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  1. TopTop #1
    Dark Shadows
     

    Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    Governor Corzine of New Jersey just signed into law a measure abolishing the death penalty, making New Jersey the first state in more than four decades to reject capital punishment.

    How many people here agree that California should follow NJ's example?

    The death penalty has always upset me, even movies like Dead Man Walking have a profound affect on me. Although I find it upsetting I have a morbid curiosity about it, and movies like "I want to Live" have been some of the most memorable for me, along with articles about exactly what happens with a lethal injection, and what can go wrong.

    The prison system as it exists today does nothing to rehabilitate people. I wonder what good it does to lock a person up for years and never do anything to help them with counseling, etc. If a person is locked up to think about their crime, does it do any good? I'm sure there are those who would rather die than spend the rest of their lives in prison. Should we give them a choice? Would you rather die than spend the rest of your life in prison? Is this question too morbid for the holidays?
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  2. TopTop #2
    scorpiomoon
    Guest

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    Abolishing the Death Penalty is a good thing. If one innocent person is executed then the state is guilty also. The uneven distribution of justice makes fairness non-existent. It is mostly the poor and uneducated that suffer the fate of execution. I do believe living with the consequences instead of escaping those consequences through execution is a good idea. True, sociopathic killers may never accept that killing was wrong. However, killing the killers, makes us all guilty. Education and compensating families of the victims is a strong lesson. I heard that after WWII in one town in Belgium? the townspeople where forced to re-bury the dead from the concentration camps. They buried thousands of dead in the town square. Dug graves and wrapped the bodies, witnessed the last rites, participated. This process left no doubt as to what had happened, and gave these accessories to the Nazi crimes a valuable lesson. Lets take these examples and think of the small injustices we see daily.

    If you see someone be-rate or condescend to a child, kick a dog or commit a minor infraction, start there. THIS IS WRONG stop this!! When these little infractions occur that is a perfect time to speak. Learn how to do that.
    I may be veering off the seriousness of the topic, in a way. However anytime any of us see something wrong happening standing up and saying hey!! THIS IS NOT RIGHT!! This in itself is the true beginning. Maybe if someone had seen Charles Manson as a child, stopped his mother from putting lit cigarettes out on his arms, held and placed him into foster care RIGHT THEN & THERE ...... maybe we would make fewer death row inmates.
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  3. TopTop #3
    silverhaze
     

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    there should be no death penalty in my humble opinion. also no forgiveness.

    How many people here agree that California should follow NJ's example?

    The death penalty has always upset me, even movies like Dead Man Walking have a profound affect on me. Although I find it upsetting I have a morbid curiosity about it, and movies like "I want to Live" have been some of the most memorable for me, along with articles about exactly what happens with a lethal injection, and what can go wrong.

    The prison system as it exists today does nothing to rehabilitate people. I wonder what good it does to lock a person up for years and never do anything to help them with counseling, etc. If a person is locked up to think about their crime, does it do any good? I'm sure there are those who would rather die than spend the rest of their lives in prison. Should we give them a choice? Would you rather die than spend the rest of your life in prison? Is this question too morbid for the holidays?[/quote]
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  4. TopTop #4
    Dark Shadows
     

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    I think many people have the mistaken notion that human life is disposable. Even a murderer deserves to be rehabilitated if he/she is willing to make positive changes that lead him/her to becoming a contributing member of society. Because the prison system in California (thank the Governator) is focused on punishment and not rehabilitation, murderers, rapists, etc. are left to rot and never given the chance that I believe everyone deserves. Even behind bars, a person can make a contribution to society, if they are given the tools. We all start out with the same potential, its our environment (parents, teachers, local pedophiles) and socio-economic status that determine what we will do as adults. Just think about it, we can do anything, isn't it amazing?

    We all have the power to forgive, even the most heinous crimes.

    A good place to do some research about this is: www.humankindness.org

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by silverhaze: View Post
    there should be no death penalty in my humble opinion. also no forgiveness.

    How many people here agree that California should follow NJ's example?

    The death penalty has always upset me, even movies like Dead Man Walking have a profound affect on me. Although I find it upsetting I have a morbid curiosity about it, and movies like "I want to Live" have been some of the most memorable for me, along with articles about exactly what happens with a lethal injection, and what can go wrong.

