At what point do we need to re-evaluate the death penalty in Texas?

Lol, seriously? Rhad has answered this question several times in this thread with the same argument. And, each time he's asked again about the innocent man. Asked and answered; move on.

 

well, i obviously didn't go to law school. so people aren't ever charged with second degree murder? and i clearly said i wasn't sure if texas still did not have the option to sentence people to live without parole, which i guess i should've researched before posting. up until 2005, they did not have that option.

you're right. i vehemently disagree that a wrongful execution is no worse than a wrongful impirsonment.

 

This certainly isn't true. Premeditated murder is generally considered 1st degree while non-premeditated is generally 2nd degree.

For the longest time, this was not true in Texas.

 

What about cases where there is no DNA evidence?

 

Yes, I know. It's why I said your solution to the innocent people dying seems to be "who cares?".

I fully understand your position. In fact, I repeated it in my post. What you're essentially saying is that the vengeance portion of the death penalty is more valuable to you than the risk of killing innocent people. I think that is misguided and a horrible tradeoff in a judicial system that puts a huge emphasis on erring on the side of caution.

You say that trials and punishment are completely separate, but that's simply not how it works in practice. Defendants plead guilty to lesser crimes all the time to avoid the risk of bigger punishments - that's an example of the trial part and punishment part crossing over, with the role of punishment influencing how the trial plays out. Similarly, prosecutors will sometimes change what crimes they charge someone with specifically to get a certain punishment.

But even going beyond that, let's look just at the punishment phase. The death penalty is not applied equally at all. Minorities are given the death penalty at higher rates for the same crimes as white people. Same with men vs. women. Even ignoring the trial side of things, we don't administer the punishment phase equally because of the influence of juries.

 

I don't buy that most Americans would be in favor of Osama Bin Laden being captured and then being "sent" to sit in a nice cell watching basic cable and getting 3 squares until he keels over. Same can be said for the savages who rape/molest and murder innocent children.

Something about that just wouldn't seem like "justice" to me.

Maybe its hard to distinguish what is justice and what is vengeance in cases of capital punishment.

I see valid points on both sides of the debate, but I think sometimes the punishment needs to fit the crime, therefor I still support the death penalty in cases of extreme disregard for human life.

 

No. That's not what I said. If you could dissociate the issues of trials vs the correctness of punishment, you would probably understand. Since you cannot do that, no doubt from a moral repulsion to the death penalty regardless of trial accuracy, we are guaranteed to not ever agree. Sorry.

That's a weird example. Avoidance of harsher penalties has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the penalty in question.

A much better argument, tantamount to the idea I presented to Oski. This is troublesome. Of course, this is not indicative of an issue with the death penalty itself, just another facet of the nasty reality of human nature. Still a good data point, and one worth investigation to correct any errors. I presume you think such correction impossible. A pity.

 

so 'justice', in cases of extreme disregard for human life, is extreme disregard for human life. gotcha

 

That would be fine with me if we had a perfect justice system.

 

The problem with your argument though is that you logically can't dissociate punishment from trial. They are directly related as the trial is the cause of the punishment. What you are saying is that you accept that the cause is flawed but accept the effect as valid.

 

I believe that the punishment should fit the crime, and in extreme cases of disregard for human life, you're ******* right I have extreme disregard for the life of the human being who committed such a crime. Those people have failed society to the point that they have no hope but to be removed from it permanently.

What you seem to be suggesting is that we are lowering ourselves to the position of the person who transgressed against us by putting them to death. I see it as performing our duty as a society that one must be held accountable for one's actions, and in extreme cases of downright unthinkable crimes, we have no choice but to give them the ultimate penalty.

The Justice system is not perfect, but it is what we have to Govern us. Without law there is anarchy.

 

Without law there is anarchy? Who says that murderers will get off and left to run free from the streets?

I understand people's argument that, in their opinion, some people deserve to die (ie, Osama, etc.). The problem is, your examples of who deserves to die are nationally recognized killers and in no way resemble the day to day trials that include the death penalty option. No one's arguing for Osama to not die- they are arguing for the person who claims innocence throughout, yet is still sentenced to die. Personally, I find it horrible that people can accept the loss of an innocent life as part of an imperfect system, and still be OK with it. Maybe they should talk to the families of innocent men who were put to death.

 

i really wasn't trying to single you out but wanted to suggest that "extreme disregard for human life" applies to the death penalty as well. i'm kinda on the fence to tell you the truth. could you do it? would you be willing to throw the switch? earlier in the thread i said i thought that friends and family should be the ones to mete out the "justice". i was serious because quite frankly i couldn't kill someone who hasn't wronged me personally. so again, not picking on you, just saying that i feel weird about our government asking some arbitrary person to kill another human being. i mean crap, can these people feel indifference to such a task.

 

Whoa.

