Troy Davis executed

You really have to wonder what purpose an execution actually serves, other than revenge. Not only are there cases like his where evidence presented at the trial, including eyewitness testimony, was questionable, but it would save a tremendous amount of money to give those convicted of homicide life without possibility of parole and forgo most of the appeals the death penalty generates.

Eyewitness Testimony Loses Legal Ground in State Supreme Court
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That's why I am SO against the death penalty. Even if someone can be convicted with 100% certainty that they are a murderer, why murder someone to prove that murder is wrong? And that 100% certainty is few and far between...

The only reason it costs so much is because we have such a ridiculously exhaustive system of appeals, and people in this country that don't see common sense to invoke the death penalty even in cases of the rape, torture, and murder of children... "oh, just give him a life of free housing, free healthcare, food, books, television, and movies, that'll show em!" That's "justice".

It doesn't have to cost more than $0.75 cents in bullets for a firing line, and the same cost in opportunity to appeal as someone sentenced to life. Or are those appeals, and the corresponding cost, only valid for death penalty rather than life sentences? If you're complaining about the cost, and you identify yourself as a hardcore liberal and want to assign blame, hold up a mirror and you'll see the ONLY reason it is so expensive.

Davis' execution had been halted three times since 2007. The U.S. Supreme Court even gave Davis an unusual opportunity to prove his innocence in a lower court last year. He had 22 YEARS for appeals, multiple eye witnesses including a confession at the scene, and even the four most liberal justices on the nation's highest court agreed that he had failed beyond any reasonable doubt to prove his innocence time and time again following the beyond a reasonable doubt conviction that he was not only guilty, but enough to warrant the death sentence.

And yet there are STILL people that complain that it wasn't enough.

South Park did a spoof on this with "Free Hat", where the citizens of South Park formed a mob to petition to free him, although admitting that he had killed all those babies that it was only in self-defense as babies can be dangerous in numbers.

This is completely false logic based on the idea that "murder is wrong". Murder is not wrong, and it never has been in the history of out nation. The United States did not win its independence by putting flowers in the barrels of British Soldier's guns, they did it by picking up their own guns, pointing it at British troops, and opening fire. Murder is also completely justified in cases of self-defense, which is why I carry a concealed 9mm.

Murder in and of itself is not wrong, but killing an innocent for no reason is wrong and they are protected by society against their attacker both to prevent the attack and to serve justice after if unsuccessful in the former. Killing a guilty person because of their criminal actions is not the same as the killing of an innocent.

I don't understand how people can't see that there is a difference between Hitler killing innocent Jews and someone killing Hitler because of his inhumanity. They just see it as "killing is killing"... makes no sense to me.

How many people found guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt" have later been exonerated?

This is from today's news:
Judges free 2 men in N.C. innocence review

That's 157 exonerations right there, so it would be extremely difficult to argue that our justice system is anywhere near fail-safe. An exoneration wouldn't do a dead man or woman much good, would it? Why risk executing an innocent person when life without parole offers a perfectly good alternative and isn't completely irreversible?

Another recent case:
Deal Frees ‘West Memphis Three’ in Arkansas

Because the punishment should suit the crime, and a life of free healthcare, free food, free shelter, free entertainment, a free library, with the only sacrifice being the removal of one's freedom is in fact a better life than even homeless people have. Putting the worst of the worst in permanent jails also does not completely remove them from committing further acts of harm, it merely limits their victims to the other inmates and security present at the prison assuming they do not escape. When you hear about the brutal shankings and gang rapes and other atrocious acts in prison on weaker new inmates (performed by monsters that know they have no hope of parole anyway), that may only be serving a few years, who do you think is carrying these out and who do you think is responsible for subjecting those weaker smaller time inmates to such brutality? Its not people that support the death penalty, I assure you.

Jail is not primarily a punishment, it is a rehabilitation tool. People are removed from society so as not to do further harm while they are rehabilitated to rejoin the group.

Someone that takes a chainsaw to your child for pleasure does not deserve rehabilitation, and the punishment should fit the crime. You do something far beyond reasonable for imprisonment, you get the death penalty, plain and simple.

Then your problem is not with the punishment (unless you are one of those that insist that even in cases of 100% guilt that the death penalty is wrong no matter the crime), but how the court comes to a conviction, and effort should be put to reform the courts to ensure that innocents are not being convicted. After all, surely none of us want to see an innocent person given a life sentence in a super-max if they aren't guilty, anymore than we want murders released back into society scott-free.

After seeing so many clearly guilty murders go free, I am all for reform of our courts.

But lets not pretend that someone that had 22 years to build their case, countless hearings, and even going all the way to the Supreme Court didn't have an opportunity to overturn the initial judgement which itself weighs heavily in favor of the defendant since guilt has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, rather than visa versa.

