i think we should use death row inmates for science, but their ultimate demise should be death.

1/21/2009 2:25:37 PM

i think anyone in jail or prison should get a bill for their room and board and an opportunity to work off the balance

fuck this cable tv and internet shit or whatever you hear about

books, ok, workout equipment ok, food, ok, jumpsuits, ok, general hygene items, ok

but your bitch ass is paying for all of it!!

1/21/2009 2:27:18 PM

yep

1/21/2009 2:27:50 PM

<--- agrees

1/21/2009 2:28:37 PM

I am strongly against it for the following reasons.

1. no human should ever play God, no matter what the person has done. Its hypocritical.
2. Someone being in jail for life allows them to actually have a better chance to reflect on what they have done. Also allowing them to give back to society for what they have done through service.
3. death penalties cost more, its cheaper to keep someone in jail for life. Why waste more tax payer money?
4. It sends a bad message and hardly any countries have the death penalty, the U.S. is one of the last countries that still enforces this.

I favor life sentences w/o parole.

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 2:29 PM. Reason : d]

1/21/2009 2:28:37 PM

i'd rather pay for bon qui qui on welfare with 8 kids than some scumbag rapist in jail

1/21/2009 2:29:05 PM

<---disagree^^



[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 2:31 PM. Reason : you make a hot ninja]

1/21/2009 2:29:23 PM

Quote :

"3. death penalties cost more, its cheaper to keep someone in jail for life. Why waste more tax payer money? "

how is that?

1/21/2009 2:30:36 PM

^^^^ death penalties cost more, you spend more tax payers money on litigation etc. then paying for an inmates life in jail.

that is the biggest misconception of the death penalty. its NOT cheaper.

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 2:31 PM. Reason : f]

1/21/2009 2:31:07 PM

Quote :

"no human should ever play God, no matter what the person has done. Its hypocritical. "

this is assuming that everyone is a christian believing in god to begin with...

Quote :

"2. Someone being in jail for life allows them to actually have a better chance to reflect on what they have done. Also allowing them to give back to society for what they have done through service. "

i think the number of people with life sentences who "give back to society" are few and far between

furthermore, what they have TAKEN from society usually outweighs what they give back

im going to have to totally diagree with your post

^ we could MAKE it cheaper by not allowing a bajillion appeals. your ass is guilty!! get over it!

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 2:33 PM. Reason : kldjfkdjf]

1/21/2009 2:32:15 PM

^ ya but that's NOT going to happen, welcome to U.S. bureaucracy.

1/21/2009 2:34:47 PM

I say we should have the guilty fight each other in a Gladiator-style match in places like the RBC Center. If the fight gets too boring, we should release tigers into the ring and set up spikes that pop out in random places.

This way everyone's bloodlust is satisfied.

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 2:35 PM. Reason : .]

1/21/2009 2:34:57 PM

it's not like people that are given life in prison don't appeal or something.. they all are gonna fight as long as they can

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 2:35 PM. Reason : I'm with ^]

1/21/2009 2:35:07 PM

let the games begin!

1/21/2009 2:35:50 PM

Quote :

"Witch "then" are you reefering too?"

i didn't see one in the thread, i just know it happens often and i wanted to set up the last one because of how far off it was

1/21/2009 2:39:04 PM

^
Oh, I see.

Quote :

"what's your opinion on the death penalty?"

How about:
Shouldn't death-row inmates, if anyone, be allowed to commit suicide? Think about it.
Why is suicide illegal in the first place? Should that apply to those sentenced to die?

1/21/2009 2:45:04 PM

should only apply to knee grows and white ppl that voted for Obama.

1/21/2009 2:47:34 PM

Quote :

"The most comprehensive study conducted in this country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of a nondeath penalty system imposing a maximum sentence of imprisonment for life.9 These findings are sensitive to the number of executions the state carries out. However, the authors noted that even if the death penalty were 100% efficient, i.e., if every death sentence resulted in an execution, the extra costs to the taxpayers would still be $216,000 per execution."

excerpt from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/COcosttestimony.pdf

1/21/2009 2:51:32 PM

It's not all dollars and cents, though
I don't mind a little bit of extra money being spent to execute some people

1/21/2009 2:52:29 PM

I rather spend $216,000 at min on schools and education.

you are talking to a political scientist here haha. where is God and [user]Twoolez[/user]
they had this class with me.

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 2:54 PM. Reason : f]

1/21/2009 2:53:16 PM

how about this... the family of the victim(s) get to decide if the offending party should be executed

that seems most fair

if they vote for execution, they are given choices between weapons to off the fucker(s) themselves or a hit man to do it for them

just because something is "too expensive" doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. we should be looking instead to cut costs where we can so executions are more financially feasible

i mean with that logic, i have to ask, are you saying that you oppose organ transplants because they cost more than letting someone die?

