Comments on: Calif. could end the death penalty in November
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- The above arguments sound more like a plea for prison reform, which should happen, than for or against the death penalty. Does not anyone believe in even a tiny spark of goodness in even some of the worst criminals? Not ALL of the people on Death Row or in prison are completely hopeless people with utterly no sense of good or bad in their brains. I think it's pathetic that the easiest solution that our society can come up with to deal with disturbed people is to kill them. Perhaps with education, even reluctant, remote kindness, (how many of these people in prison were beaten and abused as children themselves and never taught a single thing about morality or ethics?), SOME could be saved. If ONE person could be saved, reformed, he'd be the ultimately decent man being murdered by the State of California. This is so logical to me, and fair, I just cannot consider a single "valid" argument for capital punishment and never will be able to. If ONE person is killed who was potentially a good person, someone we'd like and trust as a neighbor on our block, then the death penalty is totally wrong.
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- California should abolish the death penalty because a moral wrong is a moral wrong. No matter what horrible crime somebody has done, (and I do believe that some people should be locked up for life for the protection of society and because they are so far gone they could never fit into society), there is absolutely no justification for killing another human being. Revenge is not a good reason for capital punishment. I'm not religious but even the Ten Commandments say, "Thou shalt not kill". Doesn't say, "Thou shalt not kill unless it's for revenge." There are probably a hundred good reasons to not accept capital punishment, but I'll list a few: One, it costs more to NOT kill them than it does to kill them, because of legal stuff, appeals, etc. (As if money is a concern but it is to some who say why feed them for the rest of their lives?) Two, some people are innocent. Fortunately now we have DNA testing but when one considers all the totally innocent people who have been murdered throughout history it's a horror, and why take the risk of ever killing another completely innocent human being? Three, we can LEARN from criminals. Ted Bundy was put to death but maybe we could have learned how serial killers operate and think in their brains to prevent future serial killers if he hadn't been. Ditto with that young guy who blew up the Oklahoma City building back in the '90's, Timothy McVey. WHAT were they thinking, could they tell us, and could we prevent future events like that by getting to know that kind of perverted mind better? Four, people can CHANGE through life and living, even in prison and on Death Row. Some people have legitimate, honest remorse, they ache inwardly with angst over their crime and want to make it right if they possibly could, if they had the opportunity, and are better people in their own way than maybe all of us are, but they get killed anyway. That's not fair whatsoever and that's OUR loss in our communities and in the State of California. Five, our United States Constitution says that we do not have "cruel or unusual punishment." What is more cruel than murdering somebody? Cutting off someone's hand for stealing sounds cruel and unusual and like something we would never do in the United States, it sounds ridiculous, but is strapping a frightened human being onto a hospital gurney and coldly and unemotionally injecting them with a lethal drug, or forcing them to go into a gas chamber to breathe cyanide gas or putting a rope around their neck to kick and gasp until they are blue in the face and dead any less "cruel or unusual"? Capital punishment is against our United States Constitution. It's cruel. And here's something I learned recently: When somebody is put to death the cause of their death on their death certificate is listed as "homicide". My mama taugvht me that two wrongs don't make a right and I believe she was right.
and want to make it right if they possibly could if they had the opportunity and are better people in their own way than maybe all of us are, but they get killed anyway. That's not fair whatsoever and that's OUR loss in our communities and in the State of California. Five, our United States Constitution says that we do not have "cruel or unusual punishment." What is more cruel than murdering someone? Cutting off somebody's hand for stealing sounds cruel and unusual and like something we would never do in the United States, it sounds ridiculous, but is strapping a human being onto a hospital bed and coldly and unemotionally injecting them with a lethal drug, or making them go into a gas chamber to breathe cyanide gas any less "cruel or unusual"? Capital punishment is against our United States Constitution. It's cruel. And here's something I learned recently: When somebody is put to death the cause of their death on their death certificate is listed as "homicide". My mama taugvht me that two wrongs don't make a right and I know she was right. - Reply to this comment
- The 729 convicted murderers on death row were convicted of brutally killing at least 1,279 people. At least 230 of them were children. 75 more were young adults between the ages of 18-20. Another 82 victims were older than 65.
Of these victims, at least 211 of them were raped and 319 of them robbed. Sixty-six victims were killed in execution style, usually bound and shot in the back of the head. Forty-seven victims were tortured.
Forty-three of these victims were law enforcement agents and another seven were security guards. Not included in these numbers are cases where the killer attempted to kill a police officer, but was unsuccessful, as in the case of Oswaldo Amezcua who shot three police officers.
