Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Three US Newspapers Reverse 100-Year-Old Stand on Death Penalty
WASHINGTON - Three established U.S. newspapers, two of them among the 10 largest in the country, in three different states have in the past weeks abandoned their century-old support of the death penalty and become passionate advocates of a ban on state-sponsored killing.
The newspapers -- the Chicago Tribune in Illinois, the smaller Sentinel in Pennsylvania and the Dallas Morning News in Texas -- announced their change of heart in strongly-argued editorials following a series of investigative articles highlighting the flaws in the death penalty system in their states and country.
"I think in a word it's the issue of innocence that has brought about these editorials," Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told IPS. "The weight of evidence in death penalty cases as seen and confirmed in DNA testing has made the death penalty too risky."
The Chicago Tribune said its "groundbreaking" reporting suggested that innocent people had been convicted and executed. Two cases in Texas were cited. Also over the last 30 years more than 130 people had been released from death row in the U.S. after evidence was presented that undermined the cases against them. In that time, Illinois had executed 12 people and freed 18 from death row.
"The evidence of mistakes, the evidence of arbitrary decisions, the sobering knowledge that governments can't provide certainty that the innocent will not be put to death -- all that prompts this call for an end to capital punishment. It is time to stop killing people in the people's name," the Chicago Tribune wrote, reversing its pro-capital punishment position held since 1869.
Pennsylvania's Sentinel newspaper, founded in 1861, also came out editorially against capital punishment after its reporters highlighted the "ineffectiveness" of the death penalty system in the state.
"The death penalty is useless," the newspaper wrote in its Apr. 3 editorial.
The state's lengthy appeals process created an almost indefinite stay of execution. This meant the numbers on Pennsylvania's death row were steadily increasing. There were now 221 on death row, the fourth largest number of any state in the country. This was a huge expense for the taxpayers, the newspaper wrote.
"We are left with a grueling process that in the end only guarantees more suffering for the victims' families and society at large as faith in the justice system erodes," the editorial said. The majority of public opinion in the U.S. now favoured prison without parole rather than capital punishment -- either out of "frustration with the system or revulsion at the punishment".
"The pendulum is swinging away from Pennsylvania's position on a law it cannot even execute," the editorial concluded.
The issue of race was also playing a major role in the fall in public support for the death penalty, particularly in Pennsylvania, Brian Evans of Amnesty USA told IPS. "There is a lot of doubt about the death penalty especially in Pennsylvania because of the disproportionate racial mix of those on death row," he said.
In Texas, the Dallas Morning News reversed its century-old support for the death penalty in an editorial on Apr. 15, citing mounting evidence that the state had wrongly convicted a number of people in capital trials and probably executed at least one innocent man.
Carlos De Luna was executed in 1989 for the murder of a petrol station attendant, although there was no forensic evidence linking him to the crime. Later, another man boasted to relatives that De Luna had been convicted for a murder he had committed.
In a second disturbing case cited by the newspaper for its change of mind over the death penalty, Ernest Ray Willis was convicted of the murder of two women in 1987. A federal judge later found prosecutors had administered anti-psychotic drugs to Willis during his trial to give him a "glazed over" appearance and show he was "cold-hearted". Prosecutors had also suppressed evidence and provided no physical proof or eyewitnesses. Questions were also raised about the competence of the court-appointed defense lawyers.
The sentence was overturned. Another death row inmate also confessed to the killings. Willis was released after 17 years on death row.
"This board has lost confidence that the state of Texas can guarantee that every inmate it executes is truly guilty of murder," the Dallas Morning News wrote.
"We do not believe that any legal system devised by inherently flawed human beings can determine with moral certainty the guilt of every defendant convicted of murder. That is why we believe the state of Texas should abandon the death penalty -- because we cannot reconcile the fact that it is both imperfect and irreversible."
The number of death sentences handed down in the U.S. has been steadily decreasing as public opinion in support of capital punishment has been falling. Some 315 death sentences were handed down in 1995, 128 in 2005 and 102 last year.
In the last five years, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute juveniles and the mentally retarded. Thirteen of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia currently do not have the death penalty.
Copyright © 2007 IPS-Inter Press Service.
31 Comments so far
Show All"Too often we hear of some poor victim done away with in the most off hand and despicable manner by some warped personality that sees (an)other human(s) as completely irrelevant, disposable, without feelings or worth."
therzal, you mean like George W. Bush's assault on the Iraqis? I find it interesting that people who want other people to die are so quick to assure us they aren't bloodthirsty. I've learned that whenever I feel defensive about something, I'm hiding something in myself I don't want to face. Have you?