    The prison system as it exists today does nothing to rehabilitate people. I wonder what good it does to lock a person up for years and never do anything to help them with counseling, etc. If a person is locked up to think about their crime, does it do any good? I'm sure there are those who would rather die than spend the rest of their lives in prison. Should we give them a choice? Would you rather die than spend the rest of your life in prison? Is this question too morbid for the holidays?
    [/quote]
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  5. TopTop #5
    ChristineL
     

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Dark Shadows: View Post
    I think many people have the mistaken notion that human life is disposable. Even a murderer deserves to be rehabilitated if he/she is willing to make positive changes that lead him/her to becoming a contributing member of society. Because the prison system in California (thank the Governator) is focused on punishment and not rehabilitation, murderers, rapists, etc. are left to rot and never given the chance that I believe everyone deserves. Even behind bars, a person can make a contribution to society, if they are given the tools. We all start out with the same potential, its our environment (parents, teachers, local pedophiles) and socio-economic status that determine what we will do as adults. Just think about it, we can do anything, isn't it amazing?

    We all have the power to forgive, even the most heinous crimes.

    A good place to do some research about this is: www.humankindness.org
    [/quote]

    I believe the death penalty should be abolished. Too many innocent people have been executed. There's also the issue that justice is not applied equally.

    I do not believe in completely blaming environment, upbringing, economic status, etc. for someone becoming a murderer, rapist or child molester. I have known, and done readings for, too many people who lived childhoods of torture you couldn't imagine who would never hurt another living being.

    I don't believe that Charles Manson or Ted Bundy, for example could ever be reformed. The reading and research I've done indicates that sociopaths are pretty much born, not made. The only thing upbringing, environment and society can control is how and to what degree they will act out their pathology.

    People who murder out of desperation, fear or uncontrollable anger have a possibility of reforming. Those who murder with premeditation, particularly if they torture their victims, may have the ability to manipulate those working at reforming them into believing they've changed. Real change...I don't think so.

    Honestly, when it comes to rape, murder, human trafficking, child molestation; I'm much more concerned about protecting potential victims than I am in rehabilitating the criminals. I'm all for life without parole. In those cases, if they rot away doing nothing, it's fine with me.

    I totally agree, overall, that prisons should deal with rehabilitation more than just punishment. Sending someone back out into the world with almost no money, no education and no training in any profession does not set them up to become contributing members of society. When you can't even fill out a job application, it's likely you'll end up stealing to eat. That's an over-simplification...but hopefully you all get the idea.

    Christine
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  6. TopTop #6
    Braggi's Avatar
    Braggi
     

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    I think warehousing in solitary is a stupid waste of human potential. Prisoners should be allowed access to libraries at a minimum (so many books are thrown out each day there's no problem collecting enough for a huge library at each prison). Writing materials? A cheap computer terminal? Vocational training? Art supplies?

    Once someone is in for life without hope of parole, rehab for the purpose of returning to society is moot, but rehab for the purpose of living a life with a purpose inside the prison is not. Prisoners should have a job that is more satisfying to them than sitting and doing nothing. Meaningful work that reduces the cost to society of their imprisonment should be an option.

    Forced labor to enrich corporations should not be an option.

    -Jeff

    PS. Almost certainly I'd prefer life, but that might change at some point. Should the tools for suicide for those wishing to die be available?
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  7. TopTop #7
    Dynamique
    Guest

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    You're assuming that prisoners in solitary confinement and/or serving life sentences w/o parole can read and write. This is not the case, and all too often illiteracy is a contributing factor to their being convicted and incarcerated.

    Those who are in solitary are there for a reason -- they are a danger to everyone around them, including the prison staff. It's truly a regrettable waste of a human life. This is what happens when we do not have effective social services, quality daycare and schools, and drug detox/rehab to prevent prenatal drug exposure. As the old saying goes, "you can pay now, or you can pay later."

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Braggi: View Post
    I think warehousing in solitary is a stupid waste of human potential. Prisoners should be allowed access to libraries at a minimum (so many books are thrown out each day there's no problem collecting enough for a huge library at each prison). Writing materials? A cheap computer terminal? Vocational training? Art supplies?
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  8. TopTop #8
    Dark Shadows
     

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    And yet there are people who have been released years after they were convicted because of DNA evidence.

