Yes, I'd like some cheese with this whine.

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There are several people in prison who shouldn't be. Everybody that shoots at police during the comission of a crime should die on the spot. No hostage negotiations or touchy feely give up and we won't hurt you.
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Ah, like a gunnie reaching for his gun (resisting arrest) because the cops broke in the wrong door? (Mrs Weaver and Horiuchi; Ken Ballew and Lou Ciamillo) I'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

There always needs to be room for negotiation, or things get ugly. Not saying 'hostage negotiation' is always required, or that it should be. Removing it from the equation however will only end up with more bodies. "If you give up, we won't kill you and we'll see you get a fair trial" tends to end better than "We don't care, yer dead."

Sorry, guess I'm being a bleed-heart liberal or something, but I believe killing should be a last resort type of thing. Especially when it's the government doing the shooting at civilians.


Extreme cases deserve death. I mean, absolute DNA and physical PROOF of guilt of first-degree murder. Even then, death should be reserved only for cases of extreme brutality/no remorse on killer's behalf, etc. No circumstantial evidence death sentences whatsoever.
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Heh. Personally, I think the Enron CEO deserved the death penalty. Intentionally messing around with the power grid for profit, tax fraud, intentionally destroying the pension plan of thousands of employees. Lining him up against the wall after a fair trial would have definitely sent a message.

I support the death penalty, but I really don't trust the court system with it. I trust folks with CCW to end the problem on the spot. I don't really trust the court system with handing down death sentences, as it's bungled many capital cases.


Sounds like you need to grow up mentally (possibly physically too).
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Personally, I think it's a good thing our resident martial marsupial is questioning what he is told instead of just accepting it without thought. In my opinion, it does show a good bit of mental maturity.


I also happen to believe in second chances. (I'm not so much a fan of third, fourth, etc chances.) Locking a guy away for 55 years because he was carrying a gun and a small quantity of weed seems ... excessive for a first time non-violent offender.
 
Combat-Wombat,

I share some of your reservations. A lot of people, and unfortunately at lot of LEOs, have this type of attitude. I am not religious so I do not know how they reconcile it with themselves.

My personal opinion is that our justice system needs to give a punishmen that fits the crime. All too often we hear about someone who has broken a minor law who ends up going to prison for decades because our legal system is messed up. 55 years for a first-time pot seller is ridiculous, but that is what is happening.


Another thing that bothers me is the automaton mindset a lot of people have about the law. If a incredibly ridiculous, unConstitutional and just plain ethically wrong law gets passed, these LEOs would happily go around arresting these lawbreakers saying things like "don't do the crime if you can't do the time" or "stop complaining and write a letter to the King if you don't like the law, but for now the law is the law". This attitude is what allows tyrannies to grow.

The law isn't holy. Stalin had laws - and plenty of people willing to enforce them.
 
And, finally, I know many THR members are Christian, so I'll try and appeal to that. I'm no bible scholar, but I was raised on many Christian principles. Jesus taught forgiveness, right? What about "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"? From what I see, Jesus is about love and forgiveness. It's ironic that the same religious right whose platform is based on Christianity is the same group who wants strict punisments for criminals.
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I really do not give a plugged nickel of value to what Jesus may or may not have said. Jesus also whipped the hell out of the money lenders in the temple, did he not? So what! This site is not one geared toward religious beliefs even if some of the users are religious. I believe it may be rather offensive to some that you try to appeal to Christian morality when many of the other site users may be non Christian or non religious. Yet if you want to use his words, then I will play the game a little. I will gladly cast the first stone so to speak. I figure it goes along the lines of let him who has not been convicted of a felony be first to throw the switch.

Sure all the evidence should point at guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for a conviction, and maybe even beyond a doubt for an execution (such as DNA evidence, or a video of the killer rapping, torturing and killing his child victim). Once we have that I say fry em or hang em high. If for no other reason, they should be executed so they will never commit the crime again. This would be especially applicable as I see it for violent peodophiles, serial killers, violent rapists, murderers and so on.

Best regards,
GB
 
I don't think of the death penalty as being vengeful...

