Executions suspended in Florida and California

[Gabu]

I'm sure a man who rapes a little girl, burys her underground alive and tortured her deserves to spend the rest of his life being protecting in a nice jail cell. (John Couey) Sorry, that son of a bitch deserves to have nothing less then a rope strung around his neck and his sorry ass swinging from a tree somewhere.

My thoughts exactly!! Well, I'd say either give that slime bag the electric chair, or take him to the zoo and toss him in the lion pit.

Maybe sick Leatherface on him.

In China they use one single bullet in the guy's brain as an execution method and then charge the guy's family for the cost of the bullet.

I've never quite understood why North American executions need to cost so much, in light of this fact...

[Gabu]

The death penalty is like Raid for murderers.  It kills them -- dead.  No need to worry about those cockroaches further after that.

The thing about the death penalty is that it's Raid for everyone who gets convicted, not just for murderers.  The main issue I have with it is the fact that you can't exactly go "oops, we screwed up" if you execute a guy and then find out he was innocent.  I think far too many conservatives simply take it as a given that convincted people are definitely guilty and never even consider the fact that a guy on death row might not have done what he was accused of.

If you have 100% conclusive proof beyond a shadow of a doubt, fine, but with any less strong proof, I would be very wary at using the death penalty.  If you're scared about a guy getting parole, then make it harder to get parole.  It's not a dichotomy between killing the person and setting him free.

[Gabu]

Unless you have 100% conclusive proof beyond the shadow of a (reasonable) doubt

I didn't mean beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard for a usual conviction; I meant beyond virtually any doubt.

[Gabu]

But how can we ask that a jury and judge distinguish between "beyond reasonable doubt" and "virtually any doubt"?  That's kind of a tall order.  Having a judge say that something is "beyond reasonable doubt" but NOT beyond "virtually any doubt" is kind of setting up for a reversal of conviction.

Well, if it's beyond reasonable doubt but not beyond virtually any doubt, the guy gets a life sentence rather than death, simple as that.  I'm not suggesting you let the guy go free if you can't put him to death.

The picture I have in my mind is some nutcase who goes on a rampaging killing spree, admits to it, expresses pleasure in having done it, and says that he'd do it again if he had the chance.  I have no problem with killing someone like that.  For me, the sentence isn't even so much about punishment for the criminal; it's about the safety of the public, and that includes striking some sort of balance between ridding the world for good of unrepentent murderers who obviously are guilty and yet not killing people who might be innocent.

[Gabu]

But certainly, that would address all the other issues.  But that's definitely not how the system is instituted right now.

Well, yeah, it's not.  I'm not arguing that the death penalty is okay right now.  I certainly don't think it is, and I was illustrating something along the lines of what I think would make it better, although the details are, of course, sketchy, given that I'm not a lawmaker.