    So, should be believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt that all those in solitary are there because they are dangerous to society and prison personnel? If the judicial system can make that kind of mistake, and sentence a person to death or life in prison without parole, should we just assume that everyone is there because they deserve it?

    Mental illness is a major contributing factor in most violent and pre-meditated crimes. If a person was given the treatment they needed it, when they needed, perhaps these crimes would not have occured. Doesn't it make sense that if a person was cheated of his or her right to medical treatment that we should go out of our way to ensure they receive treatment regardless of how their mental illness caused them to act out?

    I will give you an example, my five year old daughter (who is now working on her masters) once told me she was going to cut me up in little pieces, then she proceeded to jump into the deep end of the pool without her water wings. I dove in and rescued her and hugged her relentlessly till she stopped crying. Maybe some of these people on death row never got that hug. They were never comforted. Maybe they suffered from ADD or manic depression and their parents were not alert, or educated enough to catch it. Things got worse, failures in school mounted, they were labeled and they ended up feeling like the world had something against them. They were distraught and there was never anyone there to help or comfort them, so they went out and committed a rape or murder and went way beyond what was necessary to carry out the deed. Now they find themselves in prison, possibly drugged to ensure they won't become violent again. What is our responsibility to that person, knowing that the system never provided what this person needed and deserved as a child or teenager?

    Could that same person receive the mental healthcare they need and be rehabilitated? If so, should they be given a second chance at life, or should they be locked away forever? If the system decides that no, they don't deserve a chance, shouldn't they at least be given the opportunity to be taught to read, get an education and possibly publish a book or even a blog? Unless I'm mistaken, no one in prison is allowed internet access. If they took these people off death row and allowed them to learn in a classroom setting with other prisoners, might there be a better outcome, even if they are doomed to spend the rest of their lives in prison?
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  9. TopTop #9
    Zeno Swijtink's Avatar
    Zeno Swijtink
     

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    There is a big discussion going on about deterrence: can you measure murder rates in a state going down around the time of widely publicized executions?


    ****
    https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/18deter.html

    November 18, 2007
    Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate
    By ADAM LIPTAK

    For the first time in a generation, the question of whether the death penalty deters murders has captured the attention of scholars in law and economics, setting off an intense new debate about one of the central justifications for capital punishment.

    According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.

    The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.

    The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time — while trying to eliminate the effects of crime rates, conviction rates and other factors — and say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise. One influential study looked at 3,054 counties over two decades.

    “I personally am opposed to the death penalty,” said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives. “But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect.”

    The studies have been the subject of sharp criticism, much of it from legal scholars who say that the theories of economists do not apply to the violent world of crime and punishment. Critics of the studies say they are based on faulty premises, insufficient data and flawed methodologies.

    The death penalty “is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors,” John J. Donohue III, a law professor at Yale with a doctorate in economics, and Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in the Stanford Law Review in 2005. “The existing evidence for deterrence,” they concluded, “is surprisingly fragile.”

    Gary Becker, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1992 and has followed the debate, said the current empirical evidence was “certainly not decisive” because “we just don’t get enough variation to be confident we have isolated a deterrent effect.”

    But, Mr. Becker added, “the evidence of a variety of types — not simply the quantitative evidence — has been enough to convince me that capital punishment does deter and is worth using for the worst sorts of offenses.”

    The debate, which first gained significant academic attention two years ago, reprises one from the 1970’s, when early and since largely discredited studies on the deterrent effect of capital punishment were discussed in the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstitute capital punishment in 1976 after a four-year moratorium.

    The early studies were inconclusive, Justice Potter Stewart wrote for three justices in the majority in that decision. But he nonetheless concluded that “the death penalty undoubtedly is a significant deterrent.”

    The Supreme Court now appears to have once again imposed a moratorium on executions as it considers how to assess the constitutionality of lethal injections. The decision in that case, which is expected next year, will be much narrower than the one in 1976, and the new studies will probably not play any direct role in it.

    But the studies have started to reshape the debate over capital punishment and to influence prominent legal scholars.

    “The evidence on whether it has a significant deterrent effect seems sufficiently plausible that the moral issue becomes a difficult one,” said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who has frequently taken liberal positions. “I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it’s probably justified.”

