manny -- you're absolutely right...just because one is convicted of murder does not mean the death penalty will be used...maybe you could argue that the death penalty is OK, but that it's been abused...used in many situations where it isn't as warranted. again..i don't have the answers...don't sell yourself short, though..you clearly have a lot to add to the discussion.
two questions: 1) Why is that statistic (whether or not it's true) "clearly" racist? 2) Why is capital punishment (typically lethal injection, I believe...as opposed to the guillatine, firing squad, burning at the stake, and other previous forms of capital punishment) cruel and unusual?
pole -- i do think the death penalty is not applied evenly among the races...and i've seen enough to realize that there is merit to the argument that it's harder for a black man to get a fair trial than it is a white man, due to predispositions. second...it's not the injection itself that is cruel and unusual...it's the waiting game...it's counting the minutes and days of your life left to live....i don't know if that's cruel and unusual or not...but that's the argument, anyway.
Actually you are dead wrong. According to the NAACP's statistics, 48% of executed convicts are white. http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dp.breakdown.96 You'll have to do a lot better than that in the future. Your half-baked arguments won't cut it around here. CASE CLOSED.
can you stop that...please...??? it's not about winning or losing...it's about discussion...why do you feel it so necessary to proclaim yourself a winner to everyone on these boards?
What exactly is your ax to grind? Your condescending tone really weakens your argument. Jorge already debunked your racist claim with facts and figures. Where are yours? You make these claims about all the innocents who were executed. Where are the numbers and the evidence? Or are you making that up too? What you ignore as well is that the cases where DNA has not been used because it was unavailable are finite in number. What say you after those cases have been disposed of with additional investigation?What bleeding heart arguments which have no truth in reality will you dream up so that you can insinuate how morally superior you are to me and those who agree with me? This shows your blatant ignorance of our legal system. As an attorney I can tell you unequivocally that what you see in 30 second sound bites on CNN is not the real world. Courts are taking every possible precaution to ensure that all get a fair trial. Also, as MadMax pointed out, public defenders are a lot more capable than what you would ever imagine. The public defender takes a case where ALL the evidence points to their client and tries to come up with a defense which will result in the least possible sentence for their client. Does poor legal work happen from public defenders? Sure...but not at a rate significantly greater than in the legal profession at large. Again...you don't know the facts. Many states (including Texas) are devising a system in which DNA technology can be utilized years after the conviction to determine whether the conviction should be overturned. Sounds like you don't have a firm grasp on what is really happening in real life. I wrote a book report on a Shakespearean play...it doesn't make me a Shakespearian scholar.
I thought the racism argument went more like this, in order of more likely to get the death penalty. Black person killing white person. White person killing white person. Whiter person killing black person. Black person killing black person. I don't think it's just a matter of how many blacks, whites, etc. there are on death row. I think it's a percentage of those charged with "death penalty" crimes that actually receive the death penalty. Until I check that site, CASE CLOSED. EDIT: What I want to see are statistics involving those who have committed murders, but weren't given the death penalty. I think that it's pretty telling that 40% of those on death row are black, but they only make up 12% of the population.
I missed this post earlier. God, are you serious?? You said "dozens of wrongly executed innocent people" which Refman's point was to use technology like DNA to make sure that this doesn't happen ("dozens of wrongly executed innocent people"), but then you go into this tangent of racism when your theory is shown to be baseless?? Nice... To pull out the race card in a subject like this is sickening, especially after Trader_Jorge blew your "racist 75% blacks getting executed" garbage out of the water. I don't give a rat's ass if the person is white, black, Hispanic, Asian, plaid, polka-dotted, or from another planet, if they committed a murder and are found guilty through DNA or freely admit & there is no question they're guilty, then I want to see their ass fry. I should hope and pray that they don't have a book they pull out and look and say, "Hmmm...we can't execute this guy even though he admitted that he did it because we will go over our quota of (insert race) here being executed for the month."