It's a sad commentary on our society that we create monsters and then kill them. Why don't you read Crime and Punishment from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet and then discuss our social responsibilities? And no, our immature social development has not reached the point of getting from beyond punishment, starting with our very young, to teaching AND modeling respectful responsible behavior, with natural consequences for mistakes, not punishment. Pain, in whatever form it is administered is a great tool for producing compliant behavior, but the lessons learned are not beneficial to psychological and emotional development. Or conducive to openness and honesty.
The human race has a lot of growing up to do, and I say this not as an elitist, but as a sad realist watching how many lives we ruin and then blame the victims who become victimizers.
When my oldest son was 14, he said "You can judge a society by how it treats it's elderly and it's criminals". Well, that was before the elderly organized to defend themselves, but who is there to speak for the criminals?
American capital punishment has long been seen by its opponents and by civilized Europe as a barbaric and primitive system of murder. Perhaps we can soon outlaw it totally and join the enlightenment of the civilized world. Oh wait: maybe we should first use capital punishment for the many politicians who have hypocritically led the public to continue it!
"Basically, you would appear like many, to take the (homo sapiens centric) view that all HUMAN life is uniquely precious, regardless of behaviour. I do not."
I sure you've not only moved on to Thurs, but Fri, but I'll say it anyway:
Aren't you the one singling out human life -- to be punished with death becuase of their status to "know better". No, I don't condone murder, rape, etc., but would you agree to killing zoo lions and tigers because they kill. You are confilicted.
The death penalty will kill innocents, just as the wrong person sometimes gets the traffic ticket and IRS fines. Suddenly bureaucracies are able to be refined to perfection? In your dreams.
kathyodat..
I thought the Nature vs Nurture topic had been settled a couple of decades ago. It is basically bollox to suggest that "society" creates "monsters" any more than a bloke will buy a car because some sexy bimbo drapes herself over it and makes him buy it by telling him he can have her if he does..
Certainly the same psychopathic vote stealer caused the catastrophe in Iraq as refused to pardon many probably innocent people in Texan jails. That only indicates that we have to work towards a much more reliable and certain system of justice.. Notice the last word.. JUSTICE..
I doubt you really knows enough to psycho analyse me over a blog.. (!?!?$%)
".. who is there to speak for the criminals? " You???
ipenek..
" I sure you've not only moved on to Thurs, but Fri, but I'll say it anyway:... " ??????? WTF??
"Aren't you the one singling out human life — to be punished with death becuase of their status to "know better"."
Yes.. Exactly. Which is why some person who is completely capable of living an independent life up to and including the point when they decide to kill another, should forfeit that existence. If truly mentally enfeebled (and not some useful, temporary, malady..) then Diminished Responsibility is the defence.
Whatever it takes. I don't know if the Pennsylvania Sentinal has a deliberate or inadvertant sense of humor: "The pendulum is swinging away from Pennsylvania's position on a law it cannot even execute". But it is a relief to read that finally Americans are pulling away from their barbaric support of sanctioned murder.
Although from previous postings on a recent similar topic I would say there are still plenty of bloodthirsty people around. Anyone who hates the idea of killing someone is against it. Everyone else loves the idea of killing someone or is lying to themselves.
Not political leaders, not newsmen, not religious zealots, but a few brave and persistent lawyers made this happen.
War, witch burnings, death penalties, whatever. The dominant culture has always thrived on human sacrifice, fear, and violence. I remember when the Warren court declared executions to be cruel and unusual punishment, which I thought would end this grisly practice for all time, and I remember Nixon's appointees bringing it back. Nothing will change until everything changes. I wish I knew how to make that happen.
If the state kills someone by mistake, there is nothing the state can do to bring him/her back to life. If someone is imprisoned by mistake, he/she can at least be set free. DNA has certainly shown that our judicial system is not perfect.
I believe it was the Mennonites that asked the very good question, "Why do we kill people to show that killing people is wrong?" Not only have many innocent persons been put to death, but I believe the death penalty needs to be abolished. It does in no way elevate a society when it chooses to mete out, to perpetrate, the same brutality that it purports to be punishing.
Legal punishment is "a torment that is meant to be experienced as a torment" - in order for the moral point about the punished act being wrong to be learned and integrated in the person punished. A rebalancing on the point of consensual "wrong" is thereby established.
