You have the polarized views that have done a good job presenting both sides right here on this board but most don't really care. The executions are infrequent, the crimes occurred ages ago, and there isn't a lot of umpphh in the story anymore. AP doesn't even give the filler blurbs a by-line. Only real radio I recall was silly AM stuff down South on what the guy ate or how many were outside protesting. I know some have written that the public reaction would change fast if the pace of the executions picked up, say, to several hundred per month or more. If that happened, some commentators have said Americans would be aghast. Geo.
Many Americans would be aghast. And many would say it's about darn time. (And maybe, just maybe, a lot more criminals would say "oh shit, they ARE serious." Kind of like what much of the Arab world is thinking about the US right now...)
Public executions didn't prevent crime and murder in the past. You seem to forget that most murders are the act of crimes of passion, or those with severe mental and emotional problems. Just like we used to get high and watch "this is your brain on drugs" commercials when we were young and foolish, laughing our asses off at the eggs being cracked into the frying pan, most murderers don't stop and think clearly about the consequences before they act. However, killing them doesn't solve the problems either. Lock the door, throw away the key, but I am still waiting to hear a reason to kill murderers that demands execution over jail for life without the possibility of parole.
Violent criminals are far more likely to die at the hands of other violent criminals than at the hands of the state. If the dangerous business they have chosen isn't a deterrent, how is ramping up the death penalty going to deter them from criminal enterprises? Optional, this guy is just too dense to reason with. The guy can't think things through. Now he wants the death penalty as a projection of power and retribution. Look how he has compared it to the Iraqi War. There are some people who are terminal cases. Regarding statistics, blacks commit 94% of murders with black victims and 14% of murders with white victims. Whites committed 6% of the murders of black people. Find out what percent of black death row convicts since 1977 were convicted of murder of whites or blacks. And find out how many whites went to death row for killing blacks. The DOJ doesn't have these statistics. For good reason. It would highlight the uneven application of the death penalty based on race. See if anyone can guess what the answers may be..
Wow. What a genius you are, dGAB! Gee, I don't suppose that could be because there are tens of thousands of violent criminals committing tens of thousands of violent crimes a year, often competing with one another, and there have been less than 900 executions in the US since 1977. What an amazing display of analytical prowess, dGAB! Next thing you know, you'll be telling us that (gasp!) people who smoke and are overweight are more likely to have heart attacks than non-smokers and people who eat right. Yep, it takes a keen intellect like yours to be a MODERATOR. Ah, the old "the death penalty doesn't deter crime" argument. Hmmm, okay, try then to explain the following: Between 1965 and 1980, there were 10 executions in the US; 7 alone in '65, one in '66, none for ten years from '67 - '77 until Gary Gilmore who was the only one in '77, and then two in the next three years until 1980. So there was in effect practically no death penalty for that period of time. So, what happened to crime rates? Between 1965 and 1980, annual murders in the United States skyrocketed, rising from 9,960 to 23,040. The murder rate - homicides per 100,000 persons - doubled from 5.1 to 10.2. And how about NYC, your neck of the woods dGAB? There were 12,652 homicides in New York during the 25 years from 1940 to 1965, when New York regularly executed murderers. By contrast, during the 25 years from 1966 to 1991 there were no executions at all - and murders quadrupled to 51,638. Let's be fair and say that murder rates fell in almost every state in the 1990s. But they fell the most in states that use capital punishment, like Texas where it dropped 60%. The Texas county that is most aggressive in pursuing the death penalty is Harris County (Houston area). Since it resumed executions in '82, the annual murder rate has dropped 72%. ''From 1995 to 2000,'' notes Dudley Sharp of the victims rights group Justice For All, ''executions averaged 71 per year, a 21,000 percent increase over the 1966-1980 period. The murder rate dropped from a high of 10.2 (per 100,000) in 1980 to 5.7 in 1999 - a 44 percent reduction. The murder rate is now at its lowest level since 1966.'' Is that all mere coincidence? Maybe.....and Khomeini was Jewish. Regardless, whether capital punishment is a factor in national crime rates (other than the fact that executed murderers will not hurt or kill anyone ever again) is, in my opinion, a secondary consideration in this whole debate anyhow. LOL! I mention that our Iraqi invasion has Arabs nervous and taking us seriously and you somehow manage to twist it into something absurd. And of course I forget that you would rather have our country be in fear of our enemies instead of the other way around..... . Yeah, that's why when Janet Reno heard similar statistics and ordered a comprehensive investigation on this very subject, the results of the report were that there is no evidence of racial or ethnic bias in the way the U.S. government applies the death penalty. The report said that "The offenses that may lead to homicides and capital charges are not evenly distributed across all population groups." Translation? Minorities commit capital offenses in far greater numbers than their representative population percentages, i.e. young blacks who make up 1% of the total population but commit 30% of the murders. Finally, dGAB, I see you keep avoiding this issue: Please state the names and incidents of the "innocent people" who have been placed on death row and executed as you have claimed. What's wrong? Having problems finding a single one? You step in the faeces so much I have to wonder if you have a scat fetish or something... Ya know, if you cease writing laughable garbage like this all the time, grow your hair long to hide the scars, and learn to control the slobbering, no one will ever know you've had a lobotomy.
