Yet another rant. I wish I had time to count the number of posts where you refer to "left-wing extremists?' Are you confusing a passion for Constitutional due process with sympathy for criminals.

Most of us are aware of the hideous nature of child molestation. It is not, however, a capital offense and is irrelevant to this debate.

Greetings. Good points by the way. Allow me to address them in turn.

This was already dealt with, but I hardly think the possibility of prison escape is a reason to execute somebody. BOF already posted a series of statistics showing pretty clearkly that escapes, in paeticular escapes of people who are serving time for death-penalty level crimes, are incredibly rare.



I think you missed the point of my argument. Obviously prison and the justics system acts as a deterrent to criminals, otherwise I am sure we would have a LOT more criminals out there. The question is wheither the threat of a possible death penalty acts as more of a deterrent then the sentence of life in prison. There is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that it does. A couple people here have stated a few times 'its been proven' but they seem unwilling or unable to show any place, study or example where it has been proven. In fact, as I said, most pro-death penalty organisations have largely dropped the deterrence argument in the last 15 years when it became clear there was no evidence at all that death acted as any more of a deterrent then life in a concrete box.




I agree there can be a value of personalising an argument for perspective, but to use this as an argument unto itself is pointless. Clearly people with a personal involvement in a crime are not able to be objective, thus there are a dozen systems in place to make sure that the fate of criminals is NOT decided by anyone who has a personaal stake in the crime.



While Ted Bundy was awaiting execution, he spent nearly 10 years in prison. While he was in prison, how many people did he kill?

Apparently keeping someone locked up for the rest of their lives is a very good way of making sure they do not kill. Nobody is talking about letting Ted Bundy and his ilk go, rather we are arguing that leaving him in an 8 by 10 cell for his natural life would have worked just as well at protecting people.

So if the option is killing a few innocent people so we can kill Ted Bundy, or killing NO innocent people so that Ted Bundy can rot away the remainder of his natural life in a tiny cell... then the Obvious answer is the latter.

Though you did not do this, I find it staggeringly ironic how some people on this debate, Hugo and lordhelmet for example, argue that the killing of innocents is so awful that we have to execute the perpetrators, but dont seem to mind if along the way we kill a few innocents. Is that an utter contradiction or is it just me?



Either you misunderstood or I was not clear. Technically if the government is following the law of the land then it is legally right of course. Of course by that logic slavery was legally right because it followed the law of the land. I am referring not to the letter of the law, which is the entie isue up for debate here, but the logical fallacy of it being morally right killing people because they committed the heinous morally wrong act of killing people.



The statistics come from the US department of Justics, which I think you will agree is a fairly unimpeachable source.

As for your seciond comment, the work likely is not a loaded word, it is simply gramatically correct. The study did not look at the statistics overall but, as the stats themselves show, similar cases with defendents with similar records, and the sentencing given them when compared to their race. Blacks are simply discriminated against in the US Justice system. That alone seems like an unshakable reason not to execute people when using a flawed system.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't make sense. Not only do we have one of the highest violent crime rates in the world, we are one of the few with the death penalty. The death penalty has never been shown to be any sort of deterrent. There is only your speculation that expanding the death penalty would correspond to a drop in crime. Certainly no studies have borne that out.

We have in the US a lot of violent crime. Instead of spending more and more money trying to deal with the problem at the tail end (building more prisons, death rows, etc), why don't we approach the sources, look at what causes people to turn to violent crime to begin with? Personally, I believe that we don't really want to approach the causes - because they are too entwined in some of the bedrock notions of our modern culture.



Please provide some sources for your statements.



Yes, we lefties just love those darn criminals! When we're not smooching Saddam Hussein, having cocktails with Jong Il, or laughing it up with Osama, we're back home playing ping pong with child molesters. It's because we hate America of course. I love it, LH. You always manage to throw one of these Coulteresque polemics into your posts. Bravo!

Now, really. You said "As it stands, we care far more about the rights of the criminal than we do for the violation of the rights of their victims." But this is patently false. The entire criminal justice system exists to protect the rights of the victims of crimes. If we cared more about criminals, why do we bother spending money on police? You are painting the issue black and white - as though anyone who cares about the way criminals are treated doesn't give a damn about crime victims. You want to paint the ACLU and the left as not caring about victims. But it is possible to care about both - victims of crimes deserve protection and empathy; accused criminals deserve an impartial justice system.