In western liberal tradition and societies the 'torment' generally consists in restriction of freedom of movement – from light (like a prohibition to leave the country, or enter another) to most severe (in an isolation cell). In this way society seeks to ensure that the transgression upon the consensus about right and wrong by the punished is not repeated.
Originally, the intention of breaking the norms is what a punishment addresses and seeks to correct. Cf. the name "house of correction" for jail (from old French 'jaiole', meaning 'cage').
If that objective – that the perpetrator of a crime reenters the society of the voluntary just – cannot be attained, then society protects itself from further intrusion upon its norms by closing the offender away from society – by locking up or closing out. Hopefully until such time as the objective of making the offender understand, accept and internalize the norm-breaking, the "crime", can be reached.
A death penalty obliterates the possibility for the practical counterbalancing of the harm done by the crime, through e.g. efforts of compensatory work by the lawbreaker. It also nullifies the possibility for the perpetrator to be reabsorbed into society in any useful way (except negligibly as fertilizer...).
The death-penalty is also the ultimate escape from a personal responsibility of repairing the harm done, by the lawbreaker. That way the death-penalty is contrary to any practical rebalancing of the harm done by the law-breaking.
In every pragmatic term the death-penalty is a failure. This fact comes in addition to all the possibilities of judicial wrong-doings – and they are horribly many – on the way to a death-penalty.
The only cause served by a death-penalty, is that of emotional, yet illogical, revenge.
"Revenge" actually means, in the original latin, to 're-claim'. Yet when someone dies for breaking a law nothing is claimed back. No wrong is righted, in concrete terms.
If e.g. a murder is done, a death-penalty does nothing to help the practical loss anyone suffers.
This in addition to the obvious foolishness of attempting to correct an act by repeating the act. That really is logic taking a holiday.
Further on, a death-penalty is a very damaging way of short-cutting (literally, in the case of beheadings...) the important dialogue and discussion with the law-breaker of WHY the law-breaking happened.
It might be that the law-breaking is an important signal to society at large about a weakness in the arrangements of how society functions. Someone put to death for e.g. killing will never be available to explain first-hand why it happened. Such information may be valuable, even important, to avoid similar killings happening later.
Even the threat of death-penalty serves to short-cut discussions of right and wrong, e.g. by silencing open discussions of whether violence risking to kill might be a proper response to a murderous society – like one waging wars of domination (as has been known to happen in a galaxy not far away...). Not even discussing some options available in reality is to restrict and self-censor other ideas resulting from such a discussion, including non-violent ideas that might arise from that discussion.
A death-penalty always signals a weakness by a society to understand itself.
Ole Ullern
This is a clear example of Big Media having way too much control over what happens in day to day American life.
What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter which newspaper supports or does not support the death penalty.
What matters more is that these media companies actually can affect policy.
Are we only to support the recommendations of our favorite news channel??
We are the people and we want grassroots, progressive media that empowers us with a positive focus. If we can't have it then we need MEDIA REFORM.
MEDIA REFORM is more important than the war on terror.
MEDIA REFORM is more important than global warming.
It is so simple it's celebaratory.
adamwestfakey@yahoo.ca
"Death is no fiend; he is the truest of friends. He delivers us from agony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Let them spend their lives in a cage...
Thanks to the evolution of man's conciousness, the way that we see things changes with time. In the future, when we look back - we will see that the most profound changes of the past 2000 years were in the 100 year period from 1925 to 2025.
We will soon get to the point where the vast majority of thinking people including those in leadership positions - "see" that things like the death penalty, war, poverty, hunger, imperialism, and political corruption are totally barbaric and unacceptable. Then we will be able to honestly say that we are living in a civilized world.
A world without war, poverty, and political corruption is coming to mankind, regardless of what the naysayers, and pessimists say/think. Sooner, not later.
-----------------
"The time for war has past."
The World Teacher
http://www.Share-International.org
If your mind is open - check it out!
Thanx aum33! I am with you 100%.
I agree that all many have to do to become free is to see and recognize what's really happening.
No more ambiguity. We are a civilized species.
For me I believe that this 'seeing' can come with media reform.
adamwestfakey@yahoo.ca
bobh said,"Why do we kill people to show that killing people is wrong?" Not only have many innocent persons been put to death, but I believe the death penalty needs to be abolished. It does in no way elevate a society when it chooses to mete out, to perpetrate, the same brutality that it purports to be punishing." It also re-enforces the the mindset that murder can be justified if one is "dissed" or otherwise wronged. Most of the world no longer executes people for that very reason. Violence begets violence. There are the exceptions in a few middle eastern nations and China, of course. Our government's efforts to pursue possible terrorists and other serious criminals who might be liable to the death penalty or torture is now being hampered because of the injustices this nation frequently metes out.
