exmachina64
Banned
I hate this country.
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Missouri just executed a Mentally Disabled man who was missing a part of his brain
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DontBeThatGuy
Member
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row
Look at those numbers. I mean, it may not look huge in the grand scheme of things(albeit how many innocent have lost their lives due to some form of Capital Punishment?) but the fact alone that nearly 200 people are on the books in this country of nearly getting murdered after a bullshit conviction should be enough to abolish such a barbaric thing.
Look at those numbers. I mean, it may not look huge in the grand scheme of things(albeit how many innocent have lost their lives due to some form of Capital Punishment?) but the fact alone that nearly 200 people are on the books in this country of nearly getting murdered after a bullshit conviction should be enough to abolish such a barbaric thing.
Leithkorias
Member
I'm very anti-death penalty in general, but man is this case extra sad. I have hopes that all the problems States are having getting ahold of the actual chemicals to do lethal injection might lead to it being too cost ineffective to implement anymore (or even better, declare LI unconstitutional due to how many damn horrifyingly barbaric mistakes are being made), but I doubt it. Even if we got rid of Lethal Injections, I'm sure our lust for revenge will lead us to find yet another way to "humanely" kill convicts.
Pegosaurus
Banned
While I understand the outrage/shame/whatever over this decision, wouldn't he have spent the rest of his life in prison even if he wasn't killed? Is the outrage over this decision stemming from the fact that he should never have been sent to prison in the first place, or rather that his mental deficiency should have prevented him from being placed on death row/killed? What would honestly be so different between spending the rest of his life in prison or facing death?
However, I don't want people to get the wrong idea. I absolutely do not think that mental illness/deficiency should be unaccounted for when deciding cases like this, and in general I believe that we (USA) still have a widespread rotten view of mental illness, which should be rectified.
My thoughts are just for this specific case, regardless of the fact that this seems to be a representation of many more cases just like this.
Just to be clear, I don't condone this decision, I just want to understand the particular disgust over it, which I assume has something to do with the treatment of those who are mentally ill.
I hope no one is offended by this post, even though I know they will be.
However, I don't want people to get the wrong idea. I absolutely do not think that mental illness/deficiency should be unaccounted for when deciding cases like this, and in general I believe that we (USA) still have a widespread rotten view of mental illness, which should be rectified.
My thoughts are just for this specific case, regardless of the fact that this seems to be a representation of many more cases just like this.
Just to be clear, I don't condone this decision, I just want to understand the particular disgust over it, which I assume has something to do with the treatment of those who are mentally ill.
I hope no one is offended by this post, even though I know they will be.
Leithkorias
Member
Agreed.
Missouri complied with the ruling.
The fact that we as a country still kill people as an act of revenge walks a very fine line of morality. Executing someone is very different from life in prison, just on a base level, because life in prison is still life. It might not be a quality of life most would enjoy, but it's not killing someone. We as a country (through SCOTUS rulings and such) have already agreed the government doesn't have the right to execute someone who doesn't understand what they did was wrong, so the fact that some loophole allowed that to happen is extra gross.
I'm sure I did a bad job explaining, but at the end I guess I can just say that killing someone is a very final and serious act. It is inherently different from imprisonment from a moral perspective.
Pegosaurus
Banned
I understand the thinking behind this, and I used to agree that the death penalty is wrong, but I'm not so sure anymore.
From a purely logical standpoint, if someone commits a crime heinous enough, what good is it to give them a life sentence? Why waste space, time, and money making sure this person who has been deemed a threat to society is punished? Wouldn't it make much more sense to remove the problem altogether? I definitely think that it should remain an extreme measure to match an extreme crime, but I also think that maybe there is merit in maintaining the practice.
This is a topic I think about relatively often, and also leads me to wonder if we should really consider morals when punishing someone who has committed a severe crime. While it may put us on the same level as the criminal, it also is the most logical conclusion and most likely the safest as well.
I never have had a pristine moral compass though.
DontBeThatGuy
Member
Innocent people have lost their lives, and others damn near have. It's an incredibly flawed and barbaric as fuck system. Also, the death penalty isn't cheap, not even a little bit.
Leithkorias
Member
This is pure speculation on my part, but I'm betting thats precisely why so many people support the death penalty.
An argument I heard, and I'm paraphrasing: "if there is no heaven or hell. No afterlife. If this is all there is and ever will be. Then by murdering someone, you've. Taken away a persons entire existence. What punishment could possibly fit that crime?"
