If the risk of innocent people being executed is a sticking point for you, you should oppose capital punishment because the justice system if run by humans and humans are flawed. There will be mistakes, innocent people will die.

@RoboGraham that's where this legal system needs to end. Myself, My family have suffored at the hands of the Masonic lodge secret religion racist devil worship government terrorism.

I don't say people are flawed in the sense like driving a car with a flat tire. The flaw is their specific intention to do people wrong. It is one thing to drive a car with a flat tire but to use the car to flat run people down is another thing.

@ToolGuy read my post, I said some.

What does execution accomplish? Other than a colossal waste of money and the risk of having taken an innocent life?

@RoboGraham It is certainly not a deterrent to crime.

@ToolGuy, actually the perverse form of capitalism in my state is not neoliberalism. It is a regressive form of conservatism that I call "serve-me-ism." Those aforementioned revenue failures were caused by taking a 7% gross production tax down to 2%. They finally put it back to 5%, which helps pay the bills for core services. When you couch an issue in how it effects the state's fiscal bottom line it usually gets leadership's attention better than parsing morals.

On a personal level, I'm with you. Until we can figure out some way of granting people like Todd Willingham clemency from where he is now, the death penalty will be fatally flawed, no pun intended. It also puts us in league with some plum characters and midevel nations like Iran, China, Indonesia and several others who liberally embrace the death penalty.

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.

@LiterateHiker I can understand your anger, it's only natural. And it is why the justice system must be blind and unbiased.

The justice system failed your daughter. They often get it wrong. And that is why it's unwise to trust them with the life of a human being.

@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!

No. If inmates kill in prison, they are put in segregation where they are unable to harm anyone anymore. The way I see it, spending your life in solitary is a worse fate than death.

@RoboGraham and if you think that that's sufficient punishment for killing somebody then I'm sorry but I don't want to be related to you

@lerlo If you believe that the purpose of justice is to reap vengeance, I'm happy not to know you.

@RoboGraham it's called punishment and deterrence. You never heard of anyone escaping from segregation huh?
so they get general population for their first murder and segregation for their second murder. What's for the third murder when they escape?

@lerlo The death penalty is not an effective deterrent. Punishment is counterproductive to rehabilitation. I would wager that there have been fewer segregation escapes than innocent people executed.

@RoboGraham look up the deterrent. That inmate won't kill ever again, quite the deterrent

@RoboGraham I am not about vengeance I am about removing a murderer who will kill again if given a chance. Why risk another persons life when the answer is to terminate that persons life. We can do a battery of tests and see if they have any organs that can save a persons life. Since they did something so bad they get the death penelty why not let them save someones life.

@lerlo It takes years to execute a person. That inmate will have opportunity to kill again. Except no, because he will be placed in solitary confinement where he will not be a danger to others.

@RoboGraham sorry your proclamations don't make it so. You've decided that no one can escape from solitary confinement. You've decided that the death penalty is not a deterrent to murder. How many people have told you that they have not killed someone because they don't want to get the death penalty?

@lerlo No, I have acknowledged that it is possible to get out of solitary. Will you acknowledged that innocent people are sometimes executed?

@RoboGraham thanks for switching my words around, let's go back to what I said. The person"s in prison for a murder they already got convicted of.
You say they may have been innocent. They commit another murder in prison, you say they're innocent of this one too and they shouldn't be killed?

@lerlo Just because it happened in prison doesn't definitely mean he is 100% guilty. Do you think no one has ever been framed in prison?

@RoboGraham well now you've backed off deterrence and punishment and are back to just we shouldn't kill anybody no matter what they do. Tell that to the victim's family when someone's a mass murderer...tell that to the guard's family when the guard is killed by an inmate in prison...tell that to the family of the person the escapee kills. Poople might be innocent so we shouldn't convict anyone and we shouldn't punish anyone on the off-chance that we were wrong.

@lerlo Conducting justice with the motivating factor of the satisfaction of the Vitim's family is not justice, it's vengeance. Justice is blind. We should convict guilty people and we should separate them from society and put them in solitary permanently if necessary but killing them after having proven guilt in an imperfect system is immoral because it will mean that some innocents will die unfairly.

@RoboGraham apparently you prefer giving murderers the chance to do it again and again, I don't. Innocent people die on the highways all day, are you stopping people from driving? You mean driving isn't a perfect system? Next time you disagree with somebody's comment maybe you should just make your own comment.

@lerlo I did make my own comment, you can see my take on it there. If you can't deal with being disagreed with, perhaps you ought not post comments on these contentious topics. People dying in vehicle crashes is totally different, it's not a human being intentionally killed by other humans as execution is.

Yes I think killing is wrong and shouldn't be done except in self defense and war. Most of the world agrees with me. This barbaric practice has been abolished in the majority of countries including all of the rest of the 1st world.

@RoboGraham I'll keep it up as long as you will. If you just weren't a bleeding heart and could answer my deterrence question...which you can't, you might have a point. We have light houses designed to keep boats from colliding, can you prove they don't work? Should we tear down lighthouses? Got anything more than we just shouldn't kill people?

@lerlo Okay let's talk deterrence. Type the following words into your google browser- is capital punishment an effective deterrent- see what comes up and then let's have a discussion.

@lerlo
I do have something other than the morality augment actually. It is more expensive to execute than to give a life sentence.

@RoboGraham just because you proclaim it and somebody else proclaims it doesn't make it right. There is no way for anyone to know how many people don't get killed because of the death penalty. Sorry to burst your bubble.

@RoboGraham well if it didn't take 19 years and all the appeals to kill somebody it would be a whole lot easier but show me the figures because food clothing and medical care for life is certainly more expensive.

@lerlo It's not just me and somebody else proclaiming it, it's me and the experts who have done the research.