A little more than 11 years ago "Liberty" Magazine published my article on the death penalty which concluded:
"It is to protect each and every one of us from racial prejudice, or ambitious prosecutors who have forgotten why they are there, or incompetent defense attorneys, or innocent error that we must prohibit the one penalty which can not be reversed should we subsequently discover our mistake. We must never forget that prosecutors, judges, expert witnesses and jurors are no more immune to prejudice, blind ambition, or error than the rest of us. For the 'convenient' thing about the death penalty is that it allows the state to bury its mistakes leaving the guilty to walk free. And it is unlikely that anyone is going to investigate a case once an innocent man has been executed." (The full text of the article is available at http://www.hyways.com/death1.html)
I am delighted that the Chicago Tribune, the Dallas Morning News, and the Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Sentinel have joined the growing chorus calling for the abolition of the death penalty.
Lester Garrett
I applaud the newspapers for abandoning the flat earth theory of the death penalty.
From another angle, where in Pennsylvania is the Sentinel Newspaper? It's a strange article that identifies the newspaper with the state! I don't know any states which publish newspapers, even our great state of Pennsylvania.
The dead tell no tales...and that's the way the elites want it.
If they were to tell...you might have almost all those convicted of so called capital crimes revealing lives full of trauma that was meted out to them earlier in their own lives.
That would end the "born evil" or "went bad" nonsense about learned human behavior and mental illness. (Isn't the act of murder of another an act of insanity?) And it would expose societies role from the effects of poverty as policy in a society that rewards wealth nomatter how it is obtained. (note the pat on the wrist for the Oxycotin drug pushers).
And we commies are villified for our policy of the re-education camp....
Are many private murders and many state murders related phenomena? How? Perhaps a circle of cause and effect?
The impulse to avoid killing has deep roots. Slavery was once a merciful alternative to killing prisoners of war. Maiming was another alternative. The problem was eliminating an enemy as a threat without killing him.
Economically and technologically advanced societies have options not available to societies that employed such means, but seem not to have advanced morally.
The cynic in me is tempted to think that this is nothing more than a desperate attempt by MSM to try to get somebody, anybody, to read their stinkin' papers. (Newspaper readership keeps falling as more and more of their space is given over to advertising and less and less is involved with editorial content).
The conspiracy theorist in me is tempted to think that this is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate the debate and I am waiting for "the other shoe to fall".
I wonder what took the Chicago Tribune so long to figure this one out since ex-governor Ryan (now doing hard time for his criminal misdeeds) issued a blanket pardon for everyone on death row back in 2003.
Texas (home of the Dallas Morning News)has had so many cases of people either sentenced to death or long term imprisonment who have been subsequently exhonerated that it's a sick joke by now.
Pennsylvania's most famous death row convict Mumia Abu Jamal has been the object of sustained protests since his conviction many years ago.
For those of the strict literalist interpretation of the Bible camp, I would like to educate you on a principle from your favorite source book.
Deut 19:18-21 "And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, [if] the witness [be] a false witness, [and] hath testified falsely against his brother; Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you.
And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you. And thine eye shall not pity; [but] life [shall go] for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Just imagine if corrupt police, prosecuting attornies, and phoney witnesses had to face the possibility of life in prison without the possibility of parole for railroading people to death row. Do you think that might clean up this nasty practice? I do!
Guess it is a start for the uber corporatist Mallas Fascist News. Having grown up near this city and read this publication , there is much in both to disparage.
The Sentinal appears to serve two communities in Pennsylvania, Carlisle and Lewistown. Probably not very large. My recollection from driving through Pennsylvania is that the "towns" are more to the south and the "burgs" are more to the north.
While I think that there are problems with the death penalty, I think one reason why there is so much support for it is simple. It's very difficult for the vast majority of people to sympathize with people who kill. Especially when it happens to someone you cared about.
"Isn't the act of murder of another an act of insanity?"
No not always. There are a lot of bad people out there who do bad things because they think they can get away with it.
For me, I see execution as a way of permanently removing a pre-meditated murderer from society. However, I think that for me, I've become just as satisfied with someone getting life in prison without possibility of parole.
But considering all that has been wrong about the death penalty, I don't have a problem with there at the very least being a moratorium on it.
