by Englishman 91 Replies latest jw friends
"If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call."
John McAdams - Marquette University/Department of Political Science
Political Science.....might as well be a witchdoctor........same type of worthless politically correct opinions that hamper justice and bleed the honest people dry.
I don't want to pay for criminals who killed little girls to live....get them off of life's payroll.
ashi
Advice about death penalty in U.S.: Europeans, butt out
""Americans can end their debate on the death penalty permanently. No more will death penalty supporters have to chide death penalty opponents for their lack of empathy for survivors of homicide victims.
We can put an end to the arguments of those who say the death penalty is racist because more blacks than whites are on death row. (That reasoning is specious anyway; in most states, only those who commit felony murder - homicide that involves another crime like robbery or rape - get the death penalty. And blacks are on death row in approximately the same proportion as African-American involvement in felony murder.)
Anti-death-penalty activists would probably counter that with one in their wide range of claims about innocent folks ending up on death row and how executions don't deter murder. But that's the sort of cussing and fussing we can end. We just have to think creatively. We have to think collectively. We have to think, oh, well, foreign.
That's right. Let's round up all our folks on death row and ship them overseas. There must be some government somewhere willing to take them. After all, so many of them are willing to preach to us about how we awful Americans still have the death penalty.
In fact, some Americans join in this anti-Yankee bashing. American anti-death-penalty activists whine that their country won't ban the death penalty as other, presumably more civilized, industrialized countries have done. Others rail against the practice some states have of trying some juveniles as adults and imposing the death penalty. Lawyers for Napoleon Beazley, a 24-year-old death row inmate in Texas who shot a man to death in an attempted carjacking when he was 17, complain that giving their client the death penalty violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The ICCPR is a treaty signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. The Senate ratified all sections of the treaty in 1992 except the provision that would have banned giving juveniles the death penalty.
It's a relief to know that the Senate, even when it was run by Democrats, was leery of ratifying a provision that would have flagrantly violated the 10th Amendment. But Stephen Harper, a Florida assistant public defender, is quoted in the September Savoy magazine thus:
"Under international law you can't make a reservation to a specific point of a treaty and ratify it." Fret not, Harper, me boy. There's a plan for all ye who object to executing juveniles.
Send the juvenile offenders on death row to foreign countries. Send the old ones, too. Send them all. Who should get them first? Let's see now.
When President Bush visited Europe in June, he was greeted by protesters in high dudgeon about, among other things, America's use of the death penalty. One reporter in Spain had the gall to ask Bush, "Are you a champion of the death penalty?"
Spain clearly does not champion the death penalty. So let's send Napoleon Beazley and the first batch of death row inmates in America there. Let them serve time in Spanish prisons. Let the Spaniards feed them, house them and clothe them. Let them foot the bill for it. The lives of the condemned will have been spared, America will be rid of them and the Spanish government can pat itself on the back for having done a good deed.
Next on the list is France. When America asked that convicted murderer Ira Einhorn be extradited to serve out his sentence, the French balked. We don't extradite those tried and convicted in absentia, the French sniffed. Besides, he might get the death penalty.
OK, France. He's yours. We'll send the recently extradited Einhorn back to France to serve his life sentence. We'll throw in a bunch of other ax murderers, serial killers and psychopaths in the bargain. Put 'em in French prisons and give them all the tender loving care you think they deserve.
What's that you say, Spain and France? Don't like the deal, eh? We don't see the rest of you European nations stepping up to the plate either. Then there's an alternative. Shut up about America's death penalty laws. And you can climb off our backs about our gun laws, too.
Yes, in addition to preaching to Americans about gun laws, Europeans and others, through the United Nations, are trying to impose tougher gun laws on Americans, too. In the July 15 edition of The Sun, writer Michael Scardaville told about a U.N. committee that recommended that delegates promote "the removal of all arms from society."
Funny how none of these countries worried about America's death penalty or gun laws when they needed us - like during World War II or when we were helping protect Europe from the Soviet menace through our involvement in NATO. The britches of Western European nations have grown in proportion to the decline of the Soviet threat.
We deserve some compensation for keeping them safe. The cost should be either to take our death row inmates or dummy up about how the death penalty is applied in America.""
