Was he guilty?

[Brian Ellis]

Would you commit that act of premeditated murder against the "scumbag" yourself, knowing that your religion forbids you to kill, thereby jeopardising your own relationship with God, and that you may be preventing a soul from acquiring the knowledge of Christ?

Even if you did not pull the trigger yourself, your advocacy of the act, allowing someone else to do it with your approval, is equally sinful, according to Jesus' teachings. He asked you to forgive him seventy times seven times (Matt. 18 v21), rather than to act against the guy. How do you reconcile that?

[Nowhere]

If lawyers were really crusaders for justice and not money grubbing bastards, most trials would be cheap and swift.

But that would mean they'd be tool tool for anyone that defines what is "justice" at the time (I'll mention this in incoming political thread about our recent elections)

Let's just take the open and shut cases, like when some scumbag who was there with blood on his hands brags to his buddy how he tortured some poor woman to death. Shoot the ****er in the head! NOW!

If this would be all...well, look at this way, perhaps his buddy is behind it and all...

But NO! it turns out he was ONLY 17 years and 361 days old at the time and therefore an IRRATIONAL CHILD who could not possibly have known what he was doing or the consequences of his actions. If he had been 5 days older, he would have been fully aware of this when he twisted that knife in that poor womans guts, and would have then been eligible for the death penalty. Now? Out in 7 buddy! OOOrah!

This actually happened right here not long ago, too. dunno about the out in 7 bit, but the death sentence was commuted because he was a couple of weeks shy of that magical age of 6574.5 days, at which he goes from utterly irresponsible minor child to fully empowered and rational adult in an instant. This was an absolute scumbag who thought it would be cool to rape and murder a 50 yo teacher and then brag about it. He was caught IN HER CAR using HER credit cards with HER BLOOD stains on his clothes. If a case can make it into this kind of clear cut category, put a bullet in the evil lowlife's head right now.

But by having more details regarding specific case, I have a question - you don't have a law that permits treating underage offenders as adults in special cases of such crimes?

As a side note - he probably get many years, but couldn't get death penalty, right? In that case I'm somehow glad you don't have a law permitting to treat him like adult...

[Nowhere]

The death penalty is supposed to teach the hardest lesson lust like getting your hand chopped off for stealing. It is one of those measures that does not seem to be very effective. People still steal and take life knowing the consequences.
...

Hmm, I wonder if one way of looking at it wouldn't be "if they don't respect lifes of other people, they don't care about possible consequences to their own life in the way we would"

And BTW:

Ok let us put that to the test. Your wife or child have been wrongly convicted of murder. She or the child, have been spared the death penalty. Do you fight for their freedom or fight for their execution?
If what you say is true you would want them executed as fast as possible just to spare
them from the nightmares of prison. Fighting for their freedom would be pointless because of the time it would take for anything to happen and the damage of prison would be already done.

KvH, I'm eagerly waiting for your response to this one.

[KvHagedorn]

My perspective is a practical one.. remove this type of person from existence ASAP. No torture, no long wait. In clear cut cases, execution should be swift. They should be able to appeal, of course, and have access to a good lawyer, but this process should be swift and inexpensive.

If someone were wrongly convicted, the chance is much less that it was clear cut. In less than certain circumstances, or if the suspect was NOT some hateful-mannered tattooed gang member with a history of violence, like Bjork in the extremely unrealistic, illogically conceived film Dancer in the Dark, hell, yes, take a second look! Sweet, dutiful women do not just blow someone away with no motive like that. It was utterly ridiculous.

[Brian Ellis]

KvH

I take it that, as you have reiterated your view but not answered any questions from others or myself, your logic has failed to reach a valid conclusion; you are therefore simply sticking to your illogical guns.

[Nowhere]

PS. Also, KvH, you might look at this map . Notice some interesting pattern?

Also, you might rethink your statement "no torture" based on this .
And I still think that "swift and inexpensive" would in practise mean "the decision was alredy made"

[Nowhere]

The map above changed a bit.
But...still no reply from KvH (anyway, no rush, I won't be dissapointed by lack of response for a few days - after all Good Christians (tm) have to contemplate their deep beliefs in ideals of Jesus and so on...)

[TransformX]

A few months ago, a 16 year old boy raped and murdered a beautiful 15 year old girl here:

He was drugged at the time, on vacation from a institution for criminal youth.
Minor or not, this one should rot in prison for eternity, or at least till he's too old and weak to be able to walk an pee on his own, no vacations, no special treatment, no nothing. He had a record of violence and the fact he was drugged means sh1t to me.

