With all the recent controversy over the 1000th execution since the death penalty was reinstated and the pleas to commute Stanley “Tookie” Williams’ sentence in California, it’s time for you, our faithful readers, to weigh in. What do you think? Should there be a Fry Tookie party in the prison, or should he be spared? Are you opposed to it generally but feel Saddam should be executed? Should someone who sat in a car and didn’t know his buddy murdered someone in the liquor store he just robbed be executed while the killer goes free (this has really happened)? Let us know.
[BTW, the photo was picked for Paul just so he can get another chance to scream about Bush bashing.]
I’m personally against the death penalty. We’re humans and we make mistakes and errors in judgment, thus a true life in prison is a better solution. I personally think that a true life in prison is MORE punishment than a quick death.
However, I’m not perfect, believe it or not, so I see nothing inherently wrong with death as punishment if the crime is heinous and if that’s what the citizens of the state decide is correct.
As to Tookie, it simply doesn’t matter what we feel. We didn’t hear the evidence at trial and it’d be pointless to second guess that decision. If the governor or a judge wants to give the facts yet another going over, that’s up to him or her.
I agree with Fish. Statistically, economically, the death penalty is more expensive than life without parole. Still, death for some crimes is justifiable in my mind. You needn’t be religious to agree with retribution.
The death penalty is barbaric. It is no a states job to kill it’s citizens.
It is also my experience that the people who are most in favor of the death penalty are also those who are so Pro-Life. Why Pro-Life works at the beginning of life but counts for nothing at the end is strange to me.
– John
I figure it’s not much of a punishment if you’re beyond its effects. It’s certainly not valid as a deterrent either.
Arguably it says more about a nation’s or state’s preparedness to help people improve their act, where or whether they draw the line.
Holy Mackerel! That we’re even discussing such matters. The cops shoulda capped his ass RIGHT THERE and saved us all the trouble. Shot him so full of holes his corpse would not float. And all other CRIPS. Or, do you like armed malevolent drug pushing street gangs a law unto themselves who beat their women, treat children like props in a Marquis de Sade horror show and have resolved to Hate All Things Which Are Good And Clean??? Good Lord, how far we’re fallen from a Great Nation into a cesspool of moral knuckleheadedness.
Comparing the death penalty to abortion is like comparing apples to dinosaurs. The death penalty is given in extreme cases, like Tookie’s case – premeditated murder with a gun. Tookie knew what he was doing and the consequences of his actions. Tooke made a choice.
Abortion is done because mom and/or dad don’t want to take responsibility for their actions. They could avoided the whole situation by using birth control or better yet taking a cold shower. The result of their action is a child. This child is a human being – a living human with a personality, DNA, etc all it’s own who has no “CHOICE” in the matter.
Choice is great word of the left in this country – however – it only applies to aborting children – the left has no CHOICE for things like where I want to invest my social security money or where I want to send my child to school.
Tookie had a choice – he made a bad one and therefore he gets to pay for it. Unborn children have no choice – their biological parents shouldn’t have a choice either.
I also feel that there should be no death penality because errors are made, and there is no way to try to make amends when new evidence comes up. If mistakes were truly rare, and the penality CONSISTANTLY applied, I might change my mind, but I don’t think we would ever achieve these conditions.
Note that I’m not talking about guilt vs. innocence, I’m talking about life imprisonment v. death penalty. I would be that if you factored everything in, the more money spent on the defense (attorneys, fees, etc), the less chance you have of the death penality being applied. Yes, we can never equalize everything, but the government should not kill someone based upon the ability to pay for a good defense. Put ’em in jail, yeah, kill them, no.
“How many times am I going to have to beat you till you see that hitting is wrong boy?!!!”
-Average “Pro-Execution” Jackass Who Doesn’t Get It
Xcuse Me!
‘X-Treme’ Motivational Speaker Faces Child Porn Charges
“Former President Bill Clinton once praised Fortino, and President George W. Bush has called him a role model for future generations.”
“Police said Fortino took his computer to a Best Buy store, in Fayetteville, Ark., to be repaired. Store technicians found several pictures of children engaged in sexual acts on the computer hard drive, officials said.”
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/5468900/detail.html
I don’t know the whole story here, but it goes to show that politics makes strange bedfellows. It sort of changes the way you think about role models. Maybe the guy was a big political contributor or something. Money talks and it also makes people say and do dumb stuff. Taking a machine with child porn to a Best Buy for service is really dumb. I almost can’t believe it. This story should have all sorts of vapor trails.
I don’t understand why the pro-execution people and the pro-abortion people don’t join forces.
