Clemency for Tookie Williams?

[Dumb Snowman]

Mecos, every now and then you write an educated, well thought out post, and it just blows my mind! Now I'm gonna go read your journal to recover.

[NorthView]

If the state expects its citizens to respect human life, it needs to set an example. Children who suffer at the hands of a violent parent are far more likely to repeat that violence against their own children...and so the cycle continues.

Bear in mind too, that when you kill a murderer you're often giving him an easier way out (and punishing his family and friends instead). Far better to let him spend the rest of his life contemplating the error of his ways - a real, rather than Biblical, hell.

In terms of effectiveness, if you want to stop a murderer from murdering again, imprisonment will achieve that. If, on the other hand, you want to deter people from committing murders in the first place there's no research I've seen that suggests the death sentence actually does that (if someone can provide some data I'd be interested to see it, as would the pro-capital punishment brigade here who have been looking forlornly for such evidence for decades).

On the contrary, in Victorian times in the UK the death sentence was routinely handed out for crimes as trivial as pickpocketing, and the guilty were hung in public. Where were the most popular places for pickpockets to ply their trade? Yep, public hangings.

So what do we have? It's morally wrong and doesn't work as a deterrent. It's only justification is that it satisfies a primitive lust for revenge.

[NWCougar]

Well, he's dead. One thing about his execution that interested me was that the couple of supporters that were there with him yelled out, "California just murdered an innocent man" after his death. Now, not only was he convicted of these 4 murders, his conviction was upheld in several appeal hearings. And, as founder and former leader of the crips, it's hard for me to think that he never killed anybody else back then, he just wasn't caught. None of these people who are claiming his innocence have been able to provide any facts about the case which would lead a person to believe that he's innocent. they're all just bandwagon fans. Also, an interesting fact that CNN said, for all those people claiming that California only executes black people, 6 of the last 8 people executed in California were white. I believe that all murderers and rapists should be executed. After their initial trial they should be given ONE appeal, to be heard within 18 months of the original conviction. If this appeal does not overturn the conviction, the execution would be performed on the following Sunday. Too much money is spent on prisoners.

[BigPhish]

[iceman5]

[iceman5]

[iceman5]

[NorthView]

[redhouse]

[stickdude]

[BigPhish]

[JDLush]

[BigPhish]

[NorthView]

[NorthView]