[Dr Mordrid]

The fix is simple enough: require forensic and/or multiple eyewitnesses in death penalty cases and do not allow it when the main evidence is an alleged co-conspirator involved in a plea negotiation.

That takes care of lying crooks, single mistaken ID's and the vast majority of other circumstances.

Some states are changing their laws so that forensic evidence connecting the killer to the crime is required. Some will be requiring DNA, which in most murders isn't a real problem since you can get epithelials off most murder weapons.

Several states have tried the "hard life imprisonment" route by setting up "SuperMax" prisons like the one in Marquette Michigan. Here they house prisonsers like John Norman Collins, a particularly brutal serial killer caught in Michigan during the late 60's. Many would know him as "The Co-Ed Killer" who was the subject of the the book "The Michigan Murders".

Amazon "Michigan Murders"

CourtTV article on "Co-Ed" killings....

In SuperMax prisoners are locked in their cells 23 hours a day minimum and 24 hours if they're being "bad". They are basically in solitary confinement. Of course the same "human rights" people who are against capital punishement also rail against SuperMax because they see it as torture.

You can't freakin' win with these people

Interesting side note:

At the time of the Michigan Murders I was doing a student rotation in the nuclear medicine dept. Our secretary there had been bragging about this guy she had been dating. Bright, handsome and very charming. One day we were listening to the radio during a break in the action when it came over that someone named John Norman Collins had been arrested for the serial killings.

JNC was her new boyfriend

Needless to say we ended up taking care of her until her family arrived. She was absent for over a week getting "help". Even after she came back the girl wasn't "right" for months.

Under Michigans law at the time JNC was sentenced to life with a minimum of just 20 years. Needless to say no parole board member is willing to put their career at risk by actually voting to release him

Since this an other high-profile cases the law has been changed to life meaning "natural life"; until death. Even so there are petitions in Michigan to get the death penalty on the ballot for one of the upcoming elections (we have public initiatives that can ammend the State Constitution or change laws).

Dr. Mordrid

[Nowhere]

I can imagine even your simple fix not working as it should sometimes...

[KvHagedorn]

I can imagine even your simple fix not working as it should sometimes...

Fine. Sometimes. The problem with death penalty opponents is that they are also usually atheists and think that people need to fill the role of God. Nobody's perfect, and there will be innocent people executed sometimes. If there is a God, He will sort out the innocents. All we can do is see that they meet their final judge and do no further harm here.. not even to the extent that they poison others with their mentality inside a prison. If we take the measures Doc has spoken about, and make some of the legal reforms I've touched upon, this should be minimised as much as humanly possible.

Death penalty opponents usually have never had contact with lowlife criminals, either. When you are an 18yo college student filled with idealistic emotion or someone who has lived in ultra-civilized countries all your life, you probably just have no idea about the kind of people I am talking about. It's for damned sure not someone like Bjork's character in Dancer in the Dark. The very existence of this film and its fan base among death penalty opponents tells the tale of how ignorant Europeans are of the type of people who really are on death row. The film is complete propaganda without any basis in reality.

Here is the reality:

http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/usexecute.htm

Just read some of these cases. Lowlives like this exist. They really do. And they really should NOT.

[KvHagedorn]

PS. KvH, I wonder if you have any ground in discussing death penalty untill you'd reply to questions in this thread... (and just to be clear - similarly to az, I don't think we should bring this thread further in this direction...but you're welcome to, for example, respond in linked thread )

(Brian)Would you commit that act of premeditated murder against the "scumbag" yourself, knowing that your religion forbids you to kill, thereby jeopardising your own relationship with God, and that you may be preventing a soul from acquiring the knowledge of Christ?

Even if you did not pull the trigger yourself, your advocacy of the act, allowing someone else to do it with your approval, is equally sinful, according to Jesus' teachings. He asked you to forgive him seventy times seven times (Matt. 18 v21), rather than to act against the guy. How do you reconcile that?

Jesus was an idealist, and His concern was for the soul of the one who would inflict retribution. If I could prevent the death of other innocents, what type of person would I be to stand by and watch them be murdered when the killer should have been put down for previous offenses? We do not live in an ideal world (especially here in the US) and we do the best we can, and ask God for forgiveness if we have sinned. Jesus also said that we are all sinners.. this is true, because we live in an imperfect world.

I did not respond to this before because it was asked by the "devil's advocate" in just such a way. I am not interested in bandying scripture about with someone who does not adhere to it himself in all particulars, but just uses it as a tool to bring up arguments to support his own agenda, supposing for some reason that I am an utterly unintelligent dolt (insulting my intelligence really pisses me off.. please don't do it) who can be bullied with such crap.