Not surprising at all considering that: 1) You're conveniently forgetting (again) that life without parole sentences are often not adhered to. You're regurgitating the same old hat. 2) You're the warm individual with the Mengele-ish heart of gold who said:
Two posts in a row again. Sigh. Stats from the University of Illinois: Through 1996: Defendant-Victim ratios of executions: White Defendant with WV 242 (56.81%) BV 5 (l.17%) Asian V 2 ( .47%) Lat. V 5 (1.64%) Black Defendant with WV 100 (23.47%) BV 49 (11.50%) Asian V 2 ( .47%) Lat. V 1 ( .23%) Latino D with WV 9 ( 2.12%) Lat. V 7 ( 1.64%) Asian V 1 ( .23%) Nat. Amer. D with WV 1 ( .23%) Asian D with Asian V 2 ( .47%) Race of Victims: White 350 (82.16%) Black 55 (12.91%) Latino 14 ( 3.29%) Asian 7 ( 1.64%) While the DOJ finds that blacks murder higher numbers of blacks than they do whites, black death row convicts who murdered whites were twice the number as black death row convicts who murdered blacks. While DOJ statistics show that the percent of whites killed by non whites is 14%, the percent of people occupying death row at the time of the Illinois study who were black and whose victim was white is 23.47%. Someone is quick to point out statistics from Mr. Ashcroft's organization that serves a shared political agenda, but is unable to see through those statistics. What else is new?
OK, dGAB, apparently there is a vast nation-wide conspiracy among - um, whom now exactly? - to kill a few dozen more black murderers than whites. Yeah, you can understand how easily that is accomplished considering capital punishment cases go through so many stages and appeal processes and different lawyers and judges along the way, not to mention years. So that means at every juncture a bunch of bad honkeys are systematically, at great expense in time and money, going after blacks and doing all they can to give white murderers a break! ROFL! Let me guess, these are the same bad honkeys who are flooding the ghettos and barrios with cocaine to make money for the CIA, right?!? LOL! If the report doesn't come from a liberal-biased organization, it can't contain a shred of truth now, can it? Ask Phil Donahue for "the truth" why don't you?!? Geez, if what you don't know can't hurt you dGAB, you're practically invulnerable. Just amazing how you continue to avoid the issues! Still waiting for your announcement of the cases involving "innocent" people who were executed. Keep putting your foot in your mouth, ya dolt. You're very good at it.
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." --------Ralph Waldo Emerson-------- Once again, I see that you beg the question with only one possible solution. You appear to favor capital punishment, as you argue that "if" a non-reformed murderer re-enters society, and kills again, that subsequent killing could have been prevented via killing the convicted murderer in the first place. Assuming that is true, then locking the murderer up and not allowing him to re-enter society, not to have contact with other inmates, not to have physical contact with any other human being, would accomplish the same goal of protecting any and all lives from death by his hands. Allowing a government to kill its own citizens is unnecessary in a civilized, technological world.
Again, more old hat. YOUR argument assumes that doing what you describe above - in essence, life without parole - can be adhered to. But as has been demonstrated over and over again, many murderers are not even sentenced to life without parole and get out and kill again. And again, as I've stated in the past, parole boards change, lawyers change, judges change, and sentences change. Sentencing a murderer to life without parole does not by any means guarantee that sentence will be carried out. We've debated this ad nauseam in the past, Optional. Like your protegee dGAB, you're a glutton for punishment. But I would really prefer not to debate this with you further since you've shown in the past that you cannot do so in a calm manner nor without slandering your opponent when you're on the ropes. You've got a serious problem, and I wish I could cure it, but I'm not a proctologist.