TJ is my hero. Bake this... Statistical Evidence of Racial Bias http://www.amnestyusa.org/rightsforall/dp/race/summary.html The role of racial bias in the criminal justice system has been the subject of extensive and often controversial research in the US. Numerous studies have found empirical evidence of disparate treatment of criminal defendants on the basis of ethnic origin. Despite criticisms of skewed results due to higher crime rates in ethnic communities, many social scientists have concluded that, when compared to white defendants, minority groups face a greater likelihood of imprisonment and serve longer sentences than whites for identical crimes. In 1998, the Presidential Advisory Board on Race recognized that these discrepancies in the incarceration rate could not be explained solely by the higher crime rates in ethnic communities. Research into the death penalty over the last two decades has consistently shown a pattern of sentencing anomalies that cannot be explained without reference to racial factors. These non-judicial variables are particularly pronounced when the race of the defendant is linked to that of the victim. Of the 500 prisoners executed between 1977 and 1998, 81.8 percent were convicted of murdering a white person, even though blacks and whites are the victims of homicide in almost equal numbers nationwide. The landmark 1990 study of death sentencing patterns in Georgia by Professor David Baldus found that the odds of a death sentence were four times higher for cases with white victims than for cases with black victims. And, the odds of a death sentence in cases in which blacks killed whites were as much as 11 times higher than capital murder cases involving a black victim by a white person. A June 1998 report by the Death Penalty Information Center that examined the relationship between race and the death penalty in every major death penalty state concluded that, in 96 percent of the reviews, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. In February 1997 the American Bar Association (ABA), concluded that the authorities were failing to confront the undeniable and unacceptable role of racial bias in the application of the death penalty. The ABA passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in the USA until all jurisdictions using it were striving "to eliminate discrimination in capital sentencing on the basis of the race of either the victim or the defendants." Erm... case closed? *snicker*
Actually you are dead wrong. According to the NAACP's statistics, 48% of executed convicts are white. http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dp.breakdown.96 You'll have to do a lot better than that in the future. Your half-baked arguments won't cut it around here. CASE CLOSED. What does the % of executed convicts have to do with anything? If 70% [made up number] of murders are committed by white people, and only 48% of the executed convicts are white, what does that tell you? You need to learn how to use statistics before you go posting them as your evidence. As Timing posted, virtually every study on the system regarding minorities has said that a disproportionate number of minorities end up on death row. The reasons tend to vary from study-to-study, though.
Yours and many others. Amnesty International. What an objective source. This is the difference. I post stats from the NAACP, a source that is credible in your circles, you post information (with very little support I might add) from Amnesty International, a source that has no credibility in my circles. Where's the proof? yawn -- more liberal propaganda. This is very misleading, because it includes white on white murders. Adjust whites murderers out of the equation and the skew is much much less. Also, remember that murder alone does not provide grounds for the death penalty. Multiple crimes must be committed simultaneously, such as murder and theft, or murder and kidnapping, etc. There are many variables which are not accounted for in this analysis. Oh wow, you just proved that in the State of Georgia there are some racists. You can not base a judgment on the entire legal system in the United States based on what happens in the backwards state of Georgia.
So what if there are more black people on Death Row. Maybe blacks commit more crimes? That is possible you know...
you are right...but that's not the way the studies are done...they look at people of both races charged with the same crimes and compare/contrast likelihood of sentencing and severity of sentencing.
My point wasn't that C. P. hasn't been used in a racist way, but that as long as society is infected with racism, judgements, convictions, arrests will be done with racism. Whether capital punishment, life in parole, etc is the most harsh punishment, the harshest punishment will be infected. There is nothing inherently racist about capital punishment. Racism is what creates the racism.
Well said Joe Joe. I couldn't agree more. It is society that creates any bias in the system...not the system itself. Assume the death penalty overturned tomorrow. Now the stiffest penalty is life w/o parole. In a few years you'll see the same arguments made about that penalty. That people have had their lives ripped from them in a meaningful way. Sons w/o fathers, etc etc. The whole thing could degenerate down to second guessing every jury in the country. The legal system implodes from there.
Nice slippery slope there. The bottom line is that without the death penalty, the state would be assured that an innocent person would never be killed. <font size=5><B>CASE MUTHER****IN' CLOSED</b>
Originally posted by Trader_Jorge Yours and many others. TJ do you have any idea how silly you look with this bizarro "it's a liberal conspiracy" rant of yours? Amnesty International. What an objective source. This is the difference. I post stats from the NAACP, a source that is credible in your circles, you post information (with very little support I might add) from Amnesty International, a source that has no credibility in my circles. You posted bottom line numbers of people executed which are about as valuable as your "in terms of absolute numbers, there are more poor white people than poor black people". BFD buddy. And what the hell are my circles? Where's the proof? yawn -- more liberal propaganda. Did you even read the link I posted? Prosecutorial Discretion and Racial Bias A legal appeal filed in the case of death row inmate Ronald Watkins demonstrated that prosecutors in Danville, VA, were selectively applying the death penalty on the basis of race. Since 1970, prosecutors charged 126 people with murder: 93 blacks and 33 whites. Eighteen were charged with capital murder (murder with aggravating circumstances that permits use of the death penalty): 16 blacks and two whites. The death penalty was eventually sought in half the cases involving black defendants; but not for either of the white defendants. The administration of capital justice in Philadelphia appears particularly suspect. Of the 124 prisoners from Philadelphia on death row as of October, 1998, only 15 were white. A study that year by Professor Baldus on race discrimination and the death penalty found that being black was the third highest "aggravating factor" in determining whether a death sentence was imposed. An examination of the use of the death penalty based on data from more than 400 homicide charges in Orleans Parish, LA between 1990 and 1995 found that the District Attorney sought the death penalty almost three times as often if the victim was white. This is very misleading, because it includes white on white murders. Adjust whites murderers out of the equation and the skew is much much less. Also, remember that murder alone does not provide grounds for the death penalty. Multiple crimes must be committed simultaneously, such as murder and theft, or murder and kidnapping, etc. There are many variables which are not accounted for in this analysis. Huh? I don't even think you understood what was said there. Try again, slower this time. If the number of whites murdered equals the numbers of blacks murdered, then how the heck is that misleading? Oh wow, you just proved that in the State of Georgia there are some racists. You can not base a judgment on the entire legal system in the United States based on what happens in the backwards state of Georgia. The link I posted had examples from Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana as well. You're probably right though, I'm sure we've confined racists to just those four states. How grand!