If the death penalty does remain intact, there needs to be absolutely no doubt that the murderer is guilty of the crime. The sloppy work of police and prosecutors shouldn't get someone lethal injection. There should be absolutely no bias whatsoever in who gets the chair and who doesn't. I would want a wealthy white person to get it just as much as a poor black person. I don't that most if any of capital punishment's supporters think people should get reprieves based on their race, class, or gender. I also think it's disgraceful that people end up sitting on death row for 20 years before anything happens.
But again, maybe those reasons are enough to stop doing it.
I dunno, maybe I'm just a product of my own culture. Unless the guy's innocent, I can't bring myself to hold a candlelight vigil for someone who'd probably shoot me in the face if he could get away with it as well as anyone else praying for him. It's not bloodthirst with me. I just know that the victim's friends and family will sleep better knowing that the perpetrator is gone forever.
Of course I remember Sean Penn saying something to the effect once shortly after his film "Dead Man Walking" came out that he felt that executing someone could possibly be a rewarding to a killer since for all we know, we could be granting him an express ticket to the Great Beyond where he'll be forgiven for his crime and granted paradise.
Plus, in the unlikely event that Bush gets convicted of treason, that means he's going to get three square meals a day and a dry temperate place to sleep each night if there's no death penalty. And who the hell misses Ted Bundy?
On the other hand, life imprisonment could be seen as cruel and unusual in itself, maybe even moreso than a quick death. In John Grisham's novel, "The Chamber", the character of Klansman Say Cayhall actually wants to die, finding 23 hours in a cell to be too much to bear.
John Grisham and Dennis Fritz Unite On A Journey Toward Justice
John Grisham, author of "The Innocent Man", published by "Doubleday Random House" and Dennis Fritz author of "Journey Toward Justice", published by "Seven Locks Press" Santa Ana, CA have a long term commitment to making appearances related to "the innocence movement" nationwide.
Grisham's first nonfiction book, "The Innocent Man" is a best seller on Amazon worldwide. Dennis Fritz has his first book "Journey Toward Justice" on Amazon and is a top seller worldwide.
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, is a chronicle of the Oklahoma case that resulted in the wrongful conviction of former minor-league baseball player Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. Once asked whether his book is a kind of social activism, he says: "When I researched and wrote the book, it was impossible not to become indignant and infuriated. And that becomes an activism in itself."
Journey Toward Justice: Dennis Fritz tells his side of the story of his unwarranted prosecution and wrongful conviction, that changed his life and a small community forever. Dennis Fritz was tried and convicted on non-existent evidence, the false testimony of jailhouse snitches, faulty forensics work and suppressed evidence.
Together and Separately they attend many fundraising events and appear on Television and Radio Talk Shows.
I heard May 22 both John Grisham and Dennis Fritz will be on Dateline.
Grisham spoke Thursday May 10th at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center, In Kansas City for an Innocence Project fundraiser.
The Innocence Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing legal aid to prisoners "with persuasive actual innocence claims" in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska,Iowa, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Sponsors were the Midwestern Innocence Project, the McKellar Group and Rainy Day Books.
Grisham discussed his recent nonfiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town.This chronicled the Oklahoma case that resulted in the wrongful convictions of former minor-league baseball player Ron Williamson who was sentenced to die. Ron died of cirrhosis in December 2004, five years after being freed.
Thursday in an interview with The Kansas City Star, author John Grisham said the death penalty in the United States should be "abolished forever". He also said it is his personal view that the death penalty is immoral.
Grisham realizes that the most powerful argument against the death penalty is that it kills the innocent as well as the guilty, a case that he makes simply by telling Williamson and Fritz's story. He also discussed Ron Williamson's friend Dennis Fritz. Dennis Fritz got life in prison. Both were exonerated after spending years in prison.
Dennis Fritz also works with the Innocence Project in Kansas City, Missouri. He makes appearances related to "the innocence movement" nationwide.
He is using a book he recently published, "Journey Toward Justice", as a vehicle to bring awareness of the overall, devastating effects of how false convictions can destroy people's lives and how mistakes can be made in cases.
He travels the United States speaking to law schools and also hopes to reach prosecutors and judges.
