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| A few months ago, I learned that the state of Texas publishes the last words of the men and women it executes. At first, reading through each statement made me feel uneasy, as if I were eavesdropping on a conversation through a door that was mistakenly left cracked open. But after reading through several dozen of the testimonies, amid the disquiet, I began to feel as if I were bearing witness to a small moment of human redemption. To read through each statement is to be introduced to something we would otherwise neglect. It is a small reclamation of humanity for those whom we have deemed to be no longer worthy of it. I was particularly struck by the words of a man, named Reginald, before he was strapped to a table to receive lethal injection: “They are fixing to pump my veins with a lethal drug the American Veterinary Association won’t even allow to be used on dogs. I say I am worse off than a dog.” This, in its rawest form, is capital punishment. The death penalty not only takes away the life of the person strapped to the table—it takes away a little bit of the humanity in each of us. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would seek the death penalty in the case of Dylann Roof, the twenty-two-year-old accused of walking into the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, last year and murdering nine black members of its congregation after spending the preceding hour praying alongside them. In response to the D.O.J. announcement, I’ve been struck by how many self-identified progressives, typically opposed to capital punishment, have said that Roof is an exception and deserves to be killed for what he has done. Such a position—that the death penalty is horrific except when it comes to horrific people—is far from uncommon. It includes the woman likely to be the Democratic Presidential nominee, who, on Thursday, came out in support of the D.O.J.’s decision. And it includes our President, who in his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” wrote, “While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes—mass murder, the rape and murder of a child—so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment.” But herein lies the question: If the very person whose Administration is seeking to kill Roof acknowledges that, according to extensive research, putting Roof to death will not prevent another like him, then what, exactly, is the utility of capital punishment? Perhaps President Obama and Hillary Clinton assume such a position with a genuine, complex belief that the death penalty is justified, or perhaps it stems from an effort to rebuff the idea that those on the left are soft on crime. Such equivocation, however, panders to the most callous part of us. It is the part that would rather see a man die than ask if we have the right to kill. It is the part of us that would rather have our public policy shaped by anger and notions of retribution than by ideas about rehabilitation and reconciliation. Those who support the death penalty are accepting a practice that is both ineffective and fundamentally flawed. It means supporting a system that not infrequently kills those with serious mental illness. It means supporting a system in which an execution is far more likely to take place when the convicted murderer is black and the victim is white, than it is when the victim is black and the killer is white. It means supporting a system that has sentenced, and continues to sentence, innocent people to death. In our impulse to rid the world of those we find reprehensible, we forget that we are also ridding the world of those who have done nothing wrong. Additionally, to call Roof uniquely evil, as Ta-Nehisi Coates has also pointed out, is to ignore the history that made him possible. Roof is not a historical anomaly as much as a representation of a past that America prefers to sweep under its rug rather than commit to cleaning up. When Roof told Tywanza Sanders, one of the victims in the church, “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country and you have to go,” he was echoing a vast history that has used such rationale to decimate black lives. Killing Roof does nothing other than soothe the moral conscience of a country that would rather not reckon with the forces that created and cultivated his ideology. It is easy not to support the death penalty when there is doubt about the culpability of the person sitting in the chair; it is harder to sustain such principles when the crime of the accused is morally indefensible. But if our principles are only our principles when it is convenient for us, when they align with our visceral emotional responses, then they are, in fact, not principles at all. What’s the point of having progressive principles if they can’t contain your rage? In Texas, execution No. 270 was that of Napoleon Beazley, who was convicted in the car-jacking murder of John E. Luttig. Beazley was seventeen years old at the time of the offense. In his final statement, he said, “I’m not only saddened but disappointed that a system that is supposed to protect and uphold what is just and right can be so much like me when I made the same shameful mistake.” If he is convicted, Roof, too, will have last words to share before he is injected with the poison that will take his life. I don’t know what he will say, but I know it won’t bring back those nine people in that church. All it will do is help continue a cycle of brutal retribution in which our tax dollars fund state-sanctioned murder. And it won’t make us all that different from him. |
Fucking Manson was spared.....
I am in favor of the death penalty in many instances, including this one. The ultimate forfeiture for the taking of life of another. I believe in the death penalty as punishment for punishment's sake.
then i see people blatently commit the crime on video and it takes 500 years to finally get the death penalty approved and then take more time after that. its all hard
If you can get with that, then you are against capital punishment, if not, you're on the other side of the issue.
