(From Number23) AA Posters and Fam: How do you feel about the death penalty?

[gollygee]

Shaun King of BLM has just put Hillary on blast for her support for the death penalty http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-hillary-clinton-rethink-death-penalty-stance-article-1.2416719?cid=bitly and I'm curious how others here feel about it as well.

(I am posting because I have a donor star and can make a poll)

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	Love it
	0 (0%)
	Like it
	0 (0%)
	Dislike it
	2 (15%)
	Hate it
	9 (69%)
	It's a necessary evil
	0 (0%)
	It's all kinds of fucked up. I know it's racist as hell, classist (like just about everything else in American culture) and screwed up but then I read stories about people murdering children and entire families of people and I just can't see getting rid of it.
	2 (15%)
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[JustAnotherGen]

1. It's a reason why I'm supporting O'Malley

I used to believe that in extreme instances it was acceptable.

I no longer believe even in extreme cases - my husband influenced me on that. I influenced him on same sex marriage as opposed to a 'partnership'

It ended on O'Malley's watch in Maryland.

[portlander23]

2. I'd like to hear 23's thoughts

He's got the some of the most enlightening stuff posted here.

[scarletwoman]

3. She. nt

[portlander23]

4. Well that explains why she's so on the ball

[Chitown Kev]

6. Can I ask, JAG

how did your husband influence you on that?

Because in spite of the experience we had here in Illinois with the DP, I do still favor it in very extreme cases (and I'm talking about Jeffrey Dahmer-type stuff).

But, yeah, the DP as practiced right now in the US is very racist and I don't quite feel right for even giving that modicum of support to it.

[JustAnotherGen]

17. He's from Italy

It was abolished in all states in the 1880's - brought back during Benis reign. Still nothing like the 80K in Germany - I think more like 80 people were killed under Fascism in Italy during this time?


Last one was in the mid 1940's for some guys in Sicily who threw people into a well while they were alive.

They abolished it for treason, military and war crimes in the early 1990's.

Re Race - their legal code is different -


If you are arrested you are presumed guilty. Defense has to prove innocence. A murder trial can happen over and over and over again. You can be found guilty, then innocent, then guilty. Then absolved by the high courts due to malicious prosecution.

There was a case of an American who went through this recently - cant remember her name. Americans couldn't wrap their heads around the concept. They thought it was stupid, backwards, etc etc.

Really? She was afforded an opportunity that thousands and thousands of black men in America were never given. Who is stupid and backwards?

Who are the barbaric savages?

Who has malicious prosecution?

I would rather a guilty man go free than an innocent woman spend her lifetime in prison (Italy).

Note - in 1991 my cousin was the 13th murder in Rochester NY. His Volvo, his Rolex were left intact. He had about $13 on him - his wallet was left without the money. He had gone to Wegmans (asked his dad for some money as he didn't have an ATM card and it was after bank close) to get his girlfriend with a cold Kleenex, OJ and NyQuil. He had a kid trying to join a gang / prove himself put a bullet in his face.

His murderer was excused for flipping on them in 1995 after a massive drug bust. It went down about a few days after the Oklahoma City bombing.

And I know this because I dated an A.D.A. Who was a young prosecutor when it happened (the bust) and who showed me the kids statement almost ten years later. That was the Who who did it. My cousin (that police report) was actually presumed Guilty and Deserving of it. He was on his way to law school in D.C. The following fall. Yeah - black man so no humans involved.

I don't come from a lollipops and rainbow place on this. Now go read my posts an Trayvon, Jordan, Tamir. . . Look at my gun control stance. Look at how I feel about treating drug addicts (purchasers).

I'm sick and tired of black men and boys being guilty for their own murders - and I'm sick and tired of innocent black men being murdered by the state.

Our Justice system is flawed.

We are not "good enough " as a country to have a death penalty.

You know what? No country is.

It's just some countries have enough good sense to say - We aren't perfect . . . We aren't savage barbarians. So we aren't doing this.

Now ask me how I feel about gun control reform, how we treat drug addicts, and lifetime sentences being truly lifetime sentences.

[Chitown Kev]

30. Amanda Knox?

I think that's the name without looking it up...honest

Drug addicts....now my position on that would surprise people.

[bravenak]

5. I really hate it.

Then I see a guy smile in the courtroom after raping and murdering a child and It makes me just all messed up wanting to pull the lever. I swear if we could fix this bias in the system, it would not even exist anymore.

[Number23]

10. I'm also in favor of chemical castration for pedophiles

I think I have some sort of almost biblical rage inside of me when it comes to people who hurt children.

[bravenak]

13. Me too.

I keep thinking of solutions but just end up thinking of fire and lighter fluid. Hard to figure it out.

[TheKentuckian]

38. How is that one form of crime immune from the general fucked uppedness?

I get the inclination but I'd almost hate to be wrong on that as a death sentence.

[Number23]

41. As usual, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about or what you are trying to say

[TheKentuckian]

42. Chemical castration aka the subject of the post I responded too, what is it to not understand?

Is there something in particular that got you turned you around?

The same justice system that is inept and crooked would be passing this sentence, correct? It's not that complicated unless you make it such.

[scarletwoman]

7. This is difficult. I don't approve of the death penalty on general principles - the main one being,

I don't approve of granting the State the power to take a citizen's life. I suppose that ought to be my bottom line - but it's not quite.

If I conceive of the State as being a construct of the will of the citizens of that State - which is the ideal, but far from the reality, I know - then I can't help but consider that are certain circumstances in which I would want to consider someone's life forfeit due to their having committed particularly heinous and inhuman acts. And the State, acting in my name, ought to collect on that forfeiture by putting that person down - much as one would shoot a rabid animal. Remove that person from the "herd" so they cannot spread their infection.

On the other hand, in actual practice, the State seems to seek to kill far too many humans who do not actually merit being killed. And that's not to even mention all those who have been wrongfully convicted and sentenced due to prosecutorial misconduct, racism, classism, sexism, etc.

Do I "dislike" the death penalty? That seems too mild.

Do I "hate" the death penalty? That doesn't quite fit, either. "Hate" just isn't the right word.

I mostly don't approve, but I can't honestly say that I could never, ever approve in certain circumstances.

[Number23]

8. The reason Option 5 is so long and tortured is because it pretty much expresses how I feel about it

I HATE the death penalty with a Capital H.

It is racist. It is classist. There have been more than one instance of mentally disabled people being on it.

It is one of the most fucked up, disturbing practices in this world. And then I read stories about people breaking the necks of their 9 week old sons or killing their entire families and I just think there are people that simply DO NOT need to be here.

[Chitown Kev]

9. What I think of

is the fact that a few of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims came from Chicago and were targeted in bars that I went into a time or two. I've met a couple of people who met and talked to Dahmer in other non-gay venues as well.

That all occurred at a time when...let's face, if I had ran into Dahmer, I may have taken him up on an offer to go to Milwaukee or something.

Thing is, Wisconsin didn't have the death penalty although the DP was administered to Dahmer by other means.

[Number23]

11. And Dahmer wound up meeting even more justice once he got to jail

I'm sorry but that's what his death in jail felt like to me. Justice.

Dahmer was a prime example of the sort of racism that affects the lives of minorities in EVERY conceivable way. One of his victims was a teenaged (I think Asian) boy and English was not his first language. By the grace of God or somebody, after being lured to Dahmer's apartment and being brutalized, that boy was able to get away from Dahmer.

He ran out into the street, half naked, drugged and bleeding. And older black woman came to his aid and took him over to two white, male cops. The woman begged the cops to take the boy away but the word of an older black woman and an obviously distressed non-white teenaged boy meant next to nothing to these cops. So when Dahmer came out and told the cops the boy was "with him" and walked off with him, the protestations of that woman and even the boy meant nothing. The cops actually laughed as they handed that boy back over to Dahmer joking about the "gay" stuff the two obviously had planned.

God only knows what special hell that child's last hours were like on this earth. And if only the woman pleading for his life had been white, maybe he would have been able to get away from that sadistic monster.

[Chitown Kev]

12. Don't EVEN get me started on that part...

On the afternoon of May 26, 1991, Dahmer encountered a 14-year-old named Konerak Sinthasomphone on Wisconsin Avenue; he approached the youth with an offer of money to accompany him to his apartment to pose for Polaroid pictures. According to Dahmer, Sinthasomphone—the younger brother of the boy whom he had molested in 1988—was initially reluctant to the proposal, before changing his mind and accompanying Dahmer to his apartment, where the youth posed for two pictures in his underwear before Dahmer drugged him into unconsciousness and performed oral sex on him. On this occasion, Dahmer drilled a single hole into Sinthasomphone's skull, through which he injected muriatic acid into the frontal lobe.[117]

Before Sinthasomphone fell unconscious, Dahmer led the boy into his bedroom, where the nude body of 31-year-old Tony Hughes, whom Dahmer had killed three days earlier, lay naked on the floor.[118] According to Dahmer, he "believed he [Sinthasomphone] saw this body," yet did not react to seeing the bloated corpse—likely because of the effects of the sleeping pills he had ingested and the muriatic acid Dahmer had injected into his skull. Sinthasomphone soon became unconscious, whereupon Dahmer drank several beers while lying alongside Sinthasomphone before leaving his apartment to drink at a bar, then purchase more alcohol.[119]

In the early morning hours of May 27, Dahmer returned towards his apartment to discover Sinthasomphone sitting naked on the corner of 25th and State, talking in Laotian, with three hysterical young women standing near him.[120] Dahmer approached the trio and explained to the women that Sinthasomphone (whom he referred to by an alias) was his lover, and attempted to lead him to his apartment by the arm. The three women dissuaded Dahmer, explaining they had phoned 911.[121] Upon the arrival of two officers named John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish, Dahmer's demeanor relaxed: he informed the officers that Sinthasomphone was his 19-year-old boyfriend, that he had drank too much following a quarrel, and that he frequently behaved in this manner when intoxicated. The three women were exasperated and when one of the trio attempted to indicate to one of the officers that Sinthasomphone was bleeding from his buttocks and that he had seemingly struggled against Dahmer's attempts to walk him to his apartment, the officer harshly informed her to "butt out,"[122] "shut the hell up"[123] and to not interfere, adding the incident was "domestic."[124]

Against the protests of the three women, the officers simply covered Sinthasomphone with a towel and walked him to Dahmer's apartment where, in an effort to verify his claim that