Here is what Barry Scheck from The Innocence Project says about Dennis Fritz's book Journey Toward Justice:
There have been one hundred eighty-one post-conviction DNA exonerations in America. The exonerated and their families are the heart and soul of this movement. There is no more decent and dignified a man, nor a more gentle soul, than Dennis Fritz. He has had the fortitude to tell his whole story. As always, I am in awe of his courage and humbled by his efforts.- Barry C. Scheck The Innocence Project
From My Blog Barbara's Journey Toward Justice http://barbarasblogspot.blogspot.com
Abolishing the death penalty has more to do with how we, society, view the act of homicide (and that's how they list it) than the act against another human being in itself. The "state" is an abstract and very anthropomorphized concept. It is a being in itself. Do we invest in it the ability to kill us? I agree with iwarrior that, for some, incarceration for life may be more cruel, more inhumane than simply ending their life. In that case, maybe it should be their choice. Hitting the ball back into the individual human domain will at least relieve the danger of relinquishing control to a bureaucratic entity above us.
Afterthought: Altho the "choice" thing sounds familiar in a B-movie Sly Stalloneish way. I doubt it would hold up in court. Maybe the solution is to rework the idea of "incarceration". iwarrior, need your help here babe, a lion would kill you at the drop of a hat too, yet we don't hesitate to incarcerate them for life in zoos, so...
Too often we hear of ridiculous legal machinations that allow a clearly guilty person to escape justice. Almost as many times as we hear of some poor victim of corrupt, inept, biased or just down right stupid official legal and forensic processes.
Failure of the forensic process is reason to fix it, thereby ensuring that not only do the innocent remain free, but the guilty are punished.
The fact that I believe in the death penalty for premeditated, 1st degree murder and/or willful, aggravated assault (sexual and otherwise) resulting in death, does not make me "bloodthirsty" (kathyodat). (Such a sense of moral elitism..)
It means only that I have a different philosophy. One that is as valid as another. That philosophy is basically that I believe that such a flawed person is beyond "rectification" whatever the wishful thinking starry eyed theorists might think. You can either lock them up and throw away the key or execute/kill them. Perhaps better yet, work them to death.
Too often we hear of some poor victim done away with in the most off hand and despicable manner by some warped personality that sees (an)other human(s) as completely irrelevant, disposable, without feelings or worth.
Too often we hear of some serial recidivist who has killed again (and again.) Often after an appropriate sentence has been shortened by the soft centered brigade
I believe that the peace of mind of those effected by such behaviour and of "society" in general is better served by permanently removing such creatures from circulation. I have no qualms in removing such ferals. None.
therzal,
One thing, among many, that I don't think you've come to grips with is that it's not a matter of fixing the system to be a flawless process of justice. We're talking about the vagaries of life, and they will never be "fixed". In other words, a death penalty will always execute some innocents. I think you know that. But perhaps that doesn't matter to you? Getting "them" is worth the innocent blood spilt? My, that _is_ bloodlust.
"That philosophy is basically that I believe that such a flawed person is beyond "rectification" whatever the wishful thinking starry eyed theorists might think."
-- As elitist as any morality that you "sense"?
Ipenek.. I outlined how I believe the system/process can be improved to prevent wrongful execution and therefore only used in very specific circumstances. You imply it can't be done. I won't dwell on the paradox that you introduce re the vagaries of life.. But it is an intriguing one.
Correction.. I never suggested that a single innocent should died in order to prevent any guilty from escaping.. That would be a ludicrous, illogical, not to say disgusting statement to make.
You imply that because I point out that psychopathic behaviour can't (currently) be treated, that is somehow elitist. What, because I posit a fact or two that make your stance less positive..
You know that psychopathic behaviour CAN be treated?? Do tell us all how.. And, whilst your treatment is working, what will you do with the subject? AND, if it fails, what then will you do with the subject???
Basically, you would appear like many, to take the (homo sapiens centric) view that all HUMAN life is uniquely precious, regardless of behaviour. I do not.
therzal, are you suggesting that some people are born psychopathic killers? What an atavistic idea! And by the way, if sex didn't sell, the advertisers wouldn't use it. They don't waste their money.
I was not psychoanalyzing you although I find it interesting that you think so.
What I was suggesting is that we need to move from the concept of punishment to rehabilitation in our thinking, but clearly some have a long way to go in that direction. Some old sayings have validity, such as "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar". What kind of a society are we when we don't act any better than our sickest members? If an individual burns and tortures and mutilates another individual people condemn him. But when our president does it on a grand scale, people wave flags. Talk about mental illness!
You have more faith in bureaucracy than nearly 100% of the public. Death penalty will kill innocents. And people are special. But I've already written my response. Have a nice day.