Eman,
That last link was quite interesting; I was surprised to read so many British folk endorsing the death penalty. Personally, I wrestle with this issue and lean on the side that is against it. The stated purpose of the death penalty is to deter crimes but it's been proven that that isn't actually the case. And before I get trampled here for expressing a seemingly unpopular view, please do not think that I'm some bleeding hear softie who doesn't feel for the victims and their families!!! That just isn't the case and I'm sure that if someone I loved was a victim of murder, I would want vengeance and retribution.
One thing for sure, tho...If I were a Brit bent on mischief and mayhem, I think I'd stay the hell out of Georgia!!
Dana
Tai Chi, you said:
In case you hadn't noticed, Old Son, this is MY THREAD.
Englishman.
ashi:
McAdams is Pro Death, reread the post.........
The british governmant are currantly trying to get him off on a technicality if you didnt already know. I personally think this stinks.
I too am not fully behind the death penalty because of the risk of mistakes, but, and its a big but, if someone was drowning say in fast flowing water, im pretty confident that i would risk my life to save the life of that person. Likewise therefore if 1 inocent life is lost to save many then maybe the death penalty is fair.
Personally im sick of paying for the upkeep of the Peter Sutcliffe's and Mira Hindley's of this world.
I could get quite barbaric in my arguments here cos i have an incling that it would be beneficial to the familys of the victims to decide on the punishment of there killer. they could maybe then get a true sense of justice.
Hmm.... This is a realy tough subject but i still say that when in rome..... and all that. If you cant do the time, dont do the crime.
I still hope it hurts.
The Americans have already executed thousands of people recently, the majority of them innocent, and you can be sure it will stretch to billions if they continue the way they are going. They are the world police, judges, and executioners.
What gives murderers the right to judge and condemn others for the same sins?
Im not in any way condoning what he did just pointing out the blatant hypocrisy in your so great government. When they sit back and let you vapourise into a radioactive cloud, while they are in their nice comfy bunkers breathing clean air eating clean food, maybe then you will see them for who they really are. When its too late.
I just heard the guy interviewed on radio, that is weird for a start, but he didn't sound very British to me. Any way , he admitted the crime, so whats the problem?
I have no difficulty with the death penalty
Englishman: I know, that’s why I posted the piece. It was sent to me, Author unknown. Also, here is an editoral I would like to share........
John Byrd's execution
Cincinnati Post editorial
There is nothing to celebrate in the fact of John Byrd's execution Tuesday by the state of Ohio. There is, perhaps, a grim measure of satisfaction to be had in the fact that Ohio's capital punishment law was finally enforced, that an awful measure of justice was meted out for a crime that never should have happened nearly 19 years ago. But that satisfaction is hollow.
Before our attention is drawn away by the next sensational, horrific story to come out of the criminal justice system, a few observations about this one are in order:
It was proper to see the focus kept as much on the victim, Monte Tewkesbury, as on the perpetrator. So often, it seems, the victim is forgotten, the obligation to them outstripped by society's obligation to protect the rights of the person who committed the murder.
In many capital crimes - drug paybacks, gang revenge, barroom fights and the like - the victim shares a measure of blame. But this one was different. Monte Tewksbury was a decent man, trying to do right by his family by moonlighting at a Colerain Township convenience store to help his daughter pay for college. He wasn't even trying to be a hero when the man who'd robbed him sliced his liver open with a hunting knife. He'd given his assailant the money from the cash register, his watch, even his wedding ring.
Byrd had more than ample due process. His claims - that he was innocent, that he was so drunk and so full of drugs he didn't remember what happened, that his conviction was based on the perjured testimony of a jailhouse snitch - were considered, and rejected, by the full range of state and federal appeals courts.
Byrd's fate was sealed after co-defendant John Brewer and Byrd's attorneys produced so many conflicting stories at an 11th hour hearing that the magistrate concluded Brewer's testimony was simply unbelievable. (Brewer, serving a life sentence for his role in the crime, had asserted that he was the killer.)
Byrd was a bully. This was a man who, three years after the murder, mailed a grotesquely threatening letter to Tewksbury's widow. "I know a lot of people who would like to date your little girl," he wrote. "If you can understand what I'm saying, I can make your world a living hell." He later apologized for that letter, saying it was written at a time when he was filled with hate.
His final words Tuesday, if not hateful, were certainly angry. "The corruption of the state will fall. Gov. Taft, you will not be re-elected," he said. "The rest of you, you know where you can go."
So there it is. John Byrd was duly tried, convicted, sentenced and now executed for the murder of Monte Tewksbury, a good and decent man.
Byrd was a criminal, not a martyr.