So you say. But clearly that is not true. Every other first wold country on the planet would say that in fact lifetime incarceration is a just punishment, so clearly death is not the ONLY just punishment. So while you have every right to your opinion of course, your opinion in and of itself is not an argument.



What does that mean? How exactly is sticking someone in a maximum security prison for the remainder of their life with no freedom, independence, privacy or self-determination 'good for them'? Are you asserting that falling asleep in a gurney and never waking up is so much worse than spending the next 40 years of your life in a concrete box, likely being targeted by fellow inmates who have a reasonable distaste for perpetrators of child crime?




That at least is true, the issue is certainly over and done with and irreversable, right or wrong. Regardless of wheither or not they might later be exonerated, as so many have...




Now there is an interesting little contradiction. You trust the Justice system to deal with the issues of wheither or not a man will live or die, you trust them to always get it right and never execute an innocent, yet you then heap scorn on the very same Justice system, the very same prison officials who apprently make silly mistakes over parole issues.




Do you have any evidence to back up this assertion? The Death penalty has not been proven to be a deterrent in any case I know of, so how do you now assert it would act as a deterrent if it were expanded? Please provide any evidence at all in support if you are going to maintain that point.



True, though completely irrelevant. In the case you describe, the system being broken has nothing to do with the death penalty, unless you are advocating death for lesser crimes, such as people who molest children but do not actually kill them. (Can anyone tell me why that is a terrible idea, and why no first world country on the planet hs the death penalty for lesser crimes?)

I am advocating that if someone assaults and kills a child, they get their natural life in a cell. No repeat offending, no threat. While you are correct about the US justice system being broken, (I dealt with that in the previous post dealing with racism in the system) that is not the pertinent in this case, and the death penalty yea or nay will not affect your little scenario at all.



Really? because there is a lot of evidence that it does work. There are a LOT of nations that have rehabilitative justice systems as opposed to punitive, such as all of Scandinavia, France, germany, etc... nd they all have a far lower rte of recidivism then the US does. That would tend to completely contradict your bold assertion.

Not that it matters, because again your point is irrelevant. We are talking about the extreme cases here, ones who might draw the death penalty: and wheither they should face eternity in a box instead of judicial murder. They are not candidates for rehabilitation, nor would they be subject to it. Rehabilitation is primarily directed at middle criminals, and primarily younger criminals who may just be making stupid mistakes or following the wrong crowd. Nobody here is talking about 'rehabilitating' manson or Dahmer, so don't try and pretend that is the issue at hand.




I'm sorry, are you saying that prison is an opportunity to engage in sodomy? All those sodomites looking forward to prison so they can indulge? Do you think people look forward to prison so they can take drugs and lift weights?

Maximum security prisons are punishment. They are in fact one hell of a punishment. Dont try and make it sound like something to look forward to, thats just silly.




Ah, back to the old standard, I was wondering if that would appear. Accuse the 'lefties' (thus attempting to politicise the debate) of tripping over themselves protecting child-killers and terrorists.

Absurd and no basis in reality of course, but it is an excellent way of lowering the debate...

I am curious Quarkhead. How come you will argue against Lordhelmet, but you will not address the points made by a fellow liberal(nighttimer), in his statements supporting the death penalty? He does make some very valid points in his support of it, does he not?

NT, like me, is probably reconsidering his post- anytime one of us accidently finds ourselves in agreement with LH, it is probably time to do some soul searching to reconsider our argurment LOL


However, that being said, I will rebut parts of my very respected fellow ADer NT.

NT- "There is no convincing me that a piece of filth like Avila deserves to keep his life after taking Samantha Runnion's life. He will spend years in jail before he is (if he is) executed and Erin Runnion is also going to spend a lifetime in a jail where she is tormented by the "what if" questions of how her daughter might have grown up if someone like Avila hadn't cruelly taken her away.

As long as people like Avila exist there will always need to be a process of taking them out like the human garbage he is. "

I don't think anyone here can argue that this guy is scum- but NT= is he in the majority of death penalty cases? Is he in California (I truly can't recall, but let us pretend he is)- the very uneven nature of the DP between states makes his case very difficult- in Texas, were the pace of killing is very, very high- justice in Texas is also very, very uneven, and because of the slipshod and uncaring nature of the Texas justice system, there is a percentage of poeple on death row we are not very sure are guilty (I believe the documentary on that was called the "thin blue line", and in one case on 60 minutes you have a judge telling a soon to be death row inmate, while his lawyer is asleep during his capital murder trial, in court, and he is complaining about it- the judge telling him "Hey, you are promised a lawyer, no one said he had to be competent) - and in California, we have almost no one being put to death on death row, despite very obvious guilt- so the penalty is useless in those cases.