I am not advocating putting people to death left and right over taking a human life, you misunderstand what I'm saying. Yes, the justice system is flawed. Yes, cops could plant evidence in the heat of the moment because they are under pressure to come up with a conviction. I am not saying that innocent men being killed is fine and dandy as long as somebody picked up the tab for the deed.

I'm talking about in extreme cases of just flat-out "What the F**K is wrong with you" type crimes and terrorist sons of b****es like Osama and Tim McVeigh and such.

I think it sends the wrong message if you let a guy basically sit in a jail cell with cable TV and 3 squares a day after he butchers a kindergarten. Odds are the inmates will take justice into their own hands anyway and the prison guards wouldn't really be in any big hurry to stop them anyway (See Jeffrey Dahmer).


What I am proposing is not for every day murder trials where somebody got pissed off and shot somebody else, or some gang member gunned down another gang member over a pack of cigs. I'm talking about a trial where its obvious the person did it (overwhelming evidence, maybe even a non-forced confession) and the crime is unhumanly repulsive. Defining of which would be handled by the Justice system which would inherently **** it up again, yes I know but again it is all we have to govern us.

 

I don't know where you're getting your information either. When I met you years ago, you hadn't been to law school. Did you go after that? I didn't mean to sound perjorative when correcting RM95, who made an understandable mistake, but you attempting to correct me on this issue just proves your lack of knowledge of the subject matter.

The "1st degree murder", "second degree murder" nomenclature is used in model penal law and in several states, but it's not the law in Texas. Murder, in Texas, is a first degree felony that carries a punishment range of 5 to 99 years or life. Manslaughter is a 2nd degree felony that carries a punishment of 2 to 20 years. Murder does not depend on premeditation; I've tried and won murder cases that did not involve premeditation. Capital murder does not require premeditation either, it requires special circumstances elevating the murder to a capital case (such as the victim being a police officer, or very young, or 2 victims, or the murder being committed during the course of another felony, etc.)

"Sudden passion" is considered an affirmative defense to murder that does reduce the charge to a 2nd degree felony, if proven by the defense, but it doesn't equate to your dichotomy of premeditated / not premeditated. It has to involve an "adequate cause" that the defendant is under the "immediate influence" of. There are plenty of murders that lack premeditation and yet fail to invoke sufficient sudden passion to reduce the punishment range. Even when the defense is proven, it's not called "second degree murder". The conviction is for murder, the passion issue is raised at the punishment phase.

The only change is that, pre-2005, juries were determining whether a capital defendant got the death penalty or life with parole (after no less than 40 years) and now they end up determining death penalty vs. life without parole. Juries were still given a choice between life and death.

At any rate, I thought we were discussing how the rules are today, not how they were 4 years ago.

I don't contribute to alot of D&D threads, but I think I have more education and experience with this topic than you do.

 

In the older days, they had that Executioner dude in the black mask who was always like 6 foot 8 and burly and who would basically have to chop heads off. I think today its not quite as barbaric. Could you imagine that job? Wow. I wonder if he had many friends outside of work.

"Sooooo what do you do for a living?"
"Well... I make it so people aren't living"

I guess today its just a matter of a lethal injection. Hell, when I saw "Dead Man Walking" or some of the execution scenes in shows like "Oz" it gets to you having to see a person publicly killed. I'm not saying that is an easy thing to have to do, but I do believe in some cases it is necessary.

 

I know you may feel like you are repeating yourself but I do have trouble reconciling this post with another post of yours in this thread:

To me it sounds like you accept the fact that errors will be made, that humans are not perfect, etc. But then you say Major is "giving up" by saying that a perfect system cannot be created. Am I misreading you?

 

i didn't realize we were discussing texas law specifically. and my point about the life without parole argument was that i had read in the past that when juries were given the option of life with parole or death only, that they chose death because of the chance of that person getting out, but in states that allowed the choice between without parole and death, that life without parole was sentenced more often. i had just forgotten (and admitted in my first post i wasn't sure) that texas finally had that option.

 

Maybe I made the mistake then, thinking you were talking about Texas law specifically. I agree with your point in principal, I haven't seen statistics but I agree that the ability of the defendant to be imprisoned permanently probably would be a more palatable option to jurors than the alternative.

On the other hand, I don't think there's a prison system in America that hasn't had escapes. I think the possibility that a prisoner might escape from custody, along with the fact that he could harm a guard in prison (or a fellow inmate) has to be taken into account as well. Life without parole isn't a foolproof method to prevent re-offense.

 

i wonder what that chances of that are though? how many times has a convicted killer escaped from prison to kill again? definitely a concern though.

this is a tough issue because like moes brought up, who would really not want osama to die if he were to be caught and tried? it's not like there's a chance he did not do it. then that leads to those on death row who have admitted guilt and want to die.

while a big thing for me is the chance of killing an innocent person as well as the way that sentence is doled out, i'm just not comfortable with the state taking a life.