Alternatively, I don't think the DP is warranted when two drug dealers in a gang war kill each other over money unlike random killing.
That said, I will not weep for him, but that article gets one important point wrong. Hillary Clinton does not oppose the death penalty.
Capital punishment is about justice. Justice for the victims. Justice for the victim's loved ones. Justice for the society as a whole.
I am not opposed to it morally.
so....if you had a situation where a crime is deserving of death (mass murder, rape and murder of a child - use Obama's definition in the article if you want to define crimes deserving of death) AND, big AND here the defendant confesses, waives appeals and signs documents that state he's never going to be found innocent, then go ahead and kill the person. Still not a deterrent, but in this case #2 and #3 from my list and I can live with #1 not being fulfilled in this circumstance.
Capital punishment is about justice. Justice for the victims. Justice for the victim's loved ones. Justice for the society as a whole.
Where is the justice for an innocent person who was executed?
My issue with capital punishment is that it costs so much money to perform it nowadays.
That said, I will not weep for him, but that article gets one important point wrong. Hillary Clinton does not oppose the death penalty.
I don't think there are many like-minded idiots. Attacking a church choir pisses off pretty much everyone.
Come on Duned, opposing the death penalty has little to do with "empathy" for criminals. I am surprised to see that coming from a poster I have a lot of respect for. Opposing the death penalty is about the state's role in executing its own citizens, and, even moreso for me, the imperfect judgements of our judicial system.
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It was never about preventing crime and casting it as such is a straw man used as a tactic against it.
Capital punishment is about justice. Justice for the victims. Justice for the victim's loved ones. Justice for the society as a whole.
Where is the justice for an innocent person who was executed?
The "innocent person who was executed" is a fiction. Under the current Supreme Court standards that's become a virtual impossibility and the reality is if you review death penalty cases you just can't find that actually happening.
I don't think there are many like-minded idiots. Attacking a church choir pisses off pretty much everyone.
Reddit banned a hate group of 15,000 members formed solely to support Dylan Roof, so there are many more like-minded idiots than you think.
Beyond that, I'd rather it was used a lot more sparingly. Only the most heinous crimes, only in instances where there is sufficient physical evidence (I'd take it up a notch from the typical 'beyond a reasonable doubt') and a real indifference to the value of human life by the perpetrator. In other words, for a guy like Roof and his ilk.
The "innocent person who was executed" is a fiction. Under the current Supreme Court standards that's become a virtual impossibility and the reality is if you review death penalty cases you just can't find that actually happening.
It is almost certainly not a fiction. The emergence of DNA evidence has surely made it less likely, but the idea that an innocent person cannot be convicted of a violent crime is fantastical thinking.
Framing it as black & white - "You either oppose the death penalty, or you don't" - is utterly facile.
Perfectly reasonable to countenance the execution of those indisputably guilty of heinous crimes while simultaneously opposing the wider policy of capital punishment, which has proven over and over (and over) to be incompetent & racist. It has sent innocent people - disproportionately black - to death row. That's horrifying and unacceptable. (Watch The Thin Blue Line). You'd think those who typically profess distrust in the government's ability to operate fairly and competently would agree.
Moreover, it's reasonable to support the execution of those guilt of heinous crimes, but only via humane means. Lethal injection is unconstitutional. Men writhing in pain during botched drug administration. And/or the cocktails themselves being insufficient as even big pharma says "this is fucked, we're out." We initially favored it because it looked much more like putting someone to sleep so we could feel better about ourselves. Less gruesome than firing squad or hanging or gas chamber, which ironically are now seemingly less in the domain of cruel & unusual.
So, yeah, fine with me if Roof is executed. But that doesn't mean I'm on board with a corrupt and incompetent policy, often championed by those more concerned with looking and sounding tough than with sensibly employing appropriate punishments for our felonious citizens. Cough Rick Perry cough.
Simplifying complicated issues as you do is generally rather unhelpful and unilluminating.
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I'm not a churchgoer and think religion is extremely silly, but I was in one last weekend for a funeral. The thought of quiet, peaceful worshippers being gunned down by someone who was welcomed into their space is very disturbing.
Roof is a monster. Could be wrong, but he strikes me as far more sane and aware of his actions than Lanza or Holmes. Not that that makes the deaths themselves any more or less tragic, but it does make him a different kind of piece of shit.
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The "innocent person who was executed" is a fiction. Under the current Supreme Court standards that's become a virtual impossibility and the reality is if you review death penalty cases you just can't find that actually happening.