I believe it's good sound 'pest control'. By that I mean that if a particular individual is executed, he or she won't trouble society any longer. How many times have repeat offenders been rehabilitated and released back into society only to commit worse crimes?
Our legal system is not perfect, but I do believe it's the best in the world. The ideal is that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and that everyone is entitled to a decent defense before the law.
Having said that I may just spoil my point by proudly proclaiming myself from Texas, where O.J., had he comitted his crime here, would be safely in Hell at this time.
 
  1. Reform existing laws so that the punishment fits the crime. Non-violent drug use is probably the most visible area of inconsistency, but some of the sentencing requirements are simply bizarre.
  2. Abolish capital punishment and life imprisonment. For people that can't be trusted in society, find an island, drop them on it, and make sure they can't get off - then leave them alone to sort out their issues.
  3. "If only one innocent person...." Get a grip. In a country of 300 million people, perfection in the criminal justice system is a statistical impossibility - accept it.
 
Abolish capital punishment and life imprisonment. For people that can't be trusted in society, find an island, drop them on it, and make sure they can't get off - then leave them alone to sort out their issues.
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We tried that.

What tends to happen is they form countries that subsequently whip the mother country's butt at successive Olympics.

ComWom (hehe, reds under the bed with whiskers) - like RevDisk I tend to think that questioning is a good thing.

I don't like capital punishment either, when justice is perfect I'll have a rethink. Of course I'll be long gone by then, and so I expect will humans generally.
 
Always remember the victims. Before getting too caught up in sympathy for criminals, try a little sympathy for the victims first.
 
cbwb

you said "Yes- especially with non-violent criminals. I just saw a piece on CNN where a nonviolent criminal sold marijuana while carrying a gun. First offense-55 years in prison."
so you think a person carrying a gun while committing a crime is a non-violent criminal?
one of the things the ccw folk around here will tell you is you need to decide if you are capable of using it before you start carrying it.
i'd say no matter how you fell about the marijuana laws they are just that the law and carrying a gun while breaking the law increases the penalty in most cases, i have no sympathy for those who help to destroy lives with the illegal drug trade and get busted for it.
i try to stay "close" to the traffic laws also and got to say those who break them to the extreme are on my list of pet peeves also. maybe i'm just jealous that i can't get away with it!?!)
 
As to the 55-year sentence issue, here's the scoop (from http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008785.html#008785):

Tuesday :: November 16, 2004

Minor Drug Dealer Gets 55 Years - Judge Urges Appeal and Clemency

Atrocity of the day in Utah today...a 25 year old minor drug dealer was sentenced to 55 years. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Cassell was clearly troubled by the decision, but not enough to take a stand against it:

The judge then urged Mr. Angelos's lawyer, Jerome H. Mooney, not only to appeal his decision but to ask President Bush for clemency once all appeals were exhausted. He also urged Congress to set aside the law that made the sentence mandatory.

Judge Cassell said that sentencing Mr. Angelos to prison until he is 70 years old was "unjust, cruel and even irrational," but that the law that forced him to do so had not proved to be unconstitutional and thus had to stand. The sentence was all the more ironic, he said, because only two hours earlier he had been legally able to impose a sentence of 22 years on a man convicted of aggravated second-degree murder for beating an elderly woman to death with a log. That crime, he argued, was far more serious.

We wrote about the case in September, after a hearing at which Cassell asked both sides:

"Is there a rational basis," he asked, "for giving Mr. Angelos more time than the hijacker, the murderer, the rapist?"

So what was Mr. Angelos' offense?

The sentence against Mr. Angelos, the founder of the rap music label Extravagant Records, stemmed from his conviction on three counts of possession of a firearm while engaged in drug trafficking. The first count carried a mandatory five-year sentence, with each subsequent count calling for 25 years.

According to trial testimony, Mr. Angelos was carrying a pistol in an ankle holster while selling marijuana. He was not accused of brandishing the weapon or threatening anyone with it.

