As someone who is a strong supporter of the death penalty, I agree with this decision made by Gov. Warner
In a statement issued Tuesday evening, Warner said the destruction by an Arlington clerk of DNA evidence that might have cleared Lovitt on appeal convinced him that Lovitt should spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, rather than be executed. Lovitt would have been the 1,000th person executed in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
I think if you support the death penalty, you should also be in favor of making executions as iron-clad as possible. This case, from what I’ve read, didn’t fit that mold.
And let the Tim McVeighs of the world breathe? Never.
Hmm? Honestly, I don’t understand what you’re saying there.
You obviously wouldn’t have nuked Afghanistan after 9/11, even if you knew Osama was there. And I think we both agree that he’s slightly less deserving of breath than McVeigh. You wouldn’t do that, besides the political implications, becuase the drawbacks of losing innocent life far outweigh (out-veigh?) the benefit of ending the life of some “evil-doer.”
As this relates to the death penalty: How many innocent lives is acceptable to lose in order to destroy an evil life? I think the answer in this case should be much less, since in my analogy, Osama is not under our direct control like death row inmates are.
Talk about disparate impact, too.
I just don’t understand how we can be so certain that we’ve spent years and years executing people incorrectly, with malice, racism, and jingoism, yet for some reason we still have faith in that very same corrupt system.
What is an acceptable failure rate? 1%?
key words: “as possible.”
The system is flawed. Execute the death penalty.
I don’t think that’s a valid response to the charge that the system is flawed. “But Tim McVeigh is evil!” doesn’t alter the way the system operates.
What is an acceptable failure rate? 1%?
On this issue, Oliver and I agree … the planets must be out of line, lol.
I don’t think its valid either to say because you can’t be 100% sure that Tim McVeigh gets to live.
Oliver is right about Warner, but wrong about the death penalty. It isn’t used for the Tim McVeighs of the world – at least the vast majority of the time it’s not. It’s used disproportionately for black people who murder white people. How many black people have been executed for killing other black people? Very few, considering the disproportionate share of the total that black-on-black murder is. Yet, black-on-white murder results in almost certain death in states that have the death penalty. Why? Because the death penalty is a visceral tool of vengeance to salve the white population’s “honor”. Is there any wonder why the ex-slave states use the death penalty more than the others? It has nothing to do with justice or deterrence. It’s a barbaric and racist relic of the past and a violation of basic human dignity. Vengeance is not the same thing as justice.
I wonder if he would have made the same decision if he wouldn’t have had the dubious honor of executing number 1,000. If Lovitt would have been number 957 would he still be alive?
You would risk the possibility of killing an innocent person just so you can feel some cheap sense of revenge every so often? Like your disgusting support for torture you really need to sit down and rethink the morality of some of your positions, Oliver.
Part of me feels like Oliver takes this position because he feels it’s the “tough” position – sort of like that stupid slogan “Truman Dropped the Bomb” (bit of a tangent – Truman killed 100,000 civilians, and that’s supposed to be awesome?). Anyway, there are fundamentally two issues involved in the death penalty – morality and crime prevention.
The morality issue for me is pretty simple – I believe that all forms of violence are wrong for religous reasons. Your own personal beliefs on that one are going to come down wherever they will.
On the question of deterence, if it were true that the death penalty was effective at stopping crime, then why are murder rates lower in non-death penalty states? Some of the highest violent crime rates (crimes for which execution might be a deterrent) are in states with the highest number of executions (FL is number one, TX in the top ten).
People have already pointed out systemic flaws in the death penalty system – class bias, etc., that warrent it’s overhaul if not end.
Again, I think Oliver takes this position because he wants to feel like he’s being manly and tough.
They have pills for that, you know.
“And let the Tim McVeighs of the world breathe? Never.”
Did you get this line straight out of a comic book?
Look, it’s pretty certain GOPer and NRA member McVeigh had a screw or two loose. And one can make a pretty strong argument that McVeigh, plaqying with something less than a full deck, was heavily influenced by NRA hatespeech. Yet the NRA doesn’t get so much as a slap on the wrist.
