You are advocating vengeance, not justice. Executions are more expensive than life in prison sentences.

@RoboGraham a vial of potassium chloride is $20

@RoboGraham, @Lincoln55

Yes, I feel angry. At 19, my daughter was violently beaten and raped at college by a stranger. She was asleep when he attacked her. After 10 years of therapy, Claire still wakes up screaming and has panic attacks.

The rapist followed her from a party. In court, Claire was blamed for drinking alcohol and for wearing a short dress.

The male rapist was caught and prosecuted. Five college girls took him to court, including Claire. My daughter was retraumatized by facing him and testifying at each trial. He was a law student. His lawyer convinced the judge not to put him on the national sexual offender registry. This would have prevented him from becoming an attorney.

A year later, it became a national requirement. All convicted rapists must be put on the national sex offender list. No exceptions.

You are both men. Go get raped violently by a well-hung man and tell me how you liked it.

Until you can walk in my daughter's shoes- along with millions of other raped children, girls and women- you need to show empathy for victims.

@sandrarocks83 Good point. That's $20 on top of the hundreds of thousands it takes to get an execution through the courts.

@LiterateHiker Well that's horrible. I'm very sorry that happened to her. What would you like me to get over?

@RoboGraham

Good point. I changed my lead sentence to: "Yes, I feel angry."

Thank you for your compassion for Claire.

@RoboGraham then the process is the problem

@sandrarocks83

No wonder so few people report rape. Prosecuting sexual assault: 'Raped all over again'. Rape and sexual assault victims who have tried, with various degrees of success, to take cases to court are familiar with the distressing experience of having their evidence torn apart.

Usually when you report a crime, you expect to be believed.

@sandrarocks83 Would you prefer a process that expedites executions? Innocent people are killed now even with the long drawn out expensive process we use currently.

@LiterateHiker and then you have child sexual abuse, they are out of jail in 3 yrs, fucking disgrace!

@RoboGraham just like we have the right to a fair and speedy trial, if the asshole is without a doubt guilty, kill him/her right away!

@LiterateHiker Darly Routier has been on death row for over 20 yrs, she stabbed her 2 little boys to death and still claims her innocence, makes me fucking sick!!!

@sandrarocks83 We have the right to a fair and speedy trial so that accused people are not kept in cages indefinitely without an opportunity to confront the accuser.

If you can live with the risk of the state putting people to death who don't deserve it, that says a lot about your morality. Most of the rest of the world has advanced past this barbaric practice. Even Russia and most of Africa has ceased to use capital punishment.

@RoboGraham my morality is just fine, I stand by my opinion that SOME people do NOT deserve to live

@sandrarocks83 You are entitled to your opinion.

@sandrarocks83

Not only is the court process a problem. Also racism, sexism, sexual violence, blaming rape victims, ad nauseum.

@ToolGuy I don’t think so, they get 3 meals, a warm bed, television, snacks, recreational time. They don’t deserve any of it!

Exactly!

also the death penalty is barbaric and has been eliminated in most 1st world countries

World War II ended 71 years ago. Since World War II, the USA has killed more than 20 million people, that averages out to roughly 282,000 per year, 23,474 per month, or 782 per day. The USA has been at war more than 90% of the time since 1776! The USA:
.
interfered in Iraq - there is a war there now.
interfered in Syria - there is a war there now.
interfered in Libya - there is a war there now.
interfered in Yemen - there is a war there now.
interfered in Ukraine - there is a war there now.
interfered in Somalia - there is a war there now.
interfered in Afghanistan - there is a war there now.
.
No pattern of behavior here at all, right?
.
To all of those who support either Democrats or Republicans . . . . both are war parties . . .

It is no different than you picking up a weapon and shooting children, bombing them, starting wars, coups against democracies . . . . you are devoid of conscience, and you vote for the very criminal parties who sponsor all of the illegal, unjust, and atrocious activities. You are legitimizing them with your vote, you are authorizing the use of white phosphorus, depleted uranium, droning, bombing of hospitals, Israeli racism and murder of Palestinians, invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc., you caused the bombing and subsequent flow of refugees out of these countries, you are supporting the ascendency of Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, even ISIS, Lindsey Graham, the whole fucking Military Industrial Complex and AIPAC . . . . you support it all . . . . you are no better than the war criminals who do the everything mentioned above . .
.
You have given your approval on all of this with your vote, that is an irrefutable fact.
.
This is why capital punishment is a mosquito in a room full of war criminals.
[globalresearch.ca]

niether does life in prison

@vjohnson51 , we don't. We do know that many people were executed and later found innocent. Two stories immediately come to mind. In both the actual guilty party was caught for almost identical crimes later and gave the police the details of the actual crime an innocent person had been put to death for.
Google: Darlie Routier if you need an example of an innocent woman sitting on death row right now.

It's more expensive to execute than it is to keep a person in prison for life.

@RoboGraham how so? Legal maneuvers?

@twill Yeah, court costs. The average price tag per execution is 1 and a quarter million. The average life in prison cost is around 3/4 million.

@vjohnson51 Yeah it's counterintuitive so people assume that it's the other way around. I've gotten into a couple of arguments on this thread that you created about that very issue and these guys just refuse to believe it.

You wrote a paper about this?

