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Abolishing the Death Penalty?

 
 
 
lpetrich

lpetrich

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Kyle Griffin on Twitter: "More than three dozen members of Congress are calling on the Biden administration to prioritize abolishing the death penalty, in all jurisdictions. (link)" / Twitter

I found
Pressley Leads Lawmakers in Calling on President-Elect Biden to End Death Penalty on First Day in Office | Representative Ayanna Pressley - "Biden Must End the Killing Spree, Sign Executive Order to Halt All Federal Executions and Prohibit His Department of Justice from Seeking Death Sentences"

with the linked-to letter:
2020.12.15 Congressional Letter to President-Elect Biden Re- Death Penalty.pdf

“Your historic election with record turnout represents a national mandate to make meaningful progress in reforming our unjust and inhumane criminal legal system,” wrote the lawmakers. “Ending the barbaric practice of government-sanctioned murder is a commonsense step that you can and must take to save lives.”

Capital punishment is unjust, racist and defective. The United States stands alone among its peers in executing its own citizens, a barbaric punishment that denies the dignity and humanity of all people and is disproportionately applied to people who are Black, Latinx, and poor. For example, Black people make up less than 13 percent of the nation’s population while accounting for more than 42 percent of those on death row. A nationwide study found that at least 1 in 25 people sentenced to death are innocent, while research has shown that capital punishment does not deter crime.

...
“With a stroke of your pen, you can stop all federal executions, prohibit United States Attorneys from seeking the death penalty, dismantle death row at FCC Terre Haute, and call for the resentencing of people who are currently sentenced to death,” the lawmakers continued. “Each of these elements are critical to help prevent greater harm and further loss of life. While eliminating the death penalty will not fix our broken criminal legal system, it is a significant step toward progress.”

Joining Congresswoman Pressley in sending the letter are Representatives Peter Welch (VT-At-Large), Barbara Lee (CA-13), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), Mark Pocan (WI-02), Nydia M. Velazquez (NY-07), Mary Gay Scanlon (PA-05), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr. (GA-04), Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), Chellie Pingree (ME-01), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Rashida Tlaib (MI-13), Adam Smith (WA-09), Dwight Evans (PA-03), Jesús G. "Chuy" García (IL-04), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Joseph P. Kennedy, III (MA-04), Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Gwen Moore (WI-04), Donald S. Beyer Jr. (VA-08), David N. Cicilline (RI-01), Earl Blumenauer (OR-03), Raul Grijalva (AZ-03), Jamie Raskin (MD-08), Gerald E. Connolly (VA-11), Ted W. Lieu (CA-33), Madeleine Dean (PA-04), Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06), Katherine M. Clark (MA-05), David Trone (MD-08), Daniel T. Kildee (MI-05), Danny K. Davis (IL-07), Bennie Thompson (MS-02), Lori Trahan (MA-03), Yvette D. Clarke (NY-09), Andy Levin (MI-09), Brenda L. Lawrence (MI-14), Ro Khanna (CA-17), James P McGovern (MA-02) and Joyce Beatty (OH-03), along with Representatives-Elect Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Mondaire Jones (NY-17) and Cori Bush (MO-01).
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That's 41 Congresspeople, the DC delegate, and 3 Congresspeople-elect.
 
H.R.4052 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): To prohibit the imposition of the death penalty for any violation of Federal law, and for other purposes. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
Introduced in the middle of last year, this bill now has 65 cosponsors.

I don't know how much President-to-be Biden could do by executive order, but I doubt that he could do much about the states.

 Capital punishment by country - most industrialized countries have rejected the death penalty. Japan, one of the few that has kept it, only uses it for multiple murders.

The biggest of known users are Iran at 256+, Saudi Arabia at 184+, and Iraq at 100+. China and North Korea are unknowns.

 Capital punishment in North Korea - it's difficult to get details for that nation.

 Capital punishment in China - "The exact numbers of executions, and death sentences, are considered a state secret by China, and not publicly available.[11] According to the Dui Hua Foundation, a U.S.-based organization, the estimated number of executions has declined steadily in the twenty-first century, from 12,000 each year to supposedly 2,400.[12]"

 Capital punishment in the United States - red states are more pro-capital-punishment than blue states. So much for "less government".
 
Many sad cases where the death row inmate has been there so long, they have aged to the point of dementia and are unaware WHY they are facing the death penalty.
 
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I've been anti-death penalty my whole life. Met four exonerees who told their stories at a public meeting. Their stories illustrated the most common paths that bring innocent people to death row: prosecutorial malfeasance, unreliable eyewitnesses (a phenomenon well-known in many a Psych 101 class); being ratted out by the real felon, who cuts a police deal that supposedly wraps up the case; being poor and thus being assigned a public defender. All four were convicted without physical evidence connecting them to murder, and all four were conclusively proven innocent. They were lucky enough to interest law students and NGOs in their cases. Others in their predicament either don't come to the attention of the re-investigators or have cases that can't be overturned -- a nightmare.
Disgraceful that a "Christian" nation still has executions carried out by various states and the federal government, and that the practice is supported by the most conservative (and thus the most showily religious) among us.
 
ideologyhunter said:
Disgraceful that a "Christian" nation still has executions carried out by various states and the federal government, and that the practice is supported by the most conservative (and thus the most showily religious) among us.
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Disgraceful, but entirely understandable. Right wing authoritarians support the death penalty for the same reasons that they support police brutality: they want to inflict cruel punishment on the people they believe to deserve it, and they feel safe that no-one they care about will become the victim of this brutality. And Christianity is not some mitigating force for peace.
 