It is almost certainly not a fiction. The emergence of DNA evidence has surely made it less likely, but the idea that an innocent person cannot be convicted of a violent crime is fantastical thinking.
Not that you really addressed what I said. I never said "an innocent person cannot be convicted of a violent crime". I said they haven't been and won't be executed for it.
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The "innocent person who was executed" is a fiction. Under the current Supreme Court standards that's become a virtual impossibility and the reality is if you review death penalty cases you just can't find that actually happening.
It is almost certainly not a fiction. The emergence of DNA evidence has surely made it less likely, but the idea that an innocent person cannot be convicted of a violent crime is fantastical thinking.
we definitely have alot of examples as below
What an absurd thing to state categorically. It's astounding how casually you employ nonsense.
Given that many death rowers have been exonerated mostly via advancements in DNA evidence, it's reasonable to conclude that it's at least possible - and probability likely - that innocent people have been executed before that DNA capability was realized.
You're a gem.
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but it would be a welcome change were people to care a fraction as much about the impacts of these crimes on the victims and their loved ones as about the perpetrators of the crimes. People love to empathize with a criminal, even a violent one, and detail all the horrors done to him or her in life. Perhaps the reason they make an exception or Roof is because they lack the ability or the desire to empathize with him, because what he did was unequivocally evil.
Come on Duned, opposing the death penalty has little to do with "empathy" for criminals. I am surprised to see that coming from a poster I have a lot of respect for. Opposing the death penalty is about the state's role in executing its own citizens, and, even moreso for me, the imperfect judgements of our judicial system.
There is nothing wrong with empathizing with criminals. It's a Christian thing to do, if that's your faith tradition, and it's something that I attempt to do in my walk of life (and it suffuses my discussion of opiates on the other thread). I did not mean that as a pejorative.
But if we do let empathy drive our decisionmaking regarding punishment, if we let it be almost the dominant consideration rather than one among numerous (as, to me, it should be), we can very easily lose sight of empathy for the victims of their crimes. This is most common in juvenile court, where justice for victims of crimes, even violent crimes, is way, way down on the list of priorities.
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In comment 13322555 Dunedin81 said:
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but it would be a welcome change were people to care a fraction as much about the impacts of these crimes on the victims and their loved ones as about the perpetrators of the crimes. People love to empathize with a criminal, even a violent one, and detail all the horrors done to him or her in life. Perhaps the reason they make an exception or Roof is because they lack the ability or the desire to empathize with him, because what he did was unequivocally evil.
Come on Duned, opposing the death penalty has little to do with "empathy" for criminals. I am surprised to see that coming from a poster I have a lot of respect for. Opposing the death penalty is about the state's role in executing its own citizens, and, even moreso for me, the imperfect judgements of our judicial system.
There is nothing wrong with empathizing with criminals. It's a Christian thing to do, if that's your faith tradition, and it's something that I attempt to do in my walk of life (and it suffuses my discussion of opiates on the other thread). I did not mean that as a pejorative.
But if we do let empathy drive our decisionmaking regarding punishment, if we let it be almost the dominant consideration rather than one among numerous (as, to me, it should be), we can very easily lose sight of empathy for the victims of their crimes. This is most common in juvenile court, where justice for victims of crimes, even violent crimes, is way, way down on the list of priorities.
I'm not sure why you are equating opposition to the death penalty with criminal empathy. Stop being weird?
Not that you really addressed what I said. I never said "an innocent person cannot be convicted of a violent crime". I said they haven't been and won't be executed for it.
There are dozens of cases where the executed was almost certainly innocent. The Innocence Project has freed dozens of inmates on death row, most of whom had exhausted their appeals. Sorry to break it to you, but they have been and will be executed for it.
Now the fact that someone else confesses to a crime, or that a previously cooperative witness recants after he or she no longer risks prosecution (either that statute of limitations has run, or the witness is already serving a life sentence), does not mean that the initial testimony was false. But putting someone to death with that at issue is problematic.
this article is from 2014, I'm sure recent technology helps but to think it eliminates the problem is beyond naive.
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In comment 13322555 Dunedin81 said:
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but it would be a welcome change were people to care a fraction as much about the impacts of these crimes on the victims and their loved ones as about the perpetrators of the crimes. People love to empathize with a criminal, even a violent one, and detail all the horrors done to him or her in life. Perhaps the reason they make an exception or Roof is because they lack the ability or the desire to empathize with him, because what he did was unequivocally evil.