1/21/2009 3:00:47 PM

why would you need a hitman for a prisoner?

a fat guy with a black hood will do just fine

1/21/2009 3:05:38 PM

saving a life > killing a life. that logic does not make sense. death penalty is not a necessity, you have jail. comparing that to organ transplants where someone could lose a life isn't a fair comparison. plus i have my other reasons.

1/21/2009 3:09:39 PM

Feed them to the sharks.

1/21/2009 3:12:57 PM

All of you in favor of the death penalty would probably fold if you actually had to kill the person yourself.

1/21/2009 3:13:17 PM

it could be argued that organ transplants aren't necessary

they are too costly and risky for the patient

i understand your point about saving lives.. but that kind of falls flat when companies wont invest R&D into drugs & procedures that can save lives because they aren't profitable enough

if saving a life is the best thing to do, why do treatments and diseases go unresearched and untreated due to lack of research funding?

dont get me wrong, i'm all about saving lives, but in my world, someone who has committed a crime such as murder, no longer deserves their life

drug, arson and burgularly are much lesser offenses and can be punished with time in the slammer but murder is wrong wrong wrong!

rape is fucking wrong too but how you do separate the drunk college kid who's partner cant remember what happened and the date rapist who knows exactly what hes doing? thats a gray line. im not willing to send all rapists to the death just yet

1/21/2009 3:14:40 PM

no one said murder is right. and if you are arguing that its wrong wrong wrong, then its wrong wrong wrong to take someone else's life too. its hypocritical.

life in prison w/o parole is not fun and games, you don't have a life in jail.

1/21/2009 3:20:22 PM

If you accidently dump them in some shark infested water I wouldnt consider it murder

1/21/2009 3:22:57 PM

Not a fan.

I think we should just start the practice of banishment again with NO appeal process.

Banish all murderers, child molesters to another country

That'll stop those assholes really fast.

1/21/2009 3:58:06 PM

Quote :

"their ultimate demise should be death"

As opposed to...?

1/21/2009 4:10:20 PM

I am against the death penalty.

GoldenGirl has hit on some of my reasons why.

I also do not believe that the death penalty can be fairly and justly administered in an unbiased fashion.

1/21/2009 4:14:27 PM

ummmm...I have mixed feeling about the death penalty. My logical side says no, but my man side says yes.

I'm more interested in making inmates clean up our roads and doing crappy jobs not even mexicans will do.

1/21/2009 4:36:33 PM

i would be in favor of no death penalty if ALL prisoners had to PAY for their room and board during their time

free loaders really grind my nerves

im sorry but its a shame that there are homeless people out there that have nowhere to live and no food due to circumstance and murderers and rapists get a bed to sleep in, clean clothes and 3 square meals a day--- FUCKING FREE

fuck that noise

1/21/2009 5:05:43 PM

the only reason that the death penalty typically costs more than life in prison, currently, is because we let these convicted felons sit in jails for years, allow them appeal, after appeal, and have lawyers that bend and misinterpret laws to extend cases.

I guarantee you, if the death penalty was served in less than one week, it would be hella cheaper. Of course, the manner of arriving at a death sentence would need changing - something like credible DNA evidence, 2 or more credible eye witnesses, confession, etc.

1/21/2009 5:09:44 PM

Quote :

""3 strikes" sentences should be restricted to life in jail, not death. "

So you prefer death by imprisonment to death by other means?

I don't really care either way about the death sentence, but I have a serious issue with any sort of "3-strikes" laws.

1/21/2009 7:44:31 PM

It's massively underutilized.

I think most real crimes probably deserve at minimum corporal punishment (immediate public lashing for example) and in addition most violent crimes probably deserve either banishment/exile to a totally separate area of the country (assault, armed robbery, etc.) on top of that, or the death penalty (rape, murder, etc.) and they need to be expedient and public.