Leave it to the Justice Department to come up with an answer justifying the 55 year sentence:

....Robert Lund, an assistant United States attorney who prosecuted the case, called Mr. Angelos a "purveyor of poison," and said he had been dealing drugs for more than four years before his arrest. Carrying a gun in the commission of such crimes, he said, meant that Mr. Angelos was prepared "to kill other human beings."
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So the sentence wasn't for a first offence dealing drugs: it was for three offences, all of which involved the carrying of a firearm, and the second and third of which carried mandatory 25-year sentences for the latter offence. I agree, it's out of all proportion to the crime, and it illustrates why mandatory minimum sentences are a bad idea. However, the cure for that is not to blame the court, but to get the law changed. I hope that the appeals process can inject some sense into this sentencing.
 
Its a shame that he had to what so long to get his day in court. If he had gone in a timely manner he would have gotten only 5 years and been out in 4. Instead it took him so long to go to court that he was arrested twice more for the same offense. Then all 3 counts were stacked against him. :cuss:
Without serving his first sentence first before two more arrest he was unable to understand the gravity of selling drugs while having a gun on his person. :cuss:
It is all our faults for letting this happen. :cuss:
When will we learn that not everyone knows right from wrong without special government education (jail/prison). :cuss:
 
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see the differences....

1. Some people need to die for their crimes. Screw the 'cruel and unusual', bring back the rope.

2. The great majority need to spend some time penned up like animals and kept away from the rest of us. Hope is slight that they will ever reform. When they backslide they go back for a longer stay unless...see #1.

3. And there are some people who can be rehabilitated. It's impossible to predict who. They need to prove to us that they can be fuctioning citizens again...I see no reason to bend over backwards making this easy.

4. And yet even I agree that mandatory sentencing is stupid.

As for all those guys let off of because of new DNA info, I wonder how many of them were there for the crime, but just didn't pull the trigger or wore a rubber during the rape?
 
Empty the prisons of the people convicted of victimless crimes.

Then we will have plenty of resources to rehabilitate the ones who want and deserve a second chance upon completion of their sentence.

The incorrigible violent recidivists need to be put to work as test subjects
for new drugs and medical procedures.

Thats not cruel or unusual is it?
 
Too true, Iain!

"We tried that."
What tends to happen is they form countries that subsequently whip the mother country's butt at successive Olympics."
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A few bars of "Advance Australia Fair"

and "God Defend New Zealand" here. :D
 
the death penalty should be reserved for cases where guilt is very clear and convincing.
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"Beyond a reasonable doubt" is the phrase you are looking for. And there is no higher standard in our legal system. The fact that innocent people are still convicted points out the weaknesses of our jury/evidentiary system. If you are interested in this topic do some research on jury reform and witness reliability. Our system operates based upon some assumptions that research over the last few decades has called into question. Some changes are happening (letting juries take notes, submit their own questions to witnesses, etc.). It is very slow progress getting oor justice sytem to catch up to our science and what we now know about memory and decision making.

The death penalty is a problem. The biggest problem is that it is irreversable ("So sorry Mrs. Smith, but your husband really was innocent it seems..."). Not that life without parole is a bag of chips. For the serious folks who merit such sentences it means 23 hours a day in a small concrete cell with few or no amenities and one hour in a slightly bigger box with a chain link cover instead of a ceiling. They are luck if sunlight actually hits their skin. Ever. Now that may make the "get a rope" folks happy but it doesn't do much for us as a society ($$$) and it sure doesn't do much for them.

In the end I have not heard a moral argument in favor of the death penalty that is very convincing to me. But at the same time there are some people who are just evil. Regardless of how or why - they are the way they are. Incarceration just narrows the pool of potential victims to other predators and DOC personnel. While I recognize my own lack of morality in this area, I do believe that some folks just deserve to die.

Some recent research has confirmed that even violent felons released after the age of 60 have a negligible recidivism rate. Common sense, no? Hard to knock off a grocery store and keep the Depends undergarments from falling off... Child predators were a notable exception to this finding. If we want sentencing reform we could mandate parole review at age 60 regardless of sentence length.

A larger systemic problem that only receives attention when the system fails tragically is post-release services. A lot of folks who are incarcerated have mental illness and/or drug addictions. If someone serves out their sentence (no good time or reductions) then there is no parole and no PO monitoring them. In my opinion an investment here could decrease the recidivism rate. We have the same problem, squared, in the mental health arena. Our justice and mental health systems are largely binary - either you are in or you are out. There are few places in between where someone who needs supervision but also deserves a degree of freedom can go to live.