    Professor Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, a law professor at Harvard, wrote in their own Stanford Law Review article that “the recent evidence of a deterrent effect from capital punishment seems impressive, especially in light of its ‘apparent power and unanimity,’ ” quoting a conclusion of a separate overview of the evidence in 2005 by Robert Weisberg, a law professor at Stanford, in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science.

    “Capital punishment may well save lives,” the two professors continued. “Those who object to capital punishment, and who do so in the name of protecting life, must come to terms with the possibility that the failure to inflict capital punishment will fail to protect life.”

    To a large extent, the participants in the debate talk past one another because they work in different disciplines.

    “You have two parallel universes — economists and others,” said Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment.” Responding to the new studies, he said, “is like learning to waltz with a cloud.”

    To economists, it is obvious that if the cost of an activity rises, the amount of the activity will drop.

    “To say anything else is to brand yourself an imbecile,” said Professor Wolfers, an author of the Stanford Law Review article criticizing the death penalty studies.

    To many economists, then, it follows inexorably that there will be fewer murders as the likelihood of execution rises.

    “I am definitely against the death penalty on lots of different grounds,” said Joanna M. Shepherd, a law professor at Emory with a doctorate in economics who wrote or contributed to several studies. “But I do believe that people respond to incentives.”

    But not everyone agrees that potential murderers know enough or can think clearly enough to make rational calculations. And the chances of being caught, convicted, sentenced to death and executed are in any event quite remote. Only about one in 300 homicides results in an execution.

    “I honestly think it’s a distraction,” Professor Wolfers said. “The debate here is over whether we kill 60 guys or not. The food stamps program is much more important.”

    The studies try to explain changes in the murder rate over time, asking whether the use of the death penalty made a difference. They look at the experiences of states or counties, gauging whether executions at a given time seemed to affect the murder rate that year, the year after or at some other later time. And they try to remove the influence of broader social trends like the crime rate generally, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, economic conditions and demographic changes.

    Critics say the larger factors are impossible to disentangle from whatever effects executions may have. They add that the new studies’ conclusions are skewed by data from a few anomalous jurisdictions, notably Texas, and by a failure to distinguish among various kinds of homicide.

    There is also a classic economics question lurking in the background, Professor Wolfers said. “Capital punishment is very expensive,” he said, “so if you choose to spend money on capital punishment you are choosing not to spend it somewhere else, like policing.”

    A single capital litigation can cost more than $1 million. It is at least possible that devoting that money to crime prevention would prevent more murders than whatever number, if any, an execution would deter.

    The recent studies are, some independent observers say, of good quality, given the limitations of the available data.

    “These are sophisticated econometricians who know how to do multiple regression analysis at a pretty high level,” Professor Weisberg of Stanford said.

    The economics studies are, moreover, typically published in peer-reviewed journals, while critiques tend to appear in law reviews edited by students.

    The available data is nevertheless thin, mostly because there are so few executions.

    In 2003, for instance, there were more than 16,000 homicides but only 153 death sentences and 65 executions.

    “It seems unlikely,” Professor Donohue and Professor Wolfers concluded in their Stanford article, “that any study based only on recent U.S. data can find a reliable link between homicide and execution rates.”

    The two professors offered one particularly compelling comparison. Canada has executed no one since 1962. Yet the murder rates in the United States and Canada have moved in close parallel since then, including before, during and after the four-year death penalty moratorium in the United States in the 1970s.

    If criminals do not clearly respond to the slim possibility of an execution, another study suggested, they are affected by the kind of existence they will face in their state prison system.

    A 2003 paper by Lawrence Katz, Steven D. Levitt and Ellen Shustorovich published in The American Law and Economics Review found a “a strong and robust negative relationship” between prison conditions, as measured by the number of deaths in prison from any cause, and the crime rate. The effect is, the authors say, “quite large: 30-100 violent crimes and a similar number or property crimes” were deterred per prison death.

    On the other hand, the authors found, “there simply does not appear to be enough information in the data on capital punishment to reliably estimate a deterrent effect.”

    There is a lesson here, according to some scholars.