But it should not be up to the families to make that decision, as the impact reaches far more than just them. Here in Texas we had a death penalty conviction for three monsters who wanted to "show their defiance to God and Christianity and everything most people in this county stand for".

They did so by randomly picking up a complete stranger named Byrd who was walking home from a family gathering, when he was kidnapped and driven to woods outside the city. There, he was beaten, then chained at the ankles and dragged alive behind a pickup truck for about three miles, and his dismembered body then dumped in the front of a cemetery gate on display to make their statement.

The idea that these "people" should get to sit cozy in air-conditioning, three square meals a day, to watch TV, read books in the library, work out, and most likely sexually brutalize weaker new convicts to spread their cancerous hate I find outright appalling.

http://www.ktre.com/story/15519578/j...er-is-executed

Premeditated murder, and of a Police officer, is a capital offense.

Worked for me that I am no longer supporting him.

That argument doesn't really hold water. Brewer spent over a decade on death row, Davis two decades. "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez was convicted and sentenced to death in 1989 and is still alive. Don't such inmates (theoretically) pose as much risk to other inmates and prison personnel as those who receive life without parole sentences, and aren't they also housed, fed and given medical care? If death row inmates can be segregated to lessen the threat they pose to others, why not those sentenced to life without parole? Death row facilities already exist in states imposing the death penalty; those states could continue to use the segregated maximum-security tracts, save the money and aggravation wasted on endless appeals, and not risk killing anybody who later turns out to have been not guilty of the charges.

To some extent, yes, they do. And life without parole to my understanding is mainly used in states where the death sentence is not an option. Otherwise, if they didn't do something absolutely atrocious, then at some point there would at least be the possibility that they could be rehabilitated. Prisons are primarily for containment during rehabilitation, but if one is deamed to be such a monster that they could never be released back out into society again, then why the heck are we fronting a roof over his head, serving him three square meals a day, providing a warm bed, television, and books, etc? You feel good about that for Byrd's killers for example that kidnapped him at random and drug him alive behind their truck?
Think about what you just said.

So in your opinion, only death row inmates get appeals? If you're wrongfully imprissoned for life... what, you forsake the same appeal process?

They executed a man in a trial with no physical evidence of the crime, where 7 out of 9 witnesses later recanted their testimony, claiming they were coerced to give it during the trial.

Here are Troy Davis's final words to the world.
http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/troy-davis

I'm not against the death penalty, but its wrong when it is used for someone where there is reasonable doubt about the crime. Don't care about his 22 years of appeals and how the courts kept ruling against him. Based on the level of international attention on this case, there IS reasonable doubt here.

When our country lowers itself to kill people without due process, we are no longer a democracy. The question here is whether there was truly due process.

I guess this is really the test: Did you oppose the execution of Lawrence Brewer for dragging James Byrd to death?

No witnesses saw the actual crime, except the three men convicted of it.

Lawrence Brewer executed

I would vote to abolish the death penalty, if we could just be certain "life without parole" meant exactly that; living in cell, simple food, no TV, basic health care, no exposure to other inmates, and no possibility of escape or release. And, if there are any, I'd make them listen to the 911 calls involved in their crime as taps and reveille every day.

Or, I would support a law that allowed any criminal sentenced to death to receive a commutation to life without parole if they and their lawyers agreed to drop all appeals and harassment of the legal system.

But, to a large extent, I'm with the judge who, when the man he had just sentenced to death shouted, "Capital punishment doesn't reduce crime!" replied, "I'll believe that when I see you in here again."

I didn't really follow this case all that closely, but one thing that struck me about this part is; of the 7 witnesses that recanted, they claimed they were unable to truthfully say that he committed the crime. However, they were also unable to truthfully say that he didn't. They made their own testimonies moot, basically. On the other hand, you have two remaining witnesses that were adamant about their testimony.

So basically, you ended up with a conviction with 2 eye witnesses. In most courts, that is enough.

I think in Texas, if you have 3 eyewitnesses, you get a basic review of the case and then an execution date.

I get the impression the Troy Davis case was more about racial politics than about actual guilt.

Nope, but death row inmates are far more likely to get pro bono support from defense attorneys opposed to the death penalty on principle, hence more appeals. Do you think the West Memphis Three case would have received so much publicity and given rise to so much public pressure if Damien Nichols hadn't received a death sentence? While I believe that whole case was an absolute miscarriage of justice, i.e., three kids were railroaded because they were a bit "different" and the locals were clamoring for the case to be closed, I'm not naive enough to believe that their supporters would have kept pushing to the extent they did had the death penalty not been imposed.

I'm not going to lose any sleep over Brewer being executed, but it's not going to bring Byrd back to life. Rather than executing people like Brewer, locking them up under the conditions Mike just described, is cheaper, eliminates the possibility of executing the innocent, and would go a long way towards making punishments more consistent throughout the country. I dare say it would make jury selection (another cost factor) simpler.

Didn't oppose the death of Brewer either. That was a horrific crime.