Stanley 'Tookie' Williams

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

Your second paragraph reads like anti-Bush propaganda. I haven't seen any credible evidence by an impartial party on the subject of torture at these camps. Are the prisoners going to say they were tortured? Of course, that will play right into the hearts of insurgents in Iraq and terrorists abroad. Of course the US government will say the torture doesn't occur. The only thing inarguable and irrefutable is that no one other than the people there know the truth about what it's like in those prisons.

If it were a matter of the goverment saying outright, that torture didn't occur, and would never be permitted to occur, things would be simpler. However, for various reasons, there have been attempts by numerous officials to downplay, redefine and justify all sorts of actions that might reasonably be associated with torture. These range from intelligence personnel defending violent or psychologically damaging interrogation techniques in the name of the so-called "War on Terror", to the sadistic actions of American soldiers in the Abu Ghraib incidents. The rhetoric about "using any means necessary" continues to be spouted; it's not Bill's fault that Bush and others (not just in the administration) use these catchphrases to justify their actions.

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

Regardless of what research has been done to prove or disprove the effectiveness of capital punishment I like to leave it to common sense. If you knew that if you killed someone, and were caught and convicted, you yourself could be put to death; would you do it? I don't think so.

While that may be sufficient to convince most of us not to kill anyone (assuming that we were ambivalent in the first place), we should be aware that not everyone operates on this level. There are all sorts of reasons that cause people to ignore this seemingly basic principle: apathy, sociopathy, indoctrination in the name of a "higher cause", etc.. Perhaps most prevalent, however, is the temptation to play the odds; there's always a chance that you won't get caught. And if people are innumerate enough to play the lottery, can you imagine what they'd do with 1 in 20 odds* of getting away with capital murder?

*Deliberately false statistic. But I'll vouch for it, give or take an order of magnitude....

[Madison]

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

Regardless of what research has been done to prove or disprove the effectiveness of capital punishment I like to leave it to common sense. If you knew that if you killed someone, and were caught and convicted, you yourself could be put to death; would you do it? I don't think so.

Given that you've argued extensively in the past that women do not deserve the right to vote, forgive me if I find your brand of common sense idiotic; particularly so when you advertise it as being formulated irrespective of evidence that suggests whether or not it's effective.

No loss of human life makes the world a better place; ever.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Bill Gold

.... I'm tired of feeling I have to defend my position against people who are incapable of thoughtful dialogue. Say good-bye to Bill Gold's opinion, because apparently none of you seem to deserve it... at least until you guys piss me off enough to come back and set some people straight.

OH great one! Remove yourself from our presence for we are not worthy to hear the words you speak.

The very radiance that flows from your face is more than your humble servants can bear, and we fear our hearts will stop beating from sheer awe and reverence!

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Cory

Forgive me Ken, I missed when the debate switched from whether or not capital punishment is an effective deterrent in the US, to whether or not it's an effective deterrent in Iraq or China.

Originally Posted by Cory

on the top of page 2
There's absolutely no evidence that the death penalty is an effective deterrent. We are one of the few civilized nations that actually puts people to death, and we still have an absurdly high rate of violent crimes compared to many of these countries that don't use the death penalty.

where did you limit the discussion of the death penalty to the US only?

oops! you were the one who brought up the crime rates in other nations to compare to the US.

Why do you get to choose which nations the US can be compared to, and which ones are not relavant to this discussion?!

[Cory]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

where did you limit the discussion of the death penalty to the US only?

oops! you were the one who brought up the crime rates in other nations to compare to the US.

Why do you get to choose which nations the US can be compared to, and which ones are not relavant to this discussion?!

Ok--throw out my comments. It doesn't matter, since we're trying to focus on a purely domestic issue. We shouldn't need any international perspective.

This debate pertains to whether or not capital punishment is an effective deterrent inside the US.

I have so far not seen a single ounce of evidence from you that this is so (remember...you made this claim, therefore the burden of proof is on you). You continue to debate semantics about sidetracked conversations that have nothing to do with what we're talking about.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Cory

I have so far not seen a single ounce of evidence from you that this is so (remember...you made this claim, therefore the burden of proof is on you). You continue to debate semantics about sidetracked conversations that have nothing to do with what we're talking about.

Come on Cory, every time you get backed into a corner in a serious discussion, you toss out this "the burden of proof is on you" stuff.

Capitol punishment is the law of the land. At the state and federal level the people we have elected and appointed to study this issue and reach the proper conclusions have made their decisions.

