US execution puts death penalty on trial - Troy Davis case

Your reading comprehension skills must be lacking, because the first thing I said was that that I wasn't trying to defend the system. I was just trying to provide some context. I'm sure that you, as a lawyer with 32 thousand posts on this forum, have full knowledge of the limits of our judicial system, but I thought others might not.

I never said people shouldn't question the system, or should fully support the death penalty. I can see their points. All I ever said was that the media tends to distort the facts to fit their angle, which is true in court cases as much as it is in politics.

 

I think we are talking about the same thing here but looking at it from different philosophical viewpoints.

I think though that we can do both without resorting to the death penalty. Life without parole is a viable alternative that still allows for the possibility of redress in the light of future evidence. The death penalty as is provides a finality that cannot be redressed.

Further I question the value of the death penalty in terms of actually making people safer by serving as a deterrent. Even in states with death penalties we still see murders committed in many cases more than states without the death penalty.

 

Can't we just ship them to Australia? That is what England did.

DD

 

Not necessarily. If I were innocent of a crime, I would almost rather get the death penalty then life in prison.

 

Nobody did. But, a mistake that puts someone in prison is only marginally better than one that executes him. And there is no chance of correcting mistakes with imprisonment either. You can mitigate some damage, but you can't give him back his years and all the damage he's sustained. And, to commute a death sentence, the person will still live on in prison. That's not much of a correction.

I think you under-estimate prison. A lifetime without a wife, without a family, without a career, social standing or respect, without self-determination. Even if you can have some friends in prison, read books, take exercise and so on, it's only half an existence if that.

 

If one innocent person is executed, that is one too many.

 

Given the number of people that have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence, I don't think this is the case at all. And that's just of the ones that (a) were convicted and (b) we were lucky enough to find additional evidence later on and before they died.

There are about 50 executions per year in the US. Assuming the overall size of death row isn't growing (I'm not sure if it is or not), that would mean there are about 50 people convicted each year. There were 50 people exonerated in the last decade, or about 5 per year. That would be a 10% failure rate for "guilt is all but assured", if you assume that every person prosecutors try for the death penalty is convicted.

 

You make a lot of assumptions that are untrue. If you go to deathpenaltyinfo.org, you can see that there were 3261 people on death row as of 1/1/10. There were somewhere close to 1500 death penalties assessed in the decade 2000 - 2009, for an average of around 150 per year (generally has been decreasing annually).

The exoneration rate is buoyed by the fact that there are many people on death row who were convicted prior to DNA testing, whose cases are being subject to DNA analysis now, through programs like the actual innocence project.

You are matching 2010 exonerations to 2010 convictions, when you'd really have to connect the exoneration to the year that case was convicted to see what the rate was for that year.

I'm not saying that wrongful convictions aren't made, or haven't been made, but your 10% statistic is ridiculous. Of course, if you are one who believes that any errors are too many, like Deckard, I understand that. But don't make up random statistics to prove your points. They say 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

 

Reports on twitter saying he was just granted another stay of execution.

 

The correction is when later evidence proves them innocent and they are released. That is a major correction. And I'm not underestimating prison at all. I'm sure it is hell on earth. Even given that, many, many prisoners obviously prefer it to death, or else they wouldn't contest their executions.

 

So your argument is that the death penalty was really inefficient but now its OK thanks to DNA testing? How do you feel about all the people on death row now where there is no evidence either way?

Is it? You pointed out the reasons why's inflated. But there are reasons why it's deflated too. I didn't include all the people where there is no useful evidence. If we found 50 innocent people in the last decade amongst the limited sample where we have evidence that we can go back and analyze, how many more are there in the rest of the cases? For example, in the case being discussed here, there is no DNA evidence at all to analyze.

And, of course, your claim was that "prosecutors don't seek the death penalty unless guilt is all but assured."[/u] I didn't include all the times when prosecutors sought the death penalty and people were found not guilty at trial.

If you add both of those into the equation, that ratio goes back up.

 

http://twitter.com/#!/AnnCoulter/status/116628663260299265

 

Tomorrow's headline...

Georgia man executed despite lack of evidence, Ann Coulter still a b****

 

I don't have an argument on whether or not it is or is not "efficient" today. I guess that depends on what you believe that word means in this context. All I am saying is that you have a unique situation playing out, given scientific evidence that was previously unavailable, but now available. I will say that I believe that a case with DNA is stronger than a case without it.

Sure. Let's add those in. Oh, wait. You don't have those numbers. Again, you've made up a statistic without having the underlying data. Look, if you disagree with my belief that prosecutors seek the death penalty on cases with better guilt proof, and do not seek the death penalty where the evidence isn't as compelling, so be it. I'm speaking as someone with a background in the area, but I certainly don't have any stats to back me up on whether that's true. It's my belief from what I've been taught, and you're free to believe otherwise. But don't pull statistics out of your ass to supposedly prove those beliefs, without the data to back it up. You're better than that.

 

How guilty is this guy? Was he involved and just not known as the shooter? Or was he just totally away from the scene?

DD

 

I thought you could only be tried once? They found him guilty, consequences were decided upon. He has been in holding for 20 years man, shouldn't he be grateful he got that?

 

Are you r****ded?

 

He's black?

Kill him.