But Elrod is correct; rarely is the DP employed against white and/or affluent murderers–its usually employed against minorities who can’t afford legal representation.
If you believe in moral absolutes why are you so willing to accept the possibility that the State might kill an innocent an person in the name of punsihing evil? What’s so black and white or absolute about that? Your accepting a horrible compromise because “making equal access to every bit of defense available” is still no absolute guarantee that only guilty people will be put to death. I don’t care how small the percentage is, you still have to be willing to risk an innocent person’s life to support the death penalty. Where’s the moral clarity in that?
Adam: or you could can the tea leave reading and understand that I believe in moral absolutes, good, and evil. And I do believe that evil has to be punished.
Even if the death penalty has no function, i.e., does not deter crime?
Even if the death penalty system can be considered an “egregious offender” in terms of number of innocent lives ended?
Even though “making equal access to every bit of defense available” is allegedly the way the system is set up now?
Even though the death penalty has never been and shows no signs of being implemented fairly?
The death penalty — in theory — is not about revenge. If that’s how it’s being implemented, and unfairly at that, I fail to understand your notion of “moral absolutes” as applied here. Where does “revenge” fall on that morality scale, I wonder?
What is an acceptable failure rate? 1%?
Which is why as a death penalty supporter I believe in making equal access to every bit of defense available. But I think we must have death on the table for the most egregious offenders – McVeigh, Manson, Dahmer, etc.
Life in prison, without the possibility of parole, forgotten by the rest of society, is the perfect punishment for the McVeigh’s of the world. Who gives the Unabomber a second thought these days? I’d even say that it is crueler than putting them to death. If no evidence ever comes to light proving their innocence, let them rot.
But what does that mean? Simply on the table? You’ve put torture on the table too. What else should we tolerate in limited, carefully controlled circumstances because of some people? You may as well say that in certain carefully controlled circumstances suspending the Bill of Rights should be on the table. Would I be fine with Timothy McVeigh living to 150 years old in prison with TV priviledges and conjugal visits if it meant that the state would never execute an innocent person? Hell yes. Because it doesn’t matter how long Timothy McVeigh lives, what matters how short you cut the life of an innocent man. All those who think that life in prison is too good for McVeigh never stop to think about how execution must feel to the truly innocent man. It’s the same reason why I’d rather die in a terrorist attack tomorrow than see the United States turn to torture to save my life or even the life of my loved ones because I’d like to think that some principles are worth dying and suffering for.
Because I think for some people, the penalty must simply be on the table. Do you really think society is served in any way by Timothy McVeigh living to old age?89
There are no moral absolutes. There are an infinite number of moral decisions, I believe, but no moral absolutes. The existence of moral absolutes is a fantasy that the conservative establishment uses to sell its snake oil to the rubes in their constituency (apparently, some so-called liberals are buying small vials of it, too). They wrap themselves in religion and patriotism (two reliable loci of absolutism) while they rape and rob us blind (often killing thousands of foreign brown people in the process).
On this one, the naysayers are correct: the death penalty is an anachronistic, barbaric political tool, and its only function is to help morally timorous people feel better about themselves. As long as their are flawed humans on the planet, there will be criminals; some of them will be killers. How we deal with those who do the worst deeds reflects as much on us as it does on them.
Think of this from another angle: if we weren’t spending so much to lock up nonviolent drug offenders, might we not have enough resources to successfully deal with the most incorrigible and violent among us? Our societal approach to crime and punishment is steeped in feudal English barbarism and revolutionary-era hypocrisy (you know, a bastion of freedom being built on the backs of slaves). The flaws in our ‘justice’ system are intertwined with existence of the death penalty; treating them as separate entities is a mistake. Start dealing honestly with that issue, and the death penalty will soon take its rightful place in the trash bin of civilized democratic societies.
And listen, I don’t mean to sound holier than thou on this or the torture issue. I’ve just never understand how any one could make a moral argument for either. And really, that’s the only argument you can make since both are completely and totally unable to produce the empirical results that their supporters claim: lower crime rates and reliable information.