Get them while they’re still in the womb!
There’s much less of a chance of them escaping that way — babies can’t even talk so there won’t be any denials or long court procedings. We’ll save so much time and ultimately tax dollars which as we all know is the most important thing in the world!
Tooky should fry. Why?
He still keeps his street nickname.
He hasn’t denounced his gang.
He readily admits he did kill those people.
So how should the victims of this crime be repaid?
Let a murderer out on the streets that hasn’t even repented? Even if he does repent. Why not set up the meeting with God and let him sort it out in this case.
Don’t be so quick to release people when their victims have to live with this each day.
I’m against the frequent use of the death penalty: It’s lost its shock value.
I say only use it in cases where the convicted in unrepentent, or has a history of being unrepentent, and is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. In the case of Tooky, he falls under the later, and as such should die.
“On Thursday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will hold a private hearing to consider Williams’ appeal for clemency.” writes DeWayne Wickham for USA Today. All the debate has been very public, so the idea that a public official would take the issue private seems strange. Secretive government is dangerous. This is how bad intelligence becomes bad public policy. Is there something sinister about a public hearing? What is at stake is the government taking a life and it will be discussed in private. Maybe they can pass out cigars and get the room real smokey while they are at it.
I am moderately against the death penalty. I think it could apply in certain cases, but which would be those cases? When I see stuff like prosecutors trying to squelch DNA evidence in old cases because it would prove the Condemned didn’t actually commit the crime, I’ve got to wonder WTF? If they didn’t do it, why should they fry? Too much monkey business afoot in the criminal justice system. Until we can get it straightened out (assuming that could actually happen), better to err on the side of caution.
I’m definitely for the death penalty. However, I feel that it should only be allowed to be considered in certain cases:
– Mass murder
– Child rape / murder
– Saddistic cases, such as Paul Bernardo
– Drug kingpins
Even then, it would have to be a really overwhelmingly solid case. Paul Bernardo, for example (Canadian rapist/murderer/psychopath. Look him up if you feel like you ate a bit too much for lunch and need to let some go) was convicted with hours and hours of video evidence, not to mention the testimony of his plea-bargaining accomplice.
Tookie should not die. Yes, he meets my criteria. But his is also an unusual case. He’s not going anywhere, and he is helping others. Let him do that. Killing him shows gang members that they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by quitting.
– ME –
How is life in prison a tougher sentence than the death penalty? John Kerry used this same line, and then he turned around and said he’d give the death penalty to terrorists, so I guess he wants to go easy on Al Qaeda. The death penalty is a deterrent. A person who is executed will not commit another crime. You can’t say the same about people given life in prison.
The Tookie thing is a case for swift justice. Allow for one or two swift appeals, should the verdict stand then carry out the damned sentence. After a few years on death row these people attrack the lunatic fringe, the sympathies of folks with nothing else to do but wring their hands and gnash their teeth and cry for the souls of convicted gang bangers, kid killers and the like.
Saddam? Pop a cap in his ass and stick his head on a pike and display it somewhere real public in Baghdad.
Either that, or turn’em all loose, drop your drawers, bend down and spread your cheeks, and receive that which you so richly deserve.
I’m against the death penalty in general, because our criminal justice and court systems are so flawed.
In Tookie’s case, who gives a rats caboose what kind of kids books he wrote? If Dr. Suess had founded the Mafia would the Cat in the Hat get him off the hook? Stanley Williams has not (as far as I know) epxressed remorse for his crimes, and frankly I don’t care if they snuff him.
As far as it goes though, if we are going to have a death penalty, executions should be public (and televised live), and as gruesome as possible. The French got that (and fast trains) right. If we as a society are going to do this (kill) we should be up front about it and face the music.
best regards,
DAveW aka SouthernPacificSantaFeFan
Shorter, Paul — shorter. Dave is only picking on you a little bit.
As the sticker on my file cabinet says, “Execution stops a beating heart.” It’s cruel and unusual punishment and completely against human rights. No wonder we’re one of very few western/modern nations that still use this barbaric form of punishment.
“Do unto others as you’d have done unto you.” “Eye for an eye will leave the world blind.”
Punishment, not revenge.
There are predators amongst us.
e.g. Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Wayne Williams, BTK, Green River killer, Son of Sam, Manson “family”, etc.
For me, life in prison – without possibility of parole – is cruel and unusual punishment. The only thing worse is like what we do to Manson i.e. let him have parole hearings even though everyone – even Manson – knows we will never release him. But he can’t afford not to play the game, every few years, because maybe this time…
If that isn’t cruel, I don’t know what is.