I am another person who is against the death penalty. I think it's barbaric, as well as unfair. Too many innocent people have been executed. It makes no sense to me to punish someone for murder by murdering them. Imo, it certainly fits the definition of cruel and unusual punishment.

While not the topic of the OP, I also strongly support prison reform. I'm tempted to rant about all the horrible things that the US does to prisoners, but I'll try to resist and not derail the thread.
 
How about a two-strikes approach? You can only actually get the death penalty if two separate juries vote for it for separate crimes.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
How about a two-strikes approach? You can only actually get the death penalty if two separate juries vote for it for separate crimes.
Click to expand...

So, if a criminal under that system commits only one death-worthy crime, they're now one miscarriage of justice away from an unjust death.

That's where we all are, now, but with extra steps. You've just doubled the costs of having a trial that could carry the death penalty.
 
ideologyhunter said:
I've been anti-death penalty my whole life. Met four exonerees who told their stories at a public meeting. Their stories illustrated the most common paths that bring innocent people to death row: prosecutorial malfeasance, unreliable eyewitnesses (a phenomenon well-known in many a Psych 101 class); being ratted out by the real felon, who cuts a police deal that supposedly wraps up the case; being poor and thus being assigned a public defender. All four were convicted without physical evidence connecting them to murder, and all four were conclusively proven innocent. They were lucky enough to interest law students and NGOs in their cases. Others in their predicament either don't come to the attention of the re-investigators or have cases that can't be overturned -- a nightmare.
Disgraceful that a "Christian" nation still has executions carried out by various states and the federal government, and that the practice is supported by the most conservative (and thus the most showily religious) among us.
Click to expand...

Why do you put "Christian" in scare quotes? Is Christianity as historically practiced somehow incompatible with capital punishment? It ain't Jainism.
 
Anyway, while I'm not convinced that in a frictionless universe capital punishment would be immoral, I think the reality on the ground is such that it is clearly immoral, and should be totally abolished.

I don't buy into the sanctity of life arguments, though.
 
J842P said:
Anyway, while I'm not convinced that in a frictionless universe capital punishment would be immoral, I think the reality on the ground is such that it is clearly immoral, and should be totally abolished.

I don't buy into the sanctity of life arguments, though.
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Yes, agreed. If we had perfect knowledge and could determine that someone is definitely guilty and definitely no rehabilitatable, then death is not a punishment so much as a protection for society and doesn’t alarm me. BUT, we do not have perfect knowledge and so we should not do that.

It costs less money to build safe and human incarceration than to carry out an even marginally fair nvestigation and trial that moved toward perfect knowledge. If someone is that bad we can remove them from society more easily. And when we are wrong, it can be halted (not reversed, because we’ve stolen years from them, but at least halted.)

I do advocate for death being an option for prisoners if they want it, though. If someone has a life sentence and does not want to live through it, they should have that option.
 
do advocate for death being an option for prisoners if they want it, though. If someone has a life sentence and does not want to live through it, they should have that option.
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I was going to add that, but you beat me to it. While most people would probably choose life in prison, some of us would prefer death rather than spending life in prison. So, if it was a option, then it would be okay.
 
I have mixed feelings on the death penalty. I think there are a few crimes that merit it, but I don't trust the government, or juries, to apply it fairly. I have my doubts that this problem can be fixed.
 
Keith&Co. said:
Loren Pechtel said:
How about a two-strikes approach? You can only actually get the death penalty if two separate juries vote for it for separate crimes.
Click to expand...

So, if a criminal under that system commits only one death-worthy crime, they're now one miscarriage of justice away from an unjust death.

That's where we all are, now, but with extra steps. You've just doubled the costs of having a trial that could carry the death penalty.
Click to expand...

The point is the chance of two miscarriages of justice are quite remote.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Keith&Co. said:
Loren Pechtel said:
How about a two-strikes approach? You can only actually get the death penalty if two separate juries vote for it for separate crimes.
Click to expand...

So, if a criminal under that system commits only one death-worthy crime, they're now one miscarriage of justice away from an unjust death.

That's where we all are, now, but with extra steps. You've just doubled the costs of having a trial that could carry the death penalty.
Click to expand...

The point is the chance of two miscarriages of justice are quite remote.
Click to expand...
But MY point depended on only one.
 
I am opposed to the death penalty because I have a history for handling police claims at the municipal, county and state level over part of a 40 year career history in the claims business.

All large employee groups usually consist mostly of employees who are competent and honest and a few at the bottom who are not.

Some of the cops are just criminals with badges.
Some of the claims that I handled or learned about included patrol officers operating burglar rings out of their patrol cars, shooting an unarmed subject that was not a threat, a police chase over a misdemeanor that resulted in a car crash that crippled an innocent person, a detective that was sleeping with a defendants wife while testifying against him in a child abuse cause that resulted in a $5M verdict against a city

Enter "Cops planting evidence" in the U-Tube search.

Also, watch Don't Talk to The Police.



All police have one characteristic that makes them inherently dangerous.

They are human and they all make mistakes.

Cops make mistakes, prosecutors make mistakes, judges make mistakes and jurors make mistakes.

You can't reverse a mistake resulting in a wrongful execution.
 
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