If you and hollywood actors and the media want the law to be changed, then the burden of proof is on you.

[MikeDubreuil]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Does the U.S. have to invest billions of dollars, and thousands of lives, in support of campaigns that might save thousands more, but also unreasonably restrict the rights of individuals, both American and foreign?...

The fact of the matter is, you'll never be safe from terrorists, because there are too many of them, and they will forever be able to cause havoc in innovative and unexpected ways. So why obsess over it?

Tristan made a really good post above and I did rep him for it. I can't disagree with most of his post. I do have my 10 cents that is mostly opinion as an American who sees a ton of his money go to taxes.

The US Federal Goverment has few major tasks to complete with roughly ~30% of mine and everyone elses salary. One of those tasks is to provide security for US citizens. You're right, we'll never be safe from terrorists; but that doesn't mean we should abandon strategies that could keep us safer. After the 9/11 attacks America did institute some very obsessive policies on terrorism (the Patriot Act comes to mind.) Unfortunatly, if policy makers didn't act swiftly and harshly they probably wouldn't have been re-elected. With the TSA loosening restrictions I think we're stepping away from overbearing policies. Basicly, I'd rather see them do something to fight terrorism rather than nothing.

Regardless of whether or not Iraq has WMD; because they did have WMD, they used WMD on 100,000 Iranians during the Iraq-Iran War (Source). It was a "good thing" to liberate the country from an oppresive dictator who also happened to use his WMD on his own citizens during the Kurdish Genocide (Source). Whether or not the Colaition of the Willing finds WMD seems to be a moot point with Saddam Hussein's track record.

I'm not going to lie to you and say that there weren't less altrusitic reasons for freeing Iraq, they certainly have a lot of oil. There's also debatabley better things the military could be used for such as in Darfur. However, wherever the United States military does go they are doing their work for peace for the United States, other countries, and the citizens of the invaded countries. It's disheareting to hear much of the critissim over the Iraq war coming from the French. We all know what the US military did for the citizens of France during World War 2.

I do have a problem with this line...

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

America has committed itself to an unwinnable conflict, which has the potential to exist in perpetuity, so long as ideologues on both sides refuse to seek common ground."

I am vehemently opposed to seeking common ground with idiots. Their defintion of normal and acceptable behavior is far different from ours. The United State's idealog is that they want peace for not only of every United States citizen, but every citizen of Earth. That means we simply can't meet minds with terrorists or countries who routinely torture their citizens. For instance the president of Iran wishes for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth and thinks the Holocaust is a myth. How can you meet idealogs with people like this? The United States was formed with the pricipal idea that there should be a seperation of church and state. Terrorist countries see another country's religion as a pretense for war. We will never meet idealogically because we do not consider one's religion a reason for violence.

I am rambling now, so I'm going to stop and return to the subject of the thread...

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

Who has the right to kill? Who gives the right to kill?

In Mr. Williams's case it was the People of the State of California. It was someone's job at San Quentin to push the button and administer the deadly fluids. We do have a representative governemtn and the people in his state decided under what circumstances the death penatly is used.

Originally Posted by Wetzel

Unfortunately, vengeance rather than rehabilitation is still the way of the criminal justice system in this county and Mr Williams has been killed for his actions.

What's wrong with vengeance? Isn't the greatest form of retribution to have your own life taken for taking another's. Is it not the victim's family's right to closure?


I found a really great article on Wikipedia about capital punishment and have brought some new ideas for the death penalty:

• If the death penalty were abolished, a criminal would have little or no reason not to kill potential witnesses during the commission of a robbery (assuming that robbery would earn the criminal a life sentence or a very lengthy prison sentence).
• By waiving the threat of a death penalty, individuals can be encouraged to plead guilty, accomplices can be encouraged to testify against their co-conspirators, and criminals can be encouraged to lead investigators to the bodies of victims. The threat of the death penalty can be a powerful mechanism for greasing the wheels of justice.
• People who have committed the most heinous crimes (typically murder) have no right to life.
• The death penalty shows the greatest respect for the ordinary man's, and especially the victim's, inviolable value.

It's food for thought.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Bill Gold

... Killing people should only be done as a last resort when your own life is at risk, not as a whim, not as a punishment, not as a deterrent, not as a means to get something you want, and most certainly not out of blind vengeance.

Does this logic seem strange to anyone else or is it only me?