So just the state to state discrepency of the application make it not only unfair, but possibly ineffective in California cases and probably killing innocents in Texas-

That being aside- NT- what is really the worse punishment for this scumbag, knowing the nature of his crime and the way his fellow inmates see him- a fairly comfy 10 years on the quiet and isolative death row wing, or fending for his life and avoiding torture for the next, say 30 years, from his fellow, very angry, inmates?

I really can think of no more horrendous punishment for a molestor or child murderer than general population in a very large prison- every single minute of thier life from the time they enter that cage until they are probably killed by fellow inmates will be a ongoing living hell-

they only have two options:

1) Protective custody, (they call it punk city usually, reserved for molestors and squeelers)

2) Trying to survive in general pop (odds are definately against them)

Usually, at some point, they end up tortured to death in cases like his if they ever choose to leave PC.

PC is solitary confinement really, a max security that there is no escape from and 1 hour of exercise outside the cell a day.

Vietnam Vets I know that were POWs say that Solitary confinement in American prison is nearly as bad as thier treatment by the NV.

Not exactly getting off easy, now is it?


In a high profile case such as this one, he will never leave jail-

it is the ones THAT DON'T make the news in a major way that concern me.

No, he doesn't. He makes what is basically an emotional appeal, and I disagree. But, he also doesn't make ridiculous statements about "the Left" in most of his posts. For lordhelmet to say "But those left wing extremists trip over each other to defend the latest cop killer, child molester, or terrorist." is taking an issue that doesn't have a straight left-right ideological split and trying ONCE AGAIN to show how much liberals just haaaaaate America.

Everyone is welcome to their opinion. My strict stance against killing puts me in a minority amongst even my fellow liberals. That is fine. But you won't catch me saying "But those right wing extremists trip over each other to find excuses to satisfy their murderous impulses - they want to kill Americans whether they are guilty of a crime or not." If I did say something in such poor taste, I would hope that someone would call me out on it, be they liberal or conservative. Indeed, I might ask you the same question you asked me. Why aren't you admonishing lordhelmet for making such a broad-brushed attack on liberals?

If you quoted my entire post to add a one-liner implying that I only attacked LH's post because he is a conservative, I don't even know what to say. That's not who I am, and I have never demonstrated as much here on AD. If AD had existed during the Clinton administration, you would have seen that I am a LIBERAL, not a DEMOCRAT.

Well, enough said. Next time perhaps you could contribute something pertinent to the topic of the thread, instead of creating partisan divisions out of thin air.

A good article documenting that the death penalty serves as a deterrent can be found at www.cs.technion.ac.il/~erelsgl/tokxot/onj_mwt/mxqr_hrtaa_2.html

The argument against the death penalty is based on two lies. Lie #1: The death penalty does not deter murder. Lie #2: Innocents are being frequently executed. Neither is the case.

From the link I referred to above:



I moved down to Houston in 1980. It was downright scary to go to much of downtown. Thanks to the death penalty that is no longer true.

I expect someone will counter the legitimate studies mentioned in my link with illegitimate studies that usually confuse cause and effect.

I'm not going to post any studies, hugo. But I will point out that sociological studies (like this one) are inherently difficult. They are attempting to correlate data within a very complex system (society). It's not about confusing cause and effect; it's that within complex systems full of unpredictable agents (people), one can find all sorts of correlations - but that doesn't necessarily mean that one causes the other. To say that "thanks to the death penalty" you can go to downtown Houston seems a bit of a stretch. The most one can say is that it is possible there may be a link. One might also find a correlation between falling crime rates and urban gentrification, or rising economic status, or increased production of rubber duckies. Just because data A (falling crime rates) coincides with data B (implementation of the death penalty) doesn't allow us to draw any conclusions about cause and effect. It only points out possibilities.

As an example: In the decades since the 1954 Brown v. the Board of Education case, crime has risen tremendously. Therefore, integrating the schools caused an increase in crime.

The period of greatest economic expansion in our country occurred while the income tax on the richest Americans was 90%. Obviously high tax rates for the wealthy cause economic expansion.