If a person’s crime is so horrifying that we would never feel safe with them free to move amongst us again, we should end their lives rather than sweeping them under a prison rug – while congratulaing ourselves on how humane we are.
If they are considered “citizens”, then the term loses all meaning for me.
I am not interesting in killing them for the “shock value”. I do not see executions serving any deterrent value. I do not want to use their death as a punishment, or for retribution. I just want them removed from our world – permanently.
When the geriatric wards in our prison hospitals expand to accomodate our aging population of “lifers”, and our incarcerated “seniors” get better govenment-funded care than our law-abiding ones do, then maybe more people will realize it is just another issue we haven’t resolved – we’ve just differed it for later generations to deal with [kind of like the federal deficit, and global warming].
I was watching a TV show one day on this subject. A member of the debate panel said… “No body knows for sure what happens when we die, maybe we are once again doing criminals a favor”.
I say force state defense lawyers on all cases, a limited amount of money spent on each case (a large amount) so that money is not a factor in the application of the law, make attempting to pervert this process by paying more money a death penalty offence along with accepting money to effect a case, make fraud / theft of more than $10million a death penalty offence along with using political power to gain money.
Then see how long the death penalty lasts.
I’m no Bush proponent, but depicting violence against the President in the picture is both stupid and illegal. However, Howard Dean would be OK.
DNA evidence can’t really exonerate a defendant, though it can convict him. All it meaqns if he is ‘exonerated’ is that they found someone else’s DNA at the scene of the crime. That doesn’t mean this guy wasn’t there.
The only reason the death penalty doesn’t work to deter people is because it’s not metered out quickly enough.
Commit a murder and you should get one appeal. You lose the appeal they take you outside and put a bullet through your brain. When you put someone to death within a month of their guilty verdict, people will start to get it.
The whole thing about the pro-lifers supporting the death penalty as being hypocritical is BS. The MINOR difference is that when you carry out the death penalty it is against someone who has COMMITED MURDER. Last time I checked there has never been a murderous fetus.
It’s interesting how law enforcment is allowed to kill someone who is about to commit murder or threatening to commit it (think sniper in a hostage situation), but once he actually does the murder you can’t touch him.
I’m sick and tired of the victims and their families being forgotten in all of these murders. Some of you people on here are referring to murder as a “mistake” or “error of judgement”. Are you friggin’ kidding me? “Error of judgement”!?
Kill the murderers and remember the victims. I promise you, EVERY SINGLE murder victim in history wouldn’t have hesitated for a second to kill their attackers if they had a chance.
How’s that ramble?
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Think of it as evolution in action.
(Stolen from Larry Niven – Oath of Fealty)
Keep the death “penalty”. And make it a spectacle, again. Think about how much, comparatively, less crime of any sort there was when it WAS available for public viewing.
Yes, I’m PRO gun. (How fast will crime drop when the assholes don’t know who’s armed.)
Contrary to jbirkhead, Yes, I’m PRO choice. (It AINT life untill birth. Untill then, it’s just a parasite)
and Yes, I’m PRO abortion. (Who says there’s a “soul”? Show it to me! WHERE’S YOUR DATA ?!?!)
And DON’T tell me your particular brand of SUPERSTITION is gonna “Send me to hell”
Untill you can provide HARD data, it’s JUST an opinion.
Let’s get some “Eye for an Eye” justice back into this country again, and get back some of the pride we used to have.
A rapist SHOULD be raped… a murderer SHOULD be killed…
PREFERABLY on the spot.
Remember, treat OTHERS as you want to be treated
I don’t see how Tookie’s ‘redemption’ has any bearing. However, even that claim of redemption is weak. He hasn’t really renounced anything, and is still using his gang name of Tookie. His books sold less just a few hundred copies, and his biggest supporters are all about glorifying violence. The Nobel Peace Prize nomination is meaningless, as it’s very easy to be nominated(a legislator or a professor anywhere can nominate), and this one happened specifically to help get him off death row. Even if he has redeemed himself, that’s reason for praise, but doesn’t change what punishment should happen, and he should be more agreeable to the punishment not less.
Killing Mr Williams sends out a message that revenge and justice are the same. If Tooke did the crime he should do the time. Taking his life sends out the wrong message and puts us in the same catigory of the middle east, China and other uncivilized countrys. Japan, Mexico, Canada, all of Europe, most of south america along with about 40% of Africa have discontinued the death sentance.
DNA has saved over a 150 lives that the DA’s office sentanced to death. Amagine how many innocent men were killed for a crime that they didn’t commil