If its wrong to kill humans, then its always wrong to kill humans. Killing someone else to save your own life should not be the only exception to this rule. If you really feel its wrong to take someone elses life then the opposite should apply: you should sacrifice your own life to save the life of the other person. Even if the other person is the one who kills you.

Would that not be the highest standard to live up to (if you really feel that life is sacred?) Killing someone else to save your own life, isnt that nothing more than self-preservation? Where is the morality in self preservation at all costs?

Some day we may all have phasers set to stun, and when someone is out of control we can subdue them without harming them, and without risking our own lives, and then restrain or confine that person until they are reprogrammed/ rehabilitated / reformed / renewed / reborn... whatever it takes to make them safe to release into society again.

But until that day, anyone with $129 can walk into Walmart and buy a lethal weapon, sit on an overpass or hill, and take many human lives.

People have been killing each other for all of recorded history. Nobody likes this fact, but it is a part of human nature. Fear of punishment is one of the few tools we have to keep civilization intact. Justice.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

Does this logic seem strange to anyone else or is it only me?

If its wrong to kill humans, then its always wrong to kill humans. Killing someone else to save your own life should not be the only exception to this rule. If you really feel its wrong to take someone elses life then the opposite should apply: you should sacrifice your own life to save the life of the other person. Even if the other person is the one who kills you.

I'm not surprised that one might consider it strange, but perhaps this will clarify my interpretation of it. I've assumed that the avoidance of killing is by no means an immutable law of nature, but rather a construct of society. Interpreting it in that light, it is a practical matter, rather than one of absolute morality. I would conjecture that these conventions tend to keep society from falling into disarray, and on that basis alone, there is significant merit. But that doesn't make them inviolable. (Conveniently, this opens the door to all sorts of extrapolations with respect to relative morality being abused in grevious ways. I'm not advocating any of that, and neither am I prepared to state in absolute terms exactly what actions I would consider to be moral—there are far too many considerations, and every judgment is made on the balance of the factors in play at that time, rather than on a codified set of axioms.)

I'm not going to go so far as to say that it is impossible to concieve of a situation where, on balance, a killing is warranted, but I think it is sufficiently clear that in the vast majority of circumstances, there are better options.

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

You need to do some research on this. China has the death penalty for drug abuse, and they have the lowest drug abuse rate in the world.

Look at Iraq before Saddam was removed from power. He was a brutal dictator who would involke capitol punishment at the drop of a hat. People lived in fear for their lives, and it kept them in line. Remember how the Iraqis looted for weeks when his government fell?

Extreem examples, but none the less: when people actually believe they will be put to death for their crimes, the crime rate is lower.

There is inarguably some truth to this, but so far you've demonstrated correlation, not causation. There's much more that needs to be shown, before I would accept those conclusions, as stated.

Originally Posted by Bill Gold

Say good-bye to Bill Gold's opinion, because apparently none of you seem to deserve it... at least until you guys piss me off enough to come back and set some people straight.

Uh-oh....

Edit: Here's an interesting article on the original subject of the thread. I think it offers the fairest portrayal of the events so far; no false heroes, no false villains—just an honest appraisal.

[KenWittlief]

there is a big difference between the effectiveness of capitol punishment as a deterrent to crime, and the effectiveness of the criminal justice system in any given nation or society.

Crime is an antisocial activity that carries consequences. Many people will balance the rewards of committing a crime against the potential punishment, and then decide to proceed or turn away.

It took me 20 years to earn $1M salary as an engineer. Are there other ways I could have gotten $1M in less time?

I could have worked as an engineering consultant in the middle east, and gotten 5X my salary per year, tax free. So I could have gotten $1M in 4 years instead of 20. But the risk to my life, and the loss of freedom to spend my off time doing what I want with my friends and family kept me from taking that path.

I could have stolen the money, for example, by getting 100 credit cards, and taking a $10,000 cash advance on each one, then skipping town and refusing to pay it back: ie, stealing the money. How many years would I spend in prison if I got caught? how many years did Martha Steward spend in prison for the amount she leached from the stock market? less than 20 for sure, less than 4? A year with good behavior?

The point is, we all know from our personal experience, if the penalty is too great we will not risk the activity. To say that capitol punishment is not a deterrent to crime is silliness.

The manner in which capitol punishment is administered in this country, the way its used, and the amount of time it takes to carry out the sentence may make it ineffective as a deterrent, but that does not mean capitol punishment itself is not effective. It simply means our justice system is inept.