There are no moral absolutes? Of course there are. Good and evil are moral absolutes. And while there may be shades of grey from time to time, enerally, good and evil are not difficult to recognize.
if we weren t spending so much to lock up nonviolent drug offenders, might we not have enough resources to successfully deal with the most incorrigible and violent among us?
This I don’t follow. If we weren’t locking up nonviolent drug offenders they would be be behind the wheels of cars, school buses, etc. and ultimately committing “violent” crime to satisfy their habits. While there may be better ways to deal with the first time “nonviolent” drug offender, the nonviolent offenders, if left unchecked risk getting violent.
With respect to the anti-death penalty argument that we risk executing someone who is innocent, has there ever been a valid investigation that has determined that someone executed was indeed truly innocent of the crime charged? I’m not counting those on death row who were exonerated before execution — that only shows that the system we have, as flawed as it may be, works.
And if you are going to use the argument about the risk of innocents being executed, you must consider the risk of innocents being killed in the absence of the death penalty.
“There are no moral absolutes? Of course there are. Good and evil are moral absolutes. And while there may be shades of grey from time to time, enerally, good and evil are not difficult to recognize.”
So there are moral absolutes; only, they’re not absolute. Interesting.
How about the fact that if you believe in good and evil, where does deciding a persons life fall into those absolutes? The problem is that people see the death penalty as something to combat the horrors of society, but the stance is not only hypocritical it almost supports a culture of death and violence. If a man/women kills another and I decide to kill them for thier crime, I am no better than the murderer. Unfortunately this discussion only feeds into our(us males) reptilian side of our brain.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1121-05.htm
This is an article about one guy who was wrongfully executed. I think a group of law students found 11 wrongful executions in one state, but I cannot find a link.
Hedley –
Prager’s argument is all smoke and mirrors. If you want to argue that killing someone now would have prevented that person from killing again, you also have to entertain the opposite argument that the person spared from execution might go on to redeem himself and others and still make some kind of contribution to society from behind bars. A man saved from execution could also go on to find God and write inspiring sermons that change lives. Prager’s mobilization of the Mailer story does not change the fact that no one can know the future. He also has to ignore the facts when it comes to innocent people who end up on death row:
“The current emphasis on faster executions, less resources for the defense, and an expansion in the number of death cases mean that the execution of innocent people is inevitable. The increasing number of innocent defendants being found on death row is a clear sign that our process for sentencing people to death is fraught with fundamental errors–errors which cannot be remedied once an execution occurs.”
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=292
Oliver, how about having people on death row for 10, 20, or even 30 years?
frameone, you ignore the question of whether anyone executed was later proven to be innocent. That is the real question, not “innocent people who end up on death row.”
And while we of course do not know the future, Prager presents examples of deaths directly attributable to the failure to execute otherwise guilty individuals. What examples are there of guilty people being spared execution (not due to innocence) who have gone on to change the lives of others?
Prager’s argument is as faulty as the death penalty itself. The first example he gives is quite sketchy on details, but even what he reveals is contradictory to his argument. If Allen had been on Death Row, could he not have contacted the same people who carried out the assassinations of witnesses, for the same purpose of facilitating his appeal? Never mind that his plan didn’t work. The real problem is that there were more people out of jail– not convicted of anything, and sentenced to anything– who were willing to kill on Allen’s behalf. That’s the part Prager leaves out: Allen never left prison, anyway.
The second example relies on faulty logic, as well. Who is Norman Mailer? Is he an appellate judge? No, he’s a writer. No matter what he said or did, it was up to the courts to decide whether or not to release a convicted murderer, and they dropped the ball. The real question is not whether or not the murderer should have been executed, but why there was any possibility (short of him being exonerated by DNA or some such) of the murderer seeing the light of day.
Next time you want to get some backup, Hedley, you’d better choose someone a little more clever than a right-wing hack like Dennis Prager. Hint: you won’t find them at Townhall.com.
Isn’t there some chap due to be executed in California who has spent the last few years tackling gang culture?
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