An important consideration in changing a killer's sentence to life is whether he has murdered other inmates while incarcerated. Eleven death sentences were handed down after an already-incarcerated inmate murdered another inmate. Troy Ashmus had previously killed an inmate and viciously attacked a deputy while incarcerated for another crime. Joseph Barrett killed an inmate while incarcerated for having killed a teacher. Kenneth Bivert killed an inmate while already incarcerated on three counts of murder. John Capistrano had a previous conviction for killing an inmate and attacked another inmate in a holding cell. Joseph Danks was already incarcerated for six murders when he killed the inmate which led to his death sentence. Martin Drews was also serving time for murder when he killed an inmate. Similarly, Lee Capers brought a knife to court to stab one of the witnesses testifying against him.
While the murders for which these killers were sentenced to death are horrendous, the murder victims are only a part of the trail of violence left by these killers. Many had killed others before finally being sentenced to death for their most recent killing. Others are suspected to have killed dozens more. For example, Randy Kraft is believed to have killed at least 65 other people. Another serial killer Glen Rogers was convicted of killing three other people in three other states and confessed to his sister he was responsible for more than 70 killings. Lawrence Bittaker is suspected to have raped and murdered another 30-40 victims in addition to the five for which he was sentenced to death. Charles Ng, while convicted for murdering eleven people, is suspected to have killed up to 25 people. Wesley Shermantine is believed to have killed 25 people even though only convicted for four. This year he has began leading law enforcement to more bodies. More than twenty additional murders have been attributed to Cleamon Johnson. Police suspect William Suff murdered twenty woman in addition to the twelve for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. Michael Allen is believed to have killed 12-20 more people in addition to the two he was sentenced to die for. Franklin Lynch was linked to more than thirteen additional murders. David Carpenter was believed to have killed another 7-11 victims. Anh Duong was suspected of having committed 7 murders and 15 armed robberies. Kevin Haley was suspected in seven other homicides. Dennis Webb admitted to five additional murders. Steven Homick has also been sentenced to death in Nevada for 3 murders. Malcolm Robbins admitted to or was convicted of killing four additional minors. Thus, these individuals alone are responsible for approximately another 300 murders. - Reply to this comment
- The arguments in support of Pro. 34, the ballot measure to abolish the death penalty, are exaggerated at best and, in most cases, misleading and false. Proposition 34 is being funded primarily by a wealthy company out of Chicago and the ACLU. It includes provisions that would make our prisons less safe for both other prisoners and prison officials. It significantly increases the costs to taxpayers due to life-time medical costs, the increased security required to coerce former death-row inmates to work, the money to pay those inmates to work, etc. The amount "saved" in order to help fund law enforcement is negligible and only for three years. (The money is taken from the general fund irregardless of whether Prop 34 actually saves any money.) Prop. 34 also takes away funds inmates could use to actually fight for their innocence, increasing the risk that innocent people will spend the rest of their lives in jail. The dollars Prop. 34 takes away ensure both that innocent people are not executed or spend the rest of their lives in jail. Get the facts and supporting evidence at http://cadeathpenalty.********, http://waiting4justice.org/, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb7HMOfxxLE.
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- Seriously, execute the the killers that are caught committing the crime. Even though these were not crimes committed in CA; Holmes, Loughner and the Ft. Hood shooter, are examples of killers that should be executed immediately. I am certain there are persons on death row in CA that were 100% guilty like these three examples. Unfortunately, these guilty types are lawyered up and are spending millions of taxpayer dollars fighting the system. Only the lawyers win! Those that are convicted and given death or life without parole should be put in a 5 foot by 5 foot cubicle that is completely without light and fed through a slot in the door. I believe most would beg to be executed instead of living in a coffin.
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- How about life in prison at the SHU at Pelcian Bay.
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- Just what we need - another state where killing kids is OK.
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- By killing a person in jail it makes you no better than the person in jail who killed someone else! Maybe we should make our prisons a hard labor place and take away all of the things that make a prison easy to live in. Make prisons, prisons!
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- if we repealed the death penalty there would be thousands of lawyers that would be unemployed. They would start filing thousands of frivolous lawsuits to make an obscene living at our expense. We have enough of that already.
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- If a person is found guilty with unequivocal proof, no appeal should be allowed to begin with; if not, then let them appeal ONCE. If the same results occur- end it. No more dragging it out with appeal after appeal after appeal.
Most of these people don't pay their own legal bills.
Why should the state?
Require attorneys to handle a certain amount of cases for free- completely FREE. They make enough money to work for free some of the time. Lesson the amount attorneys can rape the state for and the appeals process will fix itself. Less appeals, less the cost for caring for the cockroaches filling their prisons. - Reply to this comment