If there is no way to know how many people don't get killed because of the death penalty, you have no way to prove that it is an effective deterrent. If you have no way to prove that it is an effective deterrent, how can you justify using it when you know full well that using it will result in the deaths of innocent people? You are the one making the claim that it is an effective deterrent. You see that the evidence and studies don't back up your claim so now your argument is that there is no way to know if it works or not. Your line of reasoning is weak and you have lost this argument.

It takes 19 years and all the appeals because the justice system is flawed and executions are final so they want to make damn sure that they are about to kill the right person. Even with this long expensive process, they still get it wrong occasionally and an innocent person dies. Would you rather executions be expedited and even more prone to ending the lives of innocent people?

As far as the expenses, again, google it. The results it pulls up will overwhelmingly support the fact that capital punishment is more expensive. Death penalty cases cost millions. Life in prison without parole cases are very expensive too but death penalty cases are so much more expensive that, even including the costs of imprisoning the person for life, death penalty cases are still much more costly. And the prisoner has to be held for 19 years or however long it takes to get through appeals and that adds even more cost on top of the massive bill for the capital punishment case and all the appeals.

@RoboGraham yep, that's it, just declare yourself the winner--works every time--for you and trump. You never answered me about the lighthouses...should we take them down because we don't know if they work? just keeping saying you won over and over and then try and back up that with some facts--you know it's not out there--and I don't buy b.s. claims of fact without seeing it--like some people in this convsersation

@lerlo If you want to bring Trump into this, he supports capital punishment.

I declared myself the winner because I logically checkmated you. You said "There is no way for anyone to know how many people don't get killed because of the death penalty." Okay if there is no way to know then you cannot say it is an effective deterrent, which is your entire argument. You have no ground to stand on. But actually there is a way to know. You can look at what the people who have actually studied the deterrent hypothesis have written and see that they have concluded overwhelmingly that it does not function as a deterrent. Either way, you are wrong.

I have described to you the costs of capital punishment compared to life without parole. I'm not going to layout all the facts for you. You are a grown up, I'm sure you are capable of looking into it yourself. It only takes a simple google search and a bit of motivation to read rather than just declaring that it's not out there.

As for the light houses, that's an entirely different scenario. People understand that light means land so they keep away. I ignored this question because it is a terrible example, a false equivalence. The light house doesn't deter them from hitting land, it is an aid, not a deterrent, they don't want to hit the land, they are trying to not hit land regardless of if there is a light house or not. If they do hit rocks, it's by accident. In contrast, killers want to kill, that's why they do it. The light house help people avoid doing something they don't want to do. Capital punishment is supposed to prevent people from doing something that they do want to do but it doesn't actually work.

Here is a question for you. If Capital punishment is an effective deterrent, why do the states that have the death penalty have higher murder rates? If you don't believe that's true, google it. I'll also offer you the following article from the new york times- [nytimes.com]

@RoboGraham now all makes sense, you can't read. As I said the purpose of a lighthouse is to prevent boating accidents. Do you know how many accidents lighthouses have prevented? No you don't. Do we take light houses down because we don't think they work, no we don't. You also refuse to acknowledge the deterrence of that person not being able to commit murder again. I can keep making the argument and you can keep ignoring it. If you seriously believe that keeping someone in prison from the time they are 19 years old for life is less expensive than killing them at 19 you're out of your mind. Since you're going to ignore everything I just said anyway why not just admit that you're just against killing.

@lerlo I have stated that I am against killing, except in self defense and and war. Perhaps you can't read? most people are against killing in a civilized world. You are the outlier here.

You really should drop the lighthouse line of reasoning, it's doing you more harm than good. Again, you are the one making the claim that execution is an effective deterrent. If your argument is that, it can't be disproved that it is a deterrent, therefore we need to keep using it, you are thinking very irrationally. I could argue the same for prayer. You can't disprove that praying to not be murdered everyday prevents/deters murderers from killing. Therefore we must continue praying. Does that make sense to you? This logic is very faulty.

If you execute someone, you prevent them from causing harm to others, sure. But an equally effective way to do that is to keep the person locked in segregation for life.

How can a 19 year old be executed? It takes 10-20 years or more. So the kid must have done the crime at 9 at the oldest. We don't execute people for crimes committed when they are small children. Even the hardliners would disagree with you there. Just proclaiming that keeping people in prison for life is more expensive than execution doesn't make it so. Do some research, look at the numbers. It's all readily accessible to you, just a quick google search will show you how wrong you are but you refuse do your due diligence. You'd rather continue making the same ignorant claims blissfully unaware that you are utterly incorrect. Did you bother to have a look at the article I put in the last comment? Have you done anything other than make assumptions? Will you provide any evidence to back up your bogus claim that execution is an effective deterrent or that it is cheaper than life in prison?

I'm not the one ignoring what the other person says here. I have confronted all of your flawed arguments and showed you how they are incorrect. You on the other hand ignored my question concerning states that legalized the death penalty having higher murder rates than those that have outlawed it. How do yo explain that?

Also, we can see that light houses work. We can look at it statistically. Before the light house, x number of ships were sunk on the rocks. After the light house was built, y number of ship were sunk. If x is significantly larger than y, you know the light house is working.

@RoboGraham do you think the penalty for stealing $1 should be the same as stealing $1,000,000?

@lerlo No, I don't think that.

So it appears that you have given up. I'll take your lack of an attempt to refute the arguments I laid out or to answer the question I asked as admission of defeat.

See you around.

@RoboGraham Figured you'd give up...because if you don't think that the penalties should be the same do you think a confessed murderer of 1 person should be given the same punishment as someone who murdered 50 people in a mass shooting in front of 20 witnesses?