[Vision2020] Re: Only the short sighted think Death Penalty Must Be Aboli...

[Ted Moffett]

Tony et. al.

Anyone who has committed a crime deserving of the death penalty can be given
life in prison without parole instead.  So then there is no recidivism,
unless it occurs in prison, the prisoner escapes, or somehow the laws change
to allow the prisoner out.  And please don't carp about the costs of life
imprisonment... if dollars and cents quantified justice we'd let MBAs from
Harvard determine who gets a quality trial and who does not, based on how
much media time could be sold for the trial coverage.  And death penalty
cases are very costly with the appeals process, etc.

With life imprisonment without parole, if a mistake was made there is time
to correct the injustice.  With the death penalty enforced if someone is
later found innocent...

Justice is not cheap.  If you want cheap justice, move to China.   You might
find that your Christian beliefs (aggressive public opposition to forced
abortions) and lifestyle draw the attention of the Chinese Communist Party,
who can have you executed in short order (trumped up charges?), with minimal
rights to a fair trial or access to an appeal, etc.

The death penalty is a prime symptom of a dictatorship...Or is it one of the
prime tools of a dictatorship?  Both?

The death penalty in any nation is a tool that can be used to impose
tyranny, even if it exists within a system that at this moment appears to
respect justice, fairness and the rights of the individual.  This potential
for abuse alone justifies banning the death penalty.  I don't trust the
state to determine who gets to live or die based on a flawed legal system,
nor do I trust that in the future the state may not have the machinery of
the death penalty high jacked for the sake of
military/economic/political/ideological "special interests."

Support for the death penalty is symptomatic of those
who, despite any appearances as critics of government regulation, are
authoritarians at heart, who think the government should have the ultimate
say in the life and death of human beings.  Talk about an egregious
overextension of government power...!!!!  I can't imagine any power more
egregious.  Well, OK, Winston (1984) was crushed as a human being by the
state to make a statement that the state has the power to destroy (as in
destroy the spirit, beliefs and love a human being followed) a human being
who opposes said state, while they are alive, the point being this is worse
than having the state simply execute its opponents, because it is a
destruction of the very freedom seeking individualistic humanity in the soul
of a human being that constitutes the essence of the opposition of the
individual to the power of the state...

You might want to consider the decision by former Illinois Republican
Governor Ryan regarding the death penalty in Illinois, and also the work of
the Innocence Project:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june01/penalty_5-10.html

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Ted Moffett

On 5/3/06, ToeKneeTime at aol.com <ToeKneeTime at aol.com> wrote:
>
>  ACS,
>
> No, no, you misunderstand.  I did not say that executing the innocent was
> justified as a deterrent.  I was simply pointing out that any system
> administered by fallible humans is going to result in some percentage of
> errors.  I don't believe that we should respond to this unavoidable
> consequence by dumping the entire program.  Your inclination to do exactly
> that is understandable but potentially VERY costly.  I believe that the end
> result would be a far GREATER loss of life do to recidivism.
>
> Hope this sheds more light on my position.
>
> Best,  --Tony
>
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