jason Garrett has never used injuries as strategies and there are plenty of writers watching every practice here.

 

And I have no idea why I am here. None of us are going to change our minds.

 

Because the topic is interesting and you needed a break from all this FF mess.

 

Haven't read it all yet but looks interesting.

Edited October 1, 2011 by BeeR

[Azazello1313]

and realize the slanted agenda of the website.

 

then go ahead and show me the state studies that find a different cost relationship.