1/21/2009 7:50:30 PM

I miss the days where 'off with his head' was a common practice instead of a years-long legal battle

1/21/2009 7:52:04 PM

against.

too many problems that will never get worked out in our justice system. some have been mentioned here. don't feel like getting into them. essentially you have a choice: death penalty OR the principles of our justice system (such as it is) and our country (you know, all that freedom and liberty bs). we tell ourselves that we exist under the premise that we'd rather see 10 guilty men go free than imprison one innocent man (wahooo liberty! freedom! justice! equality!). this isn't exactly what we do in practice. i'm not sure what the fuck we do in practice, but this isn't it. and whatever the hell we do, doesn't work.

the death penalty doesn't work either. yea, maybe it would work if it was implemented in a "timely manner"--like days after the crime. then we'd be throwing the whole burden of proof thing out the window. after working with the center on actual innocence, i just can't support it. and i can't support something that aligns us with countries that we point fingers at and call "inhumane" when some of the things we do are no better.

not a fan of hypocrisy and i think that the death penalty, as it is currently administered, is hypocritical and inefficient. however, i am also against it based on principle alone. but i'd have an easier time supporting it if the flaws weren't so numerous and seemingly incorrigible.

1/21/2009 7:59:59 PM

you're gonna be such a great little lawyer !

1/21/2009 8:02:00 PM

Well, to be frank I don't think too highly of either our government as it is implemented or our judicial system. I've often considered law school (in fact, I'm considering taking the LSAT this year) but I can't reconcile my personal philosophy and my concern for justice with our ass backwards judicial system.

1/21/2009 8:02:26 PM

The method of execution should be humane to an extent, but this lethal injection shit has to go.

I am ok with public beheadings, firing squads, and electrocutions though

1/21/2009 8:04:25 PM

I think if you're going to put an inmate to death you shouldn't be concerned about how humane it is. Do away with the electric chair the gas chamber and the pussified lethal injection. Every state has a solid tree somewhere around, right? And rope is pretty inexpensive, right?

Put that shit on pay per view and make some $$ of it.

1/21/2009 8:05:02 PM

^^^this is sort of how i feel. its just mass confusion. it is REALLY hard to reconcile things like personal belief systems and "THE LAW"

i'm one of those people that can find something wrong with everything i learn, but i don't have a solution. only my opinion which doesn't really count for much

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 8:05 PM. Reason : .]

1/21/2009 8:05:33 PM

Quote :

"im sorry but its a shame that there are homeless people out there that have nowhere to live and no food due to circumstance and murderers and rapists get a bed to sleep in, clean clothes and 3 square meals a day--- FUCKING FREE fuck that noise"

Agreed, all capable prisoners should have to "pay for their stay".
Perhaps they should even leave prison with a hefty bill. Or even better, not be let out until the bill is payed. (Not exactly debtor's prison, just a way to make criminals literally pay for their crimes and their punishment.) It makes no sense for a thief or vandal to be arrested, pay thousands of dollars of restitution for the property they stole or damaged, but then get thousands of dollars of prison cell maintenance, prison food, prison HVAC, prison laundry, etc. No. They are the ones that did something wrong. No one else should have to pay for that.

Of course, then there's this:

Quote :