Only thing is that argument goes both ways.
Putting aside the moral aspects, the Death Penalty also has many of the problems you listed with life imprisonment. It's incredibly expensive not just for the execution itself, but for the legal cost of actually getting to the point of executing someone. There are many, many appeals and other legal things to go through that takes the state's time and money. Also add in the fact that those things take an incredibly long time to do and you don't even have the kind of gross "reduced prison population" benefit.
Then you add in the fact that the Death Penalty isn't really proven to work at all as a deterrent and seems to have incredible racial and economic biases and also the risk of killing an innocent person. It's an incredibly flawed idea.
Pegosaurus
Banned
Absolutely, if the system is to be maintained it would need to undergo tremendous overhaul to make sure innocents don't get killed. I agree that that is absolutely unacceptable.
Also I'm not terribly familiar with the financial aspect, all I know is we spend a lot of money on prisons.
I don't know the whole process, so perhaps I was getting a bit ahead of myself, but just the general idea of the death penalty is what I was talking about. It may not be possible to make it perfect, so it may just be easier to get rid of it.
Also it wouldn't be about deterring other criminals, it would just be about removing threats perceived as dangerous enough to be removed.
I just want to make it clear again that I don't support the current system, just so noone can call me out on that :x
This has more to do with harsh drug sentences and huge prison populations that go with them than it does with any sort of executable crime. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm sure the number of people in jail for drugs and other non-violent offenses far outnumber those for murder.
DontBeThatGuy
Member
It's often been said that keeping a prisoner alive is much cheaper than actually killing them, but you know, blood lust and all that. Also, along with factors like innocents being sent to death row and the incredible cost associated with such a thing, you also have something like a botched execution that can go horribly wrong. It's all very fucked up, and no good can actually come from it.
Pegosaurus
Banned
I'm sure this is true.
I'm also sure this is true with the system in place.
I think I might read up about this more, it's actually pretty interesting to think about, and it seems my knowledge isn't up to snuff on the subject.
HalfBakedProphet
Member
Edit: yami4ct had all my points covered above, I was a little too slow 
I dont think the government should be in the business of killing its citizens and it shouldn't be doling out state sanctioned revenge. Sometimes innocent people are wrongly accused. Capital punishment isn't a deterrent anyway (see crime rates in the Texas counties with the highest execution rate) and its expensive (thanks in part to the appeals process. Prisoners have rights too). It also is not used evenly across all demographics (aka its racist as fuck). A black man accused of killing a white woman is much, much more likely to be executed than the inverse. It doesn't prevent crime, it isn't saving money, it isnt used consistently across all demographics and sometimes innocent people are wrongly accused...all for bloodlust and revenge
its more expensive for the state to kill someone than housing them until they die. 2.5-5x more expensive on average, actually
I dont think the government should be in the business of killing its citizens and it shouldn't be doling out state sanctioned revenge. Sometimes innocent people are wrongly accused. Capital punishment isn't a deterrent anyway (see crime rates in the Texas counties with the highest execution rate) and its expensive (thanks in part to the appeals process. Prisoners have rights too). It also is not used evenly across all demographics (aka its racist as fuck). A black man accused of killing a white woman is much, much more likely to be executed than the inverse. It doesn't prevent crime, it isn't saving money, it isnt used consistently across all demographics and sometimes innocent people are wrongly accused...all for bloodlust and revenge
Even with his diminished brain capacity, did he deserve the death penalty? Reading up on the particulars of the case, his actions (he, for example, tried to force someone to give him an alibi) would suggest that he was hardly mentally impaired to a degree that would warrant a lesser sentence.
Is it ever moral to kill someone, where there is no question of guilt? For a moment, put yourself in the shoes of the victims, such as the parents of a child who was brutally raped and then murdered. If the evidence was incontrovertible (in the example, semen was tested by two independent labs and perfectly matched the accused), the surviving victims would be completely justified in wanting the murderer humanely executed as why should the murderer get to live out the rest of their life, even if behind bars, when they have taken the life of an innocent?
Is it ever moral to kill someone, where there is no question of guilt? For a moment, put yourself in the shoes of the victims, such as the parents of a child who was brutally raped and then murdered. If the evidence was incontrovertible (in the example, semen was tested by two independent labs and perfectly matched the accused), the surviving victims would be completely justified in wanting the murderer humanely executed as why should the murderer get to live out the rest of their life, even if behind bars, when they have taken the life of an innocent?