@vjohnson51 If I thought that, the death penalty would be too good for him.
Solitary confinement (no books, tv, visitors, correspondence, NOTHING...just him and four blank walls, a bunk, a stiff wooden chair) for life.
That'd be worse than death.

there are several steps before they are put to death. Making the innocent one much more rare then you might think

@benhmiller You stated "making the innocent one much more rare than you might think." Yes, it might be more rare--but as long as there is a death penalty--at some point-- an innocent person will be put to death; and, I am not willing to sacrifice even one innocent person. The death penalty is simply not necessary in order for justice to be served. And, too often, it is about vengeance--not justice.

Religious people, who love the death penalty, do so because they like to imagine that the person goes straight to hell to begin their eternal suffering. But, when they are dead--they are dead. Let them pay in the here an now.

If you were the type to, say, rape and murder children, maybe you'd WANT what you did unto them, done unto you, to get yourself put out of your miserable, despicable life.

Most of those against the death penalty are those who believe in religions

@benhmiller I would need to see statistics on that assessment. Fundamentalists in most religious groups are, from what I've seen, big supporters of the death penalty. Many catholics hold views against it, but not all (it is a part of their Vatican doctrine).

@Beowulfsfriend I don't have stats either but tend to agree with you. The fundies are much more authoritarian in mindset, in general.

You are 100% correct. I have seen it first hand the profitability of the prison systems in this country.

So, what's that you say? You're against economic issues? And you go on to say you're against capital punishment (capitalism) specifically? Lol.

Actually I agree with you. I don't think capital punishment makes sense money wise or ethically. And on top of everything else, it's irrevocable -- when a mistake is ever made, there are only the least paths for redress. What's done is done.

The added cost to the death penalty is the endless appeals for them 20 years or more. All lawyers billable hours. The lawyers don't want to loose their cash cow. That is where the extra cost comes from.

@RichCC

I'm not against economic issues. Just not that intetested in economic topics, unless of coarse its associated with archaeology and prehistoric peoples.

@t1nick I know. I was joking about the word similarity.

@RichCC

Got it.

@NoPlanetB No, they are given the same prison sentence as any other type of criminal. What the other prisoners do to them for vengeance is not determined by the justice system and therefore not passed onto them by society. For prisoners at risk of being victimized, segregation is, theoretically, an option.

How can we ever be totally certain the accused is guilty? Execution is final, if new evidence comes to light, well too late.

@RoboGraham multiple whiteness video real confession DNA ect it does happen

@bobwjr Witnesses can lie, videos can be edited, confessions can be coerced, and DNA can be planted by crooked cops.

@RoboGraham whiteness do lie or mistaken altered video can be detected forensics c can detect planted DNA and some readily admit guilt worked medical in corrections and met both real guilty and framed

@bobwjr I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are saying.

@RoboGraham current justice system is corrupted by the need to win at any cost . Worked medical in corrections got to know some on death row some admit their guilt and some in population were innocent. The guilty ones who were not crimes of passion were sociopaths who would repeat killing with no conscience, those who were crimes of passion would not repeat it. The sociopaths are a danger to all including staff and other prisoners.

Actually, it prevents escapes, wrongful (or wrong-headed!) Parole, release because of overcrowding, and etc......

@AnneWimsey sorry Anne, death row inmates are in max sec prisons, impossible to escape, not one successful escape since the Bonnie and Clyde era, also death row inmates nor lifers can be paroled, nice try but no cigar.

@Mofo1953 charlie manson came up for parole over 20 times.....and he isn't the only one. AS IF age could improve any of them.......

@AnneWimsey Manson was never paroled, to come for parole is not being paroled. Besides he was benefiting from a California law. I never said that some killers are going to improve as you put it, most are irredeemable and just sick bastards. What I am saying is that had Mason been executed, what would you say it had an effect on? Would you say his execution would have prevented future killings in California? Anywhere in America? Would it had deterred a single felony let alone a murder to be committed? The answer is no. It wouldn't even have prevented Polanski to have sex with that minorvand escape the US. So tell me what tangible difference in results happened in America between him dying executed or dying in prison? His punishment was being in death row the rest of his life with all those denied parole hearings, have you heard about the sword of Damocles? Now that is true punishment in my book.

@Mofo1953 true He was not paroled, mostly because of his notoriety. However, others have, and have killed, raped, etc etc Again. Do you think the ruined/ended lives if those (totally unnecessary!) victims are unimportant? I think they are of Paramount importance because if the sick bastards were dead, none of that suffering needed to take place. A society is supposed to protect the majority of its' members the majority of the time. Period.

@AnneWimsey not one has been paroled in death row or lifer, you can protect society locking these people up. Period.

@Mofo1953 do yourself a favor, Google "paroled murderers who killed again"...PAGES of stuff! Including one who was released because "so old"(77) and stabbed a Mom to death in front of her twin daughters. You are not rooted in reality on this.

@AnneWimsey most were failure of the system as I read, most were not death row, most were released because they were not lifers, many were manslaughter or 2nd degree suceptible for parole, I know shit happens, the justice systme is not perfect, but why stoop to their level just because there were 16 reincidents in a span of 50 years, I can give you many more examples than 16 of people who were inocent but were either killed or released after extraordinary efforts to appeal their death sentence, many more than just 16. Sorry Anne, I will never be convinced that in a flawed system the only solution is to kill people when they kill people, unfortunately that is what we have right now despite my beliefs and you should be very happy that the state is being as murderous as them.