Come on Duned, opposing the death penalty has little to do with "empathy" for criminals. I am surprised to see that coming from a poster I have a lot of respect for. Opposing the death penalty is about the state's role in executing its own citizens, and, even moreso for me, the imperfect judgements of our judicial system.
There is nothing wrong with empathizing with criminals. It's a Christian thing to do, if that's your faith tradition, and it's something that I attempt to do in my walk of life (and it suffuses my discussion of opiates on the other thread). I did not mean that as a pejorative.
But if we do let empathy drive our decisionmaking regarding punishment, if we let it be almost the dominant consideration rather than one among numerous (as, to me, it should be), we can very easily lose sight of empathy for the victims of their crimes. This is most common in juvenile court, where justice for victims of crimes, even violent crimes, is way, way down on the list of priorities.
If it's not "empathy" then what is it that leads us to sentence someone to death rather than life? We're often told that it's because some crimes are especially heinous, which is a kind of empathy as well. In that sense, we are saying these crimes are so terrible we can't empathize with the guilty party and so they deserve death. If you remove "empathy" how do you differentiate between death sentences and life sentences?
I'm not talking about the OP. I'm talking about me. Don't lump us all in the same boat.
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One in 25 Sentenced to Death in the U.S. Is Innocent, Study Claims
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Since 1973, 144 people on death row have been exonerated. As a percentage of all death sentences, that's just 1.6 percent. But if the innocence rate is 4.1 percent, more than twice the rate of exoneration, the study suggests what most people assumed but dreaded: An untold number of innocent people have been executed.Apr 28, 2014
this article is from 2014, I'm sure recent technology helps but to think it eliminates the problem is beyond naive.
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Scholars of wrongful convictions claim that the rate of innocence is underestimated. That's a dog bites man story if I've ever heard one.
How dare we as a society kill criminals for their outrageous crimes; that's barbaric, unless they're innocent fetuses we were irresponsible to create or just don't want. then kill them.
seems like selective morals.
Sorry if that gets the thread deleted but it needed to be asked.
Not giving a shit that Roof gets the needle (and I don't) is independent of that point.
How dare we as a society kill criminals for their outrageous crimes; that's barbaric, unless they're innocent fetuses we were irresponsible to create or just don't want. then kill them.
seems like selective morals.
Sorry if that gets the thread deleted but it needed to be asked.
Please, no hard questions.
How dare we as a society kill criminals for their outrageous crimes; that's barbaric, unless they're innocent fetuses we were irresponsible to create or just don't want. then kill them.
seems like selective morals.
Sorry if that gets the thread deleted but it needed to be asked.
why do the people who want abortion banned vote for politicians that consistently vote against affordable healthcare and childcare. That's selective morals.
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hate to drop that powder keg on the thread, but it astounds me when people are anti-death penalty for moral reasons, but pro-choice (and no one came out and said it, just my assumption based on various phrasing people used).
How dare we as a society kill criminals for their outrageous crimes; that's barbaric, unless they're innocent fetuses we were irresponsible to create or just don't want. then kill them.
seems like selective morals.
Sorry if that gets the thread deleted but it needed to be asked.
why do the people who want abortion banned vote for politicians that consistently vote against affordable healthcare and childcare. That's selective morals.
+1 and food, adoption, etc, etc
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hate to drop that powder keg on the thread, but it astounds me when people are anti-death penalty for moral reasons, but pro-choice (and no one came out and said it, just my assumption based on various phrasing people used).
How dare we as a society kill criminals for their outrageous crimes; that's barbaric, unless they're innocent fetuses we were irresponsible to create or just don't want. then kill them.
seems like selective morals.
Sorry if that gets the thread deleted but it needed to be asked.
why do the people who want abortion banned vote for politicians that consistently vote against affordable healthcare and childcare. That's selective morals.
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hate to drop that powder keg on the thread, but it astounds me when people are anti-death penalty for moral reasons, but pro-choice (and no one came out and said it, just my assumption based on various phrasing people used).
How dare we as a society kill criminals for their outrageous crimes; that's barbaric, unless they're innocent fetuses we were irresponsible to create or just don't want. then kill them.
seems like selective morals.
Sorry if that gets the thread deleted but it needed to be asked.
why do the people who want abortion banned vote for politicians that consistently vote against affordable healthcare and childcare. That's selective morals.
Tough questions require an immediate change of topic.