    “Deterrence cannot be achieved with a half-hearted execution program,” Professor Shepherd of Emory wrote in the Michigan Law Review in 2005. She found a deterrent effect in only those states that executed at least nine people between 1977 and 1996.

    Professor Wolfers said the answer to the question of whether the death penalty deterred was “not unknowable in the abstract,” given enough data.

    “If I was allowed 1,000 executions and 1,000 exonerations, and I was allowed to do it in a random, focused way,” he said, “I could probably give you an answer.”
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  10. TopTop #10
    paultous
    Guest

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    I'd rather be in a position of supreme class, skin color,
    gender and economic privilege which would effectively preclude
    having to make a choice between life (if you could call 24/7
    in the death row sector of a max security prison "life") or
    death. ... Now, let's see, would I rather be waterboarded
    or hooded and cattle-prodded? Hmmmmm. Yes, there are
    many ways to skin a cat, but I think cats would prefer
    to go unskinned and I know I'd prefer to live in a society that
    did not offer a menu of absurd pseudo-choices.
    ed rimbaugh


    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Dark Shadows: View Post
    Governor Corzine of New Jersey just signed into law a measure abolishing the death penalty, making New Jersey the first state in more than four decades to reject capital punishment.

    How many people here agree that California should follow NJ's example?

    The death penalty has always upset me, even movies like Dead Man Walking have a profound affect on me. Although I find it upsetting I have a morbid curiosity about it, and movies like "I want to Live" have been some of the most memorable for me, along with articles about exactly what happens with a lethal injection, and what can go wrong.

    The prison system as it exists today does nothing to rehabilitate people. I wonder what good it does to lock a person up for years and never do anything to help them with counseling, etc. If a person is locked up to think about their crime, does it do any good? I'm sure there are those who would rather die than spend the rest of their lives in prison. Should we give them a choice? Would you rather die than spend the rest of your life in prison? Is this question too morbid for the holidays?
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  11. TopTop #11
    Dark Shadows
     

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    But unfortunately, we do live in a society that believes that killing people is just punishment for murder. We are a muderous society. As responsible citizens, we have to make a decision about what to do with people who commit these acts. So, what is your preference? I'm not asking you this time what you would prefer for yourself, because hopefully, you will never have to make that choice. What is your choice for your brothers and sisters that have made a mistake? Should we give them that last bit of control? It's sort of a right to death issue, isn't it? It's pretty hard to kill one's self on death row, they make it pretty difficult these days.


    Quote Posted in reply to the post by paultous: View Post
    I'd rather be in a position of supreme class, skin color,
    gender and economic privilege which would effectively preclude
    having to make a choice between life (if you could call 24/7
    in the death row sector of a max security prison "life") or
    death. ... Now, let's see, would I rather be waterboarded
    or hooded and cattle-prodded? Hmmmmm. Yes, there are
    many ways to skin a cat, but I think cats would prefer
    to go unskinned and I know I'd prefer to live in a society that
    did not offer a menu of absurd pseudo-choices.
    ed rimbaugh
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  12. TopTop #12
    Valley Oak
    Guest

    Re: Death Penalty Abolished in NJ - What would you rather get, life or death?

    Yes, I think that California should follow New Jersey's brave lead.

    On the "choice" of a prisoner doing life, well, let's talk about that after we get rid of the death penalty. It's never been an issue of controversy in countries that eliminated the death penalty (e.g. Spain) and it seems more like an individual, philosophical reflection than anything else.

    Edward

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Dark Shadows: View Post
    Governor Corzine of New Jersey just signed into law a measure abolishing the death penalty, making New Jersey the first state in more than four decades to reject capital punishment.

    How many people here agree that California should follow NJ's example?

    The death penalty has always upset me, even movies like Dead Man Walking have a profound affect on me. Although I find it upsetting I have a morbid curiosity about it, and movies like "I want to Live" have been some of the most memorable for me, along with articles about exactly what happens with a lethal injection, and what can go wrong.

    The prison system as it exists today does nothing to rehabilitate people. I wonder what good it does to lock a person up for years and never do anything to help them with counseling, etc. If a person is locked up to think about their crime, does it do any good? I'm sure there are those who would rather die than spend the rest of their lives in prison. Should we give them a choice? Would you rather die than spend the rest of your life in prison? Is this question too morbid for the holidays?
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