[sanddrag]

I don't know too much about this guy but I see the situation something like this: It is kind of like purposely denting someone's car and handing them a can of Bondo. Yes it is an attempt to "make it right" but it'll never be as good as it once was. No amount of children's books or "don't join gangs" campaigning will bring back those 4 people's lives he took.

[KenWittlief]

Its more than that. Since he never admitted any of the violent acts he committed he was reformed on his own terms.

His actions are very much like the stages of grieving that people go through: denial, anger, bargaining...

He denied being a murderer, he was angry when convicted and threatened the jury, and he bargained for his life with his kids books and phone-lectures

but he never made it to acceptance - he never accepted guilt for his actions, and never accepted the sentance that was imposed on him.

Imagine what it must have been like, to be a family member of one of his victims, and to hear his supporters say "the state has executed an innocent man"

what does that say about his victims? Where they not human? Was their life of no value, and therefore their death was not a crime?

The victims became non-people. Everything was all about tookie.

[Marc P.]

Originally Posted by Karthik

There's been some good discussion in this thread, it's refreshing. On the other hand, there have been some personal attacks in this thread. That's not cool. Let's try and keep things on track here, as opposed to singling people out and making sarcastic comments about them.

I agree with Karthik. There is some quality debate happening here, but I also see some personal attacks. I generally shy away from political discussions like this for that reason, but I do feel the need to add a few thoughts. I suppose it's more a blanket statement than anything else, but it's something to chew on.

In any given political discussion, there are an infinite number of opinions, and no completely right answers. The purpose of debate is to throw opinions out there for others to consider and critique, in the hopes of formulating a more informed opinion as facts and ideas are put together. It's one thing to hold a thought up and say "this is how I think things should be" and accept criticism with dignity and respect. It's another thing to hold a thought up and say "this is how things ought to be" and dismiss anyone offering criticism as wrong or an idiot. Bickering about fine points or who the burden of proof is on does nothing to further the discussion. If anything, furthering the discussion can sometimes mean knowing when to back down, without feeling the need to prove yourself right.

That said, I also have some opinions to offer, for whatever they're worth to the discussion. For a while, I was in favor of the death penalty in situations extreme enough to warrant ending someone's life. To an extent, I still am. The trouble is, and reading through this discussion has only given me more to think about, it's tough to determine when or if death is an appropriate punishment for any given situation. Certainly ending one person's life prematurely is reason enough for the friends and relatives of the victim of such a crime, but at the same time, what of the family and friends of the accused? Why should they be punished by losing a relation for the actions of that individual?

To address what others have said so far in relation to capitol punishment as a deterrent to murder- I'd ask you to define each type murder (short of the dictionary definition given above). Pre-meditative murder vs. spontaneous/emotional vs. killing in self defense vs. killing in defense of another vs. killing in a military environment. The movie Minority Report gave me a few thoughts that might apply here. In situations where a murder is planned and thought out, of course the killer has time to weigh the consequences of the action vs. the repercussions. In these situations the potential of the death penalty can help prevent further action from being taken. However, in spontaneous or emotional murder, say a husband coming home to his wife with another man, there is no planning involved. It happens there and then as a result of intense, uncontrollable emotions- without stopping to consider the consequences. Often, these cases are plead as temporary insanity. But the point remains, in that situation the threat of the death penalty never makes it into the killer's head because it happens so fast.

Without knowing all the details of Mr. Williams' case, I'll refrain from forming an opinion there. As far as the other political discussions go, I'll keep out of those as well, as they seem to be taking this thread off it's original topic.

[Stu Bloom]

Originally Posted by Marc P.

... In situations where a murder is planned and thought out, of course the killer has time to weigh the consequences of the action vs. the repercussions. In these situations the potential of the death penalty can help prevent further action from being taken. However, in spontaneous or emotional murder, say a husband coming home to his wife with another man, there is no planning involved. It happens there and then as a result of intense, uncontrollable emotions- without stopping to consider the consequences. Often, these cases are plead as temporary insanity. But the point remains, in that situation the threat of the death penalty never makes it into the killer's head because it happens so fast...

In most cases not involving a pre-meditated murder the death penalty would not be pursued anyway.

Originally Posted by Wetzel

...I don't understand how killing one person makes someone else worth more...

I don't see anything about increasing anyone's worth. I believe what Mike said was that the death penalty shows respect for the value of the victim's life.

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

No amount of children's books or "don't join gangs" campaigning will bring back those 4 people's lives he took.

Neither will his death.

-Andy A.