I HAVE ANSWERED THIS "QUESTION"!

Originally Posted by Damien
Ok let us put that to the test. Your wife or child have been wrongly convicted of murder. She or the child, have been spared the death penalty. Do you fight for their freedom or fight for their execution?
If what you say is true you would want them executed as fast as possible just to spare
them from the nightmares of prison. Fighting for their freedom would be pointless because of the time it would take for anything to happen and the damage of prison would be already done.

Unrealistic, but of course I would fight for their freedom. You are arguing with a pragmatist as if he were a dogmatist. Again, why should I address such foolishness?

[KvHagedorn]

PS. Also, KvH, you might look at this map . Notice some interesting pattern?

Yes.. the US is grouped with all the countries you deem "uncivilized." Is this your "point"?

Also, you might rethink your statement "no torture" based on this .
And I still think that "swift and inexpensive" would in practise mean "the decision was alredy made"

So because lethal injection is the current form of execution, you are supposing it is the method I would use? I have said before (and no joke) that the one method of execution guaranteed to be painless is a pile driver to the head. Dramatic, too. But a shotgun to the head would probably do just as well.

[Brian Ellis]

Fine. Sometimes. The problem with death penalty opponents is that they are also usually atheists and think that people need to fill the role of God.

I have never heard such utter rubbish in all my life. The leader of the Church to which you claim to belong, the Archbish of Canterbury, as well as the Pope, the Archbish of York, Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama and many other church leaders of many faiths are opposed to it.

The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty in nearly all cases, and Pope John Paul II often speaks out against capital punishment. Read Catholic teaching, personal stories and a prayer to end the death penalty.

The American Catholic Org see http://www.americancatholic.org/News/DeathPenalty/

However, this does not mean that governments have an unlimited right to take life. Nor does it mean that governments must punish crime by death. We increasingly question whether the death penalty has been and can be administered justly.

http://www.elca.org/socialstatements/deathpenalty/ (Evangelical Lutheran Church Association, somewhat less categorical)

At this moment the U.S. Bishops renew the call for measures to restrain, restrict and end the use of the death penalty in the United States. We support many of the recommendations articulated by the Commission, as well as legislation such as the Innocence Protection Act that promote greater fairness and stronger safeguards in capital cases. We have other means to protect society and we have an obligation to protect the innocent. There is no way to reverse an execution after new evidence comes to light.

US Conference of Bishops http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/101reasons.htm

BE IT RESOLVED that the Twelfth General Synod of the United Church of Christ reaffirm opposition to the death penalty, and that it call upon its brother-in-Christ and United Church of Christ member, the Governor of Florida, to cease the authorization of additional executions in Florida, and further call upon governors of all states to refrain from the authorization of executions;

http://www.deathpenaltyreligious.org...ments/ucc.html

In view of our Christian responsibility to value all human life we are compelled to set forth our opposition to all capital punishment.

The Mennonite Church of the USA http://peace.mennolink.org/articles/resdp.html

WHEREAS, a consensus exists across the Christian faith traditions of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches calling for society to abolish the death penalty;...THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: The Illinois Conference of Churches calls upon elected officials, community leaders, and all people of good will to abolish the death penalty from our criminal justice system in the State of Illinois and within our nation.

http://www.icadp.org/page296.html

And I could continue for ever. And note that all these quotes and hundreds more I could have found come from the Good Ol' USA, not from a namby-pamby, liberal, multicultural Europe. The established mainstream churches, even in the States, are practically unanimous to oppose the death penalty, except for some Southern Baptists (but not United Baptists), a few minor Pentecostal churches and the Latter Day Saints. The Mennonites, Amish, Society of Friends (Quakers), and Unitarian Universalists have historically been among the most active groups in opposition to the death penalty. Interestingly, the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church is the only retentionist group within the Lutherans.

The American Friends Service Committee's Criminal Justice Program maintains a list of faith and ethical groups which are opposed to the death penalty They include: American Baptists, American Ethical Union, American Friends Service Committee, America Jewish Committee, Amnesty International, The Bruderhof Communities, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Disciples of Christ, Church of the Brethren, Church Women United, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Friends Committee on Natinal Legislation, Friends United Meeting, General Conference of General Baptists, General Conference of Mennonite Church, Mennonite Church, Moravian Church in America, YWCA, , Orthodox Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), The Rabbinical Assembly, Reformed Church in America, Reorganized Church, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, and the United States Catholic Conference.

There must be an enormous number of atheists in the ~170 million US members of the churches I cited, according to your lights.