It is true that most of the handfull of countries that still execute murders do so swiftly. In China, it's often less than an hour.
I've been a yoyo on this over the years. Every damn time I decide to take a more enlightened approach on the subject, along comes a guy like Cuey (sp) in FL who abducts, rapes, stuffs alive a young girl into a garbage bag, and buries her alive in the back yard. And, I change my mind - again. I need something more than 3 squares, cable TV and books, free medical care, and the ability to work out and get fresh air. Don't we owe the hapless victims something?

 

It's not the direct victims you are trying to satisfy. They are already dead. It is their relatives. It is their friends. It is yourself. This is a thirst for vengeance.

Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that. As I mentioned before, there is a social function that vengeance supplies. The awareness of the vengeance reponse in other people serves as a balance to our own calculations of what is really in our own self-interest.

However, it is best to make decisions based on what is really the issue, as opposed to fooling yourself into thinking it has much (directly) to do with things like crime prevention or economic cost.

 

Visiting policies

Pictures

Routine

Slightly less than your requirements.

 

In my opinion, capital punishment is retributive justice. However, the problem is the administering of this justice. We currently in our judicial system cannot unequivocally claim consistency, impartiality, due process and proof of guilt with absolute certainty.

Given this limitation, we really do need to look at the whole idea of capital punishment as is currently meted out in our judicial system. There are far too many cases where the deathrow inmates were freed because of further evidence.

I don't think anyone wants that in their conscience. Our current system is not just for those who are less than well represented because of their socio-economic status.

 

let me frame the question in a different way.
Let's assume for a moment that OJ Simpson was a bus driver and had a public defender.
How long would his trial have been and what do you think the likelihood of him getting the death penalty.
Ok now, if his trial was held in a backwater town in Texas, Mississippi or Georgia?
Ok, how about Boston, New York or Chicago?

Now what if his wife was black and he was white, would that have affected the outcome of the trial?

The Lady Justice is blind but as a practical matter her vision appears to be 20-20.

 

^ There's also a male/female bias. A man sentenced to death has a one in five chance of being executed, for women it is one in ninety.

Until he retired a few years ago, my BIL was in charge of overseeing executions in Texas. I've made it a point to be really nice to his sister at all times.

 

So I guess we may as well assume the fine citizens of backwater Georgia are incapable of hearing the evidence and rendering a verdict? Wherever the backwater may be.

This is probably the worst example for me to consider. Unless the real killer is playing country club golf courses around the country - and he promised to find the real killer - he was the beneficiary of a unique and hopefully not to repeated miscarriage of justice.

Yeah - I'd have pulled the switch, lever, or whatever on this one.

What I really feel:

Isn't there something that constitutes real, pure evil? Have we not all seen it in our own lives?

These people are a real danger to the public at large and a danger to both their fellow inmates as well as the prison guards charged with keeping them incarcerated. Is there not a point at which they should be put down for the common good?

 

Not especially unique, in my opinion. There is a reason why "the best justice money can buy" is a well-understood concept.

 

Given the evidence and profile of the case in that jurisdiction I'd say yes it was pretty much unique. Until the Robert Blake and Phil Spector cases anyway.

Crap! You're right. Again.

 

Very wise, Dean, very wise.