SocksAndShoes
Banned
Can't wait to see people still try and defend capital punishment.
It's an unfathomable failure of our society that this shit is allowed to continue.
It's an unfathomable failure of our society that this shit is allowed to continue.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Daniel B·;156429961 said:
The fact that victims would quite like perpetrators to be executed isn't a sufficient justification for them to be executed. I'm sure that quite a few victims of fairly trivial crimes want absolutely ridiculous punishments for the perpetrators that we would be quite right in just ignoring completely, so I'm not sure why we'd consider it important. The entire reason we have a justice system with set penalties and a legal proceedings is to ensure that the verdict *isn't* simply the product of whatever the victim wants, and instead reflects what would be best for society as a whole. The death penalty doesn't really seem to do anything particularly good for society, so there doesn't seem to be much in favour of it being part of our justice system.
Seeing as he was a murderer. Yes, I considered him a threat to society.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Daniel B·;156429961 said:
Is your question whether it is moral for the state to kill someone, or whether it is moral for someone to feel the urge to kill someone who wronged them profoundly? Because the question you seem to be asking is the latter, and I'm not sure it really matters all that much for the former. I recognize that many people, when hurt, lash out and want revenge. I don't think they have enough active control over that impulse to characterize it as moral or immoral; it simply is something they feel on an affective level. I'm not going to write a lengthy thing crapping on victims for feeling what they feel. So I'm not really sure what your argument actually is, in this case? Is there a rash of people insulting or maligning victims for their feelings?
Daniel B·;156429961 said:
I would certainly want to snuff out the murderer of my child. Not by public execution, but by my own hands. In my opinion, taking away the life of another, with intent, implicitly forfeits your right to live your life. Especially given I don't believe in the afterlife. But I wouldn't, because the laws of the land state I cannot do that and jail time or my own execution would deter me from that. My thoughts on capital punishment are that it should not exist, because incontrovertible evidence rarely exists and taking the life of a single innocent man is much worse than redeeming the forfeiture of the murderer's life.
Being unreasonably tough on crime transcends political parties. Bill Clinton oversaw the execution of a mentally ill man to help him win the presidential election.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Ray_Rector
Oh, without a doubt. Dude was ice cold.
Empyrean Heaven
Member
When Republicans argued that taxpayers having to pay for said violent criminal/child molester's food/clothing/living conditions wasn't fair.
The punishment should fit the crime.
But, on the "death penalty has no deterrent", I would disagree. Say I'm committing a crime and by leaving a witness alive I run the risk of being quickly apprehended, but, on the other hand, killing the witness would also guarantee a death sentence, I would certainly think twice (hopefully, the moral aspect of taking a life would also dissuade some).
Corronchilejano
Member
Daniel B·;156435307 said:
Statistically, the Death penalty does not deter from any sort of violent crime.
Going a bit off topic :
I have always been conflicted about the death penalty on whether it is justified or not .
I am not for or against it but i try to look at it from a neutral position
Like where i live , the maximum sentence is life imprisonment ( 30 years ) which is still a very severe sentence and life ruining but to me it says : no matter how serious your crime , this is the max punishment we can give you .
Like somebody could go on a murder spree tomorrow and the authorities manage to catch him alive , it wouldn't matter whether he murdered 1 person or 10 or hell even a 100 . it would still end up giving him Life imprisonment with the only additive that he can never apply for parole .
In such cases i wonder whether there is a certain threshold on where simply giving someone life imprisonment simply feels " not enough" .
I have always been conflicted about the death penalty on whether it is justified or not .
I am not for or against it but i try to look at it from a neutral position
Like where i live , the maximum sentence is life imprisonment ( 30 years ) which is still a very severe sentence and life ruining but to me it says : no matter how serious your crime , this is the max punishment we can give you .
Like somebody could go on a murder spree tomorrow and the authorities manage to catch him alive , it wouldn't matter whether he murdered 1 person or 10 or hell even a 100 . it would still end up giving him Life imprisonment with the only additive that he can never apply for parole .
In such cases i wonder whether there is a certain threshold on where simply giving someone life imprisonment simply feels " not enough" .
King Tubby
Member
The only good argument I've heard for the death penalty is that it gives the prosecutors more leverage in capital crimes because they can use it to get confessions/information on unsolved cases while still putting the perpetrator in prison for life. It's not that great of an argument relative to all the negatives.