A few thoughts on some very large problems that are not amenable to sound bite solutions.
 
Jesus said “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” There are a lot of Old Testament Christians who know not what they do.

So many gun owners support tough-on-crime policies and virtually worship the police and military. I fear they are helping to build the very apparatus that will eventually be used against all of us.

I try to forgive them, for they know not what they do.

~G. Fink
 
Not long ago a case came down out of the Southwest where a death penalty was reversed because, among other things, the judge who imposed the sentence was stoned to the gills on pot and got the defendant's case mixed up with someone else's, and the defendant's first lawyer got drunk at a party and ended up in the sack (literally) with the prosecutor!

Most of you would be the first to say that we can't trust the government to do anything right, and I can't disagree. Why should it have the power to decide whether someone should live or die?
 
Wow!

"Not long ago a case came down out of the Southwest where a death penalty was reversed because, among other things, the judge who imposed the sentence was stoned to the gills on pot and got the defendant's case mixed up with someone else's, and the defendant's first lawyer got drunk at a party and ended up in the sack (literally) with the prosecutor!"

Now that's my idea of a justice system. Can we amend the Constitution to make this a permanent feature??

rr
 
I'm a young guy, married, and about to have a baby. Lately, I've been checking the Megan's Law website to make sure no child sex offenders live nearby. So far, so good. But it brings up an interesting question.

If a criminal - specifically a sex offender - serves his time, he is assumed to have "paid his debt to society". If that's the case, why do we need a website to track where these creeps are?


Apparently, the biggest flaw in our justice system is that our criminals aren't paying their true debt to society. Be that death, longer prison term, or incineration. :fire:
 
for starters, combat it sounds like you are simply going through what many go through: "if you arent a liberal in your youth you are heatless. if you arent a conservative in your adulthood you are brainless."

secondly, remember that is OUR tax dollars that keep criminals locked up. we arent paying for their rehabilitation, just their isolation from the rest of society.

i'd much rather have my tax dollars go to a case of 45acp to dispatch 500 vile murderers and rapists, than to keep a roof over their head, clothes on their back, and keeping them fed.

there really is no reason for us to treat criminals with humanity. after all, they are the ones who willingly commit inhumane acts on us.

if you keep trying to sympathize with them eventually you might find yourself identifying with them. they are a poison. keeping them alive does not eradicate the threat of their poison.

besides, take a look further back, at the mosaic law that laid the groundwork for what christ had to say. the hebrews executed their violent criminals with no remorse. revenge was even a just cause to kill someone who accidentally killed your relative.
 
My thoughts are mostly in line with Preacherman's initial post here.

In our current legal system, it is cheaper to imprison people for life than it is to try to put them to death. And alot of people die on death row from natural causes because it takes so dang long to actually execute somebody. That, combined with the fact that you can release someone innocent from prison, but you can't raise the dead, makes me oppose the death penalty for strictly practical reasons.

I also think the "war on drugs" is largely a case of misplaced effort. Imagine how big a dent could be made in the murder/rape/armed robbery/child molestation rates if we took HALF the money and manpower used to hassle dope smokers, and went after violent criminals instead? How much better off would we be with twice as many dope smokers, and half as many killers, getting away with it?
 
I do respect Christianity, but agree with you on how religion has caused much pain, suffering, and violence over the ages.
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So have guns. Does that make guns bad or is just that some people are idiots?
 
Yet again, what G. Fink said.

You know what would be really cool? Living in a place where it was considered "uncool" to involve yourselves in each other's lives. I know--it's a pretty whacky idea. but try to bear with me:

If the paralizing fear of one's neighbors committing sins behind their closed doors (you know, like saving too much money which causes others to be poor or smoking marijuana which causes societial decay) didn't cause most of our countrymen to establish, swear allegience to, worship, and dedicate themselves to an institution that deprives honest folks of the means to ACTUALLY PREVENT VICTIMIZATION on the spot, as a crime is actually being committed, maybe this whole argument would be moot.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here, people. Gun people should understand better than anyone else that an overbearing state is not the solution to any problem.

Men with guns demanding money commit the same sin whether wearing badges or not.
 
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