I never thought I´d get to the point were someone would bring up the idea that Trump would select a racist mass-murderer as a running mate and a little part of me was obliged to say ¨you know, even that might not be disqualifying for some Americans.¨
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Jaw-dropping, isn’t it?
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I´m from Michigan which in 1846 became the first English-speaking government to get rid of the death penalty. I was proud of that, and also proud of my adoptive state of Illinois jettisoning theirs after figuring out that you couldn´t swing a dead cat around death row without hitting an innocent man. But it´s going to take the Supreme Court to stop Texas.
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I take some comfort that our presumed next governor, currently Lt. Gov., Gavin Newsom is opposed to the death penalty as opposed to our current governor Jerry Brown who is only “morally opposed.” Newsom also supports background check on ammo purchases.
Gov. Jerry Brown is a moral opponent of the death penalty. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the one declared candidate to replace Brown in 2018, opposes capital punishment, too, and was the one statewide official who publicly supported a 2012 failed initiative that sought to end the death penalty.
Without doing a lot of Googling I can’t elaborate, but there was a capital punishment case in the South, GA or AL, where the judge overrode the jury’s decision of life in prison and imposed the death penalty. As almost always, the prisoner was black
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Oddly, as a thorough-going atheist, I’m not morally opposed to the death penalty. I reject the argument that “only God can decide how long a person should live.” If you truly believe that, you’d have to outlaw the practice of medicine.
I oppose the death penalty on purely practical grounds. It doesn’t do any good, and when it’s applied unfairly, the injustice can’t be corrected. The solution is to get rid of it.
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Roof committed an act of domestic terrorism intended to spark a race war. He looked at his victims as less than human and killed them even after they’d shown him kindness. If anything rises to the level of deserving of the death penalty, I think this is one of those occasions. However, I prefer his punishment be life in prison without the possibility parole. Its not like I feel any mercy towards him – he can never redeem himself – but the same as with other terrorists, I do not want to see him martyred for such an insane hideous cause. He should not be allowed communication with any outside groups that would seek to elevate him or his terrible crime against humanity.
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I believe that ‘Life Without Parole’ is cruel and unusual. Put me in a box that size and I’d be attempting to kill anything within reach in under 45 days. This is not a ITG moment, I have to have the opportunity to get outside. I despise concrete. I loathe pavement. Kinder to execute me.
Solitary confinement, given that humans are an inherently social species, is torture (sort of like having one guinea pig as a pet). But I don’t think that life in prison necessarily has to be cruel and unusual punishment.
If that works for you good. I disagree.
A society has an obligation to protect itself from a terrorist such as Roof and the violence and hatred he sought to spread. This person doesn’t deserve any consideration past what is legally due him. If its possible to legally lock him up forever so he can longer do any harm,or influence others to do harm, then I fully support that effort. I will not extend compassion to him, nor will I worry that he suffers in solitary confinement. The people who deserve our support and care are the families who’ve suffered the death of their loved ones at the hands of racist maniac.
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I understand your sentiment, twowolves. But my stance against capital punishment is founded in the belief that, maybe self-defense notwithstanding, no one has the right to kill another sentient being, and that state sanctioned murder is the most vile sort. I realize the alternative would be worse for some, better for others. And as much as I’d enjoy reading about some people finding themselves under a falling piano (Cheney, Voldemort) I think capital punishment diminishes us as a society. Not to mention the problem of executing innocents, mentally impaired, or individuals who committed their crimes as minors back when we were still executing juveniles. But I think for some, like Roof, the old saying that “death is too good for them” applies. Still, your point is well taken.
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The feds should let South Carolina do this. It’s not like that state (“too small for a republic. . . .”) is a bastion of liberalism and progressive ideas about criminal justice.
There’s only one way to teach someone the very important lesson that killing another human being is always, absolutely, positively, every-single-time, no-questions-about-it wrong: Kill 'em.
In the world of allegedly “pro-life” Republicans, this is what passes for “reasoning.”
I’m just waiting for Republicans to suggest that we privatize executions. Surely Koch Industries has a subsidiary that does that sort of thing.
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It’s been years since I read Foucault’s Discipline and Punish @twowolves but it’s an interesting read on the modern penal movement away from the idea of corporal punishment as a deterrent and towards a penitentiary style rehabilitation of the soul. Not sure how that works when one is driven mad in the process, but Foucault’s “Panopticon” puts an interesting twist on the idea of the penitent soul’s longing for redemption. Heaven or hell in the mirror, depending on who’s looking at it.
We had a similar discussion surround Anders Breivik’s complaint that he was being subjected to inhuman conditions by by being kept in isolation, out of the mainstream of Norway’s prison population. Their system ifs focused on rehabilitation and has a very low recidivism rate. Breivik is the fascist – who as you may remember, plotted and carried out a murderous political attack on children attending a socialist summer camp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks
Prison authorities likely wanted to keep him from infecting others with his ideology. Nonetheless, the supreme court of Norway sided with Brevik and now he lives among the mainstream prison population. Norway does not have the death penalty and Brevik will be released in 16 years even if he is still unrepentant, but found to be sane. Some looked upon Norway favorably for this – I personally am horrified. Not that they didn’t execute him, not that they didn’t keep him in solitary, but that their laws are such that he can be a free in only 16 years after murdering scores of innocent children which he justified with his malignant political ideology.
If I compare this situation to Roof – I just want to be damned certain Roof never sets foot a free man. If it takes executing him, then it will be what it will be – but as I stated above, I don’t want him to become a political martyr for likeminded miscreants. Better to make him disappear from sight forever – I don’t care if its a dark hole. He deserves to forfeit any pleasure in life by taking part in company or in breathing fresh air. He didn’t give a fuck about those innocent people who’s lives he stole and the suffering he caused their families and the fear he unleashed in the african american community. Its really unbecoming to be worrying about saving his sorry disgusting ass. Let the DOJ do its job – protecting the public.
I don’t grasp why prison guards, lawyers, medical staff and witnesses should have to be traumatized by watching this man die. Let him disappear into prison, never to be seen or heard again.
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The sad truth is, there is no punishment severe enough for the cold-blooded murders this smug waste of oxygen committed. I’d rather have him spend the rest of his miserable existence as the beaten down slave-bitch of some equally loathsome subhuman waste of space.
he wouldn’t be going anywhere
he would be growing old at Supermax
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Anders Breivik lives in Norway and he will be staying there forever. Root is the young man who threw his life away on a theory and if DOJ were to fail to get him the needle, Root will be a SuperMax resident until VR becomes something else.
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abstain