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hate to drop that powder keg on the thread, but it astounds me when people are anti-death penalty for moral reasons, but pro-choice (and no one came out and said it, just my assumption based on various phrasing people used).
How dare we as a society kill criminals for their outrageous crimes; that's barbaric, unless they're innocent fetuses we were irresponsible to create or just don't want. then kill them.
seems like selective morals.
Sorry if that gets the thread deleted but it needed to be asked.
why do the people who want abortion banned vote for politicians that consistently vote against affordable healthcare and childcare. That's selective morals.
And birth control...
I support choice with time limits, which is actually a key point in Blackmun's majority opinion in Roe v. Wade. So are you saying a fetus that is viable outside the womb (at this point at roughly 6-7 months) is a person?
I also support the death penalty in cases like Roof and the Cheshire Connecticut murders.
I am not opposed to it morally.
so....if you had a situation where a crime is deserving of death (mass murder, rape and murder of a child - use Obama's definition in the article if you want to define crimes deserving of death) AND, big AND here the defendant confesses, waives appeals and signs documents that state he's never going to be found innocent, then go ahead and kill the person. Still not a deterrent, but in this case #2 and #3 from my list and I can live with #1 not being fulfilled in this circumstance.
This is an extremely well reasoned post and viewpoint. While I once wrote a paper in favor of capital punishment, I've since probably become more compassionate and taken a more holistic view. Perhaps like Obama - there are few and certain instances where it's justified. But that doesn't cover the possibility of mistakes.
This method does; I am swayed by it and I concur with it.
It's fascinating to witness how those who entrust the gov't with fairly executing its citizens often also never STFU about how incompetent they believe it to be.
Also I gotta be honest...insofar as BillT offers anything stimulating on current event/political threads (he's doesn't), I was mildly curious to see how he'd react to getting called out by multiple people for his shockingly inane categorical contention that innocent people have not been executed. Would he:
A) double down and dig in those heels, or
B) man up and admit he misfired and was plainly wrong. Happens to everyone
My money was on A given his unenviable posting history, but he actually chose C) pretend he didn't say it, don't respond, then (hilariously) call someone else out for "changing topics".
Delusional and a coward. Ladies must be liiiiiiined up!
It's fascinating to witness how those who entrust the gov't with fairly executing its citizens often also never STFU about how incompetent they believe it to be.
Also I gotta be honest...insofar as BillT offers anything stimulating on current event/political threads (he's doesn't), I was mildly curious to see how he'd react to getting called out by multiple people for his shockingly inane categorical contention that innocent people have not been executed. Would he:
A) double down and dig in those heels, or
B) man up and admit he misfired and was plainly wrong. Happens to everyone
My money was on A given his unenviable posting history, but he actually chose C) pretend he didn't say it, don't respond, then (hilariously) call someone else out for "changing topics".
Delusional and a coward. Ladies must be liiiiiiined up!
The "changing the topic" remark was about and a reply to the abortion topic, numbnuts. Try and keep up. And I stand behind what I said (Why would you assume anything else.)
My wife and I went through pre-term labor with my twins. 24 weeks, 14 years ago, 24 weeks was considered the point of medical viability. We were at about 20 at the time.
I imagine in 14 years they've gotten to the point where science and medicine have improved on that to maybe even early in the second trimester.
but you're absolutely right, IMO it's about each person's arbitrary comfort with their own morals and a perceived or desired right to choose. Not science anymore IMO (if it ever was).
It's completely a moral issue which is why I only addressed people who felt like the death penalty was wrong morally and I sensed from their wording (and I could be wrong, won't be the first time) they were pro-choice.
I find that inconsistent, and it doesn't mean I'm never inconsistent or I'm not throwing stones from a glass house (I'm human), but was curious in the logic.
And I favor the death penalty. We as a collective group have the right to tell another of us that his/her actions are so disturbing, so unacceptable, so damaging to our social contract and the fiber of our society, that he/she no longer has the right to live among us and is no longer deserving of the joy of consciousness. It should only be utilized in the most horrific circumstances. Oklahoma City and the Boston Marathon come to mind. Normal rape, murder, even of a child, while horrible, is pretty run of the mill social deviance. It occurs frequently and universally. The death penalty should be saved for the overwhelmingly disturbing. I would put Dylan Roof in that category because of the number of people killed and the manner ... racially motivated ... in a church ... while praying with him. (And I am an atheist, so I have no love of church or prayer, but to others that set of facts defines evil and is so disturbing that it must be magnified. The potential damage to race relations in society also factors in to my decision.)