You guys think you're pretty smart with your '' statments after a cleverly worded post, but you don't know as much as you think you do. The following regards Trader_Jorge's post, which wasn't really that impressive. If African-Americans make up only 12% of the population, yet make up 40% of the death row inmates, that right there is just about enough to tell you that it's a racist system, barring a SERIOUS disproportionality in black murders vs white + misc races murders, which I don't think exists. Like I said, it's been several years since I studied the topic in-depth, but those are the facts I remember reading about at the time that I wrote the paper, and I believe that they are pretty accurate. All that Trader_Jorge showed us is that 40.7% of those convicted to death row are black. That is meaningless to his argument and has very little relation to my example. MY EXAMPLE stated that if 100 black and 100 whites were convicted of the SAME crime, a black person would be roughly 3 times more likely to be executed than a white person, which is probably true. [See Timing's article for more info] I don't know the exact figures are as to how many whites and blacks are convicted of murder each year, but it is likely to assume that more whites/hispanic/etc. people are convicted than blacks, given that they make up only 12% of the population. So, if close to equal amounts of whites and blacks are being sentenced to death row, doesn't that mean racism is probably part of the equation? It sure looks that way, and there are figures that back this up. Hell, that NAACP site has information that shows the capital punishment system to be racist, if you know how to interpret it. So, was my example really so ludicrous? Not really. Did Trader_Jorge prove me wrong? Not at all. Now for the issue of racism in the justice system: If people are too racist to come up with fair standards for both whites and blacks, as some of you have intelligently suggested, then why should the decision of life or death come at the hands of possible racists? Life and death is as fine a line as it gets, and if bigots are sentencing minorities to death at a higher rate than other people, then perhaps it is a worthwhile idea to abolish the death penalty. Of course I agree that capital punishment is NOT racist in its own right (I never said that it was), but the way it is applied is extremely racist. I haven't seen one legitimate argument yet that proves otherwise. As for 'fair trials': I'm sure district appointed attornies do as noble a job as some of you say, but does a 19 year old kid from East St Louis get the same quality of defense as a 45 year old white businessman who can afford to hire one of the most prominent lawyers in the nation? Of course not. Is it fair for a person who makes less money to have a greater chance to be executed? No way. Also, on this NAACP site, it says that there have been 1519 reversals. That is APPALING. That means that 1519 people could have easily been wrongly killed, but our brilliant justice system figured it out in time. That makes me think about more of the ones they didn't reverse. Also, some more of those NAACP stats show that in cases where the defendant was executed: 82.16% of the victims were White 12.91% of the victims were Black Doesn't this tell you something? It's not like white people are more likely to be killed than blacks. This all points to the fact that when a white person is killed, the person who did it is more likely to die for it. I am not going to address those of you who tried to belittle me without hearing my side of the story, but for Manny "Instead of using a real argument I will just put a ''" Ramirez, I hope to hear your thoughts on this important subject.
Refman, Your argument about DNA seems logical, because as opposed to 15 years ago, we now have a more effective tool in our justice system. Makes sense to me. However, that doesn't mean that our system is foolproof. It's not like DNA is the most effective method of proof POSSIBLE. Perhaps in the 70's, no one thought that there was any better method of gaining evidence, and that their system was nearly foolproof. Of course I know that if new DNA evidence is obtained, then that is usually enough to re-open the case. However, that sucks for those people killed in the 70's and 80's. It sucks for the people who die this year and have new evidence discovered in 2025 that would have supported their case. Just because we think our system is good now, doesn't mean it's flawless. Even if 1 innocent person is killed wrongly, it should be grounds to abolish capital punishment.