"James Wolfe was doing hard time in Pennsylvania for raping an eight-year-old girl when he discovered that prison can be a pretty good deal. It seems James had always wanted to be a woman (he had even changed his name to Jessica), and a doctor labeled his condition "gender identity disorder." That made James eligible for hormone treatments to help change his gender -- at taxpayer expense. The state says these treatments don't cost much, but according to an estimate by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, they can run up to $8,000 per year. Here's the really bitter medicine: That amount could go a long way toward providing health insurance for a family. With an estimated 44 million people in America lacking health coverage, one million of them in Pennsylvania alone, you'd think inmates would be the last to receive elective procedures. But Wolfe isn't the only criminal trying to get this sort of free treatment behind bars. Last year in New York State, for instance, a judge allowed a convicted murderer's lawsuit, demanding treatment for his gender identity disorder, to go forward. And in California this summer, an inmate allegedly got a state-funded breast reduction operation. He happens to be a man. Plastic surgeons typically charge close to $3,000 for this procedure. It gets worse because the problem goes well beyond these sorts of unusual treatments. Around the country, hardened criminals of every stripe receive top-notch care that many average families don't get, including expensive dental surgery. In Oregon, which has recently cut public health benefits, the state is spending about $120,000 per year on dialysis treatments for a convicted murderer on death row. In other words, it's shelling out big bucks to keep him alive until it's time to kill him. True, there's always the chance he'll get his death sentence revoked, but why are his costly treatments guaranteed and fully covered when plenty of law-abiding people can't afford the care they need? Something to think about. So is the fact that other hugely expensive treatments, like bone marrow transplants and heart-bypass surgery, have been provided to prisoners, courtesy of your wallet and mine. Convicts sometimes even qualify for precious organ transplants. [Two years ago in California, a twice-convicted felon serving time for armed robbery got a new ticker, at an initial cost to the state of $900,000. At the time, 3,900 people were on the national waiting list for a new heart, and hundreds of them eventually died waiting. Meanwhile, a person without health insurance might never have made the list in the first place. Unlike an inmate with guaranteed coverage from the government, an uninsured individual may be judged too financially risky by many hospitals. It's all startling evidence of a little-known quirk of American life: The only class of people with a constitutional right to health care in the United States are prison inmates. For the roughly one in seven Americans living without coverage, their best hope of seeing a doctor for free might be getting thrown behind bars. "Inmates are in the custody of the state, and it's our obligation to provide medical care to them," says Nick Lyman, a spokesman for the New York State corrections department. How did it come to this? In 1976 the Supreme Court ruled that denying health care to inmates could amount to the "cruel and unusual" punishment prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. But thanks in part to a slew of prisoner lawsuits that have intimidated state officials, criminals often get care that others don't, or care that is far more than standard. Take that California inmate who had breast surgery earlier this year. The prison's medical office insists that the inmate had a potentially cancerous lump removed. But state legislators had received a tip from a prison employee that the man was treated for overdevelopment of the breasts, possibly from steroid use, and legislators couldn't determine whether a biopsy was performed first. That was hardly the first case of its kind. "We found seven [breast reduction] cases in the last couple of years," says state assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn. Four of the seven procedures were done shortly before the inmates were released. At times, the inmates even get top-dollar treatment. Cohn says the California state prison system spent $11 million for dermatology services in just one budget year -- including services performed by a Beverly Hills dermatologist. The state has also spent millions on hearing aids for prisoners, even though many private health plans don't cover hearing aids. It's no wonder, then, that California's prison health care costs soared by 11 percent over the past year, even as its Medi-Cal program for the poor was chopped by almost $240 million. Sure, this can be a tricky issue. Should we just let inmates die of illness without treatment? Does anyone want to deny a jailed shoplifter an emergency room visit? Of course not. But maybe it's time to ration care behind bars more carefully. Maybe a violent criminal who needs a liver should be bumped down the long waiting list. And surely criminals shouldn't be rewarded with better coverage than law-abiding people, who deal with ever-stricter managed-care plans. The bottom line, though, is simply this: Premium health care shouldn't be the reward for robbing a bank. From Reader's Digest - October 2004"

1/22/2009 5:25:38 AM

^ that's so fucking disgusting.

1/22/2009 5:32:15 AM

^^

and

Quote :

"i think anyone in jail or prison should get a bill for their room and board and an opportunity to work off the balance fuck this cable tv and internet shit or whatever you hear about books, ok, workout equipment ok, food, ok, jumpsuits, ok, general hygene items, ok but your bitch ass is paying for all of it!!"

That's double jeopardy. Why? Because when the State takes you into custody, they are then your State appointed Custodian. By law, Legal Custodians HAVE to provide necessities to those in their custody. If they have to provide adequate health care for you, then it is what it is. That like saying you will make your child pay you back for all the money you spent on them until they are 18 years old. NOT.

As far as how I feel about the death penalty, (legally) killing someone never resolves anything.

[Edited on January 22, 2009 at 7:22 AM. Reason : /]

1/22/2009 7:17:35 AM

I'm against the death penalty and abortion in almost all cases. Consistency bitches.

1/22/2009 7:38:02 AM

Quote :

"double jeopardy"

(...referring to the "not getting punished twice for the same crime" part, not the "not getting tried twice for the same crime" part.)
Is it really double jeopardy? I don't think it is. Having to pay for services rendered is not the same as being punished. Probationers have to pay for their probation, right? Well, prisoners should have to pay for their prison expenses. This is fucking no-brainer.

Quote :

"the State takes you into custody [as a prisoner], they are then your State appointed Custodian"

Well, that shouldn't be. That is a misinterpretation of the constitution and will eventually be overturned.

parents or guardians : the minors in their custody :: the state : inmates in its custody
This analogy is false!!!!!!

1/22/2009 8:11:57 AM

I think the point that seedless was trying to make is that the denial of medical treatment IS viewed as a punishment. For example, prisoners that aren't on death row are not being sent to prison to die. Denying them medical treatment in this case equates to locking someone away against their will, with no way to seek medical attention that they might otherwise receive while not incarcerated. By becoming an inmate, you do in fact become a ward/responsibility of the government.

As for the case of the transgendered inmate, I don't really think it's fair that tax $ goes toward his "luxury" treatment. At the same time, I realize that mental illness (I use this term very loosely) is recognized by our current penal system. By denying that inmate a treatment for a condition that he was essentially diagnosed with, the powers in place would be putting themselves in a pretty hairy situation

1/22/2009 9:07:46 AM

I think it's an excellent solution to prison over-population.

1/22/2009 9:21:54 AM