I urge anybody invested in this issue, or interested in the American justice system/true crime stories at all, to watch The Thin Blue Line. It's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.
And so the percentage who support the death penalty ticks upwards.
I urge anybody invested in this issue, or interested in the American justice system/true crime stories at all, to watch The Thin Blue Line. It's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.
And so the percentage who support the death penalty ticks upwards.
gutter_trash
Banned
most Dems are Right of Center, so it does not surprise me
ProfessorMoran
Member
It's not like he's innocent, he's guilty and he's a cop killer. The punishment fits the crime, even his brother thought executing Clayton would remove an evil person from the earth. Not sure why someone who murders another human being in cold blood (outside of a death penalty execution because someone has to pull the lever or do the lethal injection) should get to live out his life while the victim gets to rot six feet under ground.http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missouri-executes-cecil-clayton-missing-part-brain-n325081
No one can say he didn't deserve punishment for his crime but what does killing him accomplish? Who was he a danger to in prison? Are they serious that late in life mental disability don't legally make you mentally incompetent? Since children understand what being killed by the state entails and its justification does that mean according to Missouri's argument we should execute them?
When are we going to end this horrible outdated practice? Its a continued stain on our country.
Statement from his lawyer
My argument is that in a perfect system, where there is zero chance of executing someone for a crime they didn't commit, it is moral for the state to take the life of the condemned, on behalf of the victims. To all those who strongly disagree, are you really saying that The Hague shouldn't have ordered the execution of those that took part in The Holocaust? I personally see no difference with those who committed mass murder and the murdering rapist.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
I'm sure at some point the Feds would step in and fry his ass.
Cause you don't execute people who are incapable of understanding their actions, that's a very important point with the death penalty.
Fenderputty
Banned
Why do conservatives hate giving the state power unless it means giving cops more guns and giving power to the state to kill it's own citizens? Really speaks about the physce of the conservative mind.
Bluekaveli
Member
Fucking dumbass place.
gimmmick
Member
Don't let the door hit you on the way out
DonEscobar
Member
The legal system is quite something right? Although it's all an abstract concept to nature...
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Daniel B·;156435307 said:
Why? That's just an assertion. You've not given any reason for it. I can counter-asset that "an eye for an eye would leave the whole world blind". Great, we've both proved we can recite vague platitudes, but the argument hasn't progressed.
Doesn't work like that. It is relatively rare for people to sit down and think through the rational consequences of their crimes like that. Most crimes, particularly death row ones like murder, are the products of say, heated in-the-moment disputes that spill out of hand, or people who've more or less discounted their futures anyway, or people who don't have the mental capacity to weigh these things up. Changing the sentence from 21 years to execution doesn't have any impact on anyone who falls into those categories - if you're mentally disabled, you don't have the capacity to make that kind of rationalization. Empirically, this is a fairly-well proven point; basically every meta-study I know agrees that the death penalty has no significant effect on crime rates.
FelixOrion
Poet Centuriate
yup. What gets me is its usually conservatives and Republicans who are most in favor of capital punishment.
You know, cause Jesus totally would have injected a mentally ill man full of chemicals until his heart stopped for the sake of revenge.
Actually, it's kinda ironic because, you know, Jesus himself was capitally punished?
"Hey guys, I suffered a horrible, painful, humiliating death so your sins would be forgiven and we will someday have to never weather atrocious acts like this against our brothers again!"
"Thanks, Jesus, we love you! But if you'd excuse us, we have to go give a convict a horrible, painful, humiliating death."
As per my earlier post, If you read up on the case, it appears his brain injury had not reduced his mental faculties to that point.
ProfessorMoran
Member
The result is the same, you have dead victim whose life has been taken away, one person is dead and the other gets to live out his natural life? Doesn't seem fair to me. You kill an innocent human being (not in self defense, not in the process of stopping a crime), you get taken off the planet.
SocksAndShoes
Banned
Living out your natural life in a federal prison =/= living out a natural life.
Seems fair to me.
ProfessorMoran
Member
You get to live and breathe, you get to taste the food you eat, see your family once in a blue moon if they aren't too disgusted to see you, maybe read a book, get some exercise once a day, which is more than the dead gets to do which is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, not really fair at all, death sentence all the way. It's good they executed Clayton, one more killer off the planet.
King Tubby
Member
What do you think should happen when an innocent person gets executed? Who should get executed there? The prosecutor?
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