Of course, to me it wouldn't matter if the death penalty was a proven deterrent. It's still morally wrong. To me. Even if it was incredibly effective and cheap, I would oppose it steadfastly.

* Also, of course, as a liberal, I love child molesters and murderers - not to mention terrorists!

So, let's see: In order to teach a person that it's wrong to kill, we kill him.

Did I get it right?

I agree with quarkhead in his assertion that it is wrong for us to use the death penalty ostensibly to protect the sanctity of life. (I also agree with the poster who said that abortion is the loss of an innocent life as well, and that it is to be considered as killing, but that is not the subject of this particular thread.)

I also want to differ with those who have stated that the justice system is predominantly for punishment. If that is the case, why is it called the Department of Corrections instead of the Department of Punishment? Or is it that we haven't read their Mission Statement?

So many posters here have passionately argued in other threads that this country of ours is based on our Judeo-Christian beliefs, with emphasis on the Christian part, and yet the teachings of the Founder of Christianity such as "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" are dismissed in such a cavalier manner. It is a probably an indication that we really don't believe what he said to be right or reasonable.

Of course, when heinous crimes such as those we hear of every day on the news strike us in the gut, we think of retribution. But our laws are also to be based on reason--it is passion itself, the unreasoning part of us, which is largely responsible for the commission of terrible crimes. So we resort to our unreasoning side to impose on another family how it feels to have their family member killed as well?

I believe it to be crass to enter money into the equation when a human life is at stake, but it does seem to me that those who can afford the best attorneys get off most often.

Be that as it may, a life is a life. And there are those who have killed who experience remorse and try with what life is still available to them to make amends. A human life is not as quantifiable as one piece of wood is to another. And there are few of us in this life wise enough to dictate who should live and who should not. That is supposed to be left up to the one who gives life in the first place.

I admire and respect QH and PE's ideals and comments- and I don't know if they have known the same type of monsters that wear human skin that I have seen, and perhaps, even if they did, they would still adhere to thier ideals - and once again, for this, I admire them.

I always encourage those that have something to say about the criminal mind to read the book "Inside the criminal mind" by Stanton Samenow.

We don't like the word "rehabilitation" anymore- because it conotates "returning to your previous role" - something we don't want to see criminals do

The book is very good, it deals with both sides of the treatment of the criminal mind, both liberal and conservative, both sides are castigated for thier lack of pragmatic approach to the problem.

I will never, ever believe that the death penalty has ANY deterent effect - criminals DON'T THINK when they are committing hienous crimes, and even when they think it out- they still truly believe they will never get caught- or, they are under the influence of some drug or alcohol (before you get started on this one, I am a firm believer in no mercy given for diminshed capacity either) - so, in 18 years, I have never heard of a single criminal in front of me say " well, I thought about how the sentence would be, in the worst case, and did it anyway"- what a crock! They just do what they do, THEN try to avoid the consequences later.

I have a news flash for you

JAIL IS FULL OF POEPLE NOT MAKING GOOD CHOICES- and often they still make bad choices, even while in jail, not thinking of the consequences.

The only way I could see the death penalty as a deterent it to apply it to those that really have something to lose by it- CEO types such as Ken Lay or Neil Bush- they have thousands and thousands of victims, no reason to do thier crime, it is not like they NEED more money to survive, and since white collar crime IS a thinking crime where the + and - of the crime is wieghted with the crime usually (Micheal Milken had every single US citizen as a victim, spent a couple years in Jail, came out a billionare- crime does pay in his case! If we would have put him to death instead, perhaps we wouldn't have had an Enron?)

But America doesn't really punish white collar criminals, despite thier massive destructive wake they leave behind, we only really punish the poor , and even more, the ethinicity other than white.

The only consistant argument AGAINST and FOR the death penalty is personal belief systems- such as QH and PE against, and NT and myself against- and the main part is "are these poeple really human?" - I say no, they are not, and ought to be treated as a rabid dog, put down humanely and quickly WHEN THERE IS NO QUESTION AS TO DOUBT OF GUILT.

Interestingly, a careful read of the webpage you provided shows that it does not in any way document or evidence death penalty serving as a deterent.

It does repeat many times how of COURSE it acts s a deterrent, without demonstrating how with any tangible statistics, and it does spend a LOT of time on a 'logical' argument which a 10 year old could dispel.

The only stats it provides at all are the ones you listed, which show NO causal link between murder rates and the death penalty.



'Lie number 1' is the truth, and I am waiting for a link to a study which shows otherwise. Ask yourself this, if it is SO Blatantly an OBVIOUSLY true that the death penalty acts as a deterrent, why is the US the only first world nation left that has a death penalty? And while you are at it, explain why the US has the highest murder rates in the first world?

'Lie number 2' is of course a deliberate misrepresentation on your part. Nobody has ever argued that innocents are routinely or frequently killed. People have argued, and it has not yet been coherently opposed, that innocents ARE killed, infrequently perhaaps, but it still happens, and that is state murder.


So even if your points were corect, which they are not, they still do not deal with the other massive problems of the death penalty, such as the flawed and racist system, and the inherent wrongness of state killing.


As an aside, I also find it VERY amusing that many of the people here arguing FOR the death penalty are the same ones who argue AGAINT abortion, speaking at geat lengths in THOSE debates about the inviolability and sanctity of life...

Like Quarkhead, I am a big "L" liberal and a small "d" Democrat. But I'm not a knee-jerk liberal and most liberals I know do not think in lockstep. The fact that lordhelmet and I favor the death penalty means no more than if we both happened to like vanilla ice cream.

Oh yes, I freely admit my support is based upon emotional reasons. I know all the reasons against the death penalty. It's racist. It's applied haphazardly. It's not a deterrent.

I know all this and I still can accept it warts and all. Because if it does nothing else than take that one specific murderer out so he can no longer victimize innocents I can deal with the flaws.

And I would join in your reasoning nighttimer. Because we know 100% for certain that person would never be able to harm another. You know I might be against it if people were routinely being put to death that were innocent. But in this day and age now with DNA testing, I think the whole innocent man being put to death argument is fading fast. Especially since there is not one documented instance of it actually happening.

At what point in adding additional punishment does additional punishment stop being a deterrence to murder? Does 40 years in prison add a deterrent effect over 50 years in prison? Even an 8 year old can understand that additional punishment deters anti-social behavior. Why can't the murderer supporting liberal? My link referred to several econometric studies that proved what common sense tells the rational being..the death penalty deters murders.

Of course, you are confusing cause and effect when you ask why the United States has the highest murder rate in the 1st world. High murder rates lead to enacting the death penalty.

I am sure an innocent is occassionally executed by the state. My cousin was thrown out of a car and survived. The car exploded. If he had been wearing his seatbelt he would have been killed. On the whole seatbelts save lives, so does the death penalty.



Yep, they ain't executing enough white people. We do need to work to execute more white people. You don't throw out the death penalty because not enough people are being executed.

No, it did nothing of the kind. It pointed to a link which states that punishment can act as a deterent for some crimes in some cases. Then it made the vast logical leap to assume that increasing the punishment increases the deterrant, AND that death is a visible increase in the punishment.

The article demonstrated and proved NOTHING, stating something does not equal evidence. On the other hand, it has been shown time and time again that criminals do not commit crimes with the intent of getting caught. It is insane to pretend that a criminal about to commit a crime would NOT be deterred by the idea of spending the rest of their natural life in prison, but would be deterred by the death penalty.

If you ARE going to make that claim, then you need to back it up, which you have singularily failed to do.



Now THAT is funny.

You are correct of course, the fact that the US has the death penalty has nothing to do with its high murder rate. HOWEVER I find it hysterical that you then turn around and argue that the death penalty has EVERYTHING to do with lowering murder rates in some isolated instances.

So causality only applies to your arguments?



Its nice to have that admission. We can work from there.

Firstly, explain to me again how killing people (as opposed to putting them in prison for the rest of their lives) saves lives?

Explain to me how you can blithely accept the state murdering innocent people?

Finally, even if your counter-logical supposition were true about executing people saving lives, Explain to me EXACTLY what ratio of murdered innocents you would find acceptable for the greater good? Perhaps if we killed everyone convicted of a violent crime? Sure innocents would die, but you have already made it clear you have no problem with that at all, as long as it can be said to serve a 'greater good'.


The state killing people is wrong, it serves no purpose, and it risks innocent lives.

It is odd that you place SUCH a high value on protecting innocent people that you are willing to kill innocent people in order to protect innocent people...





The racist and flawed nature of the system which is then turning around and killing people is a huge and serious point. If you are going to address it, please adress it in a serious manner.

If you insist on addressing it in a flippant manner, could you please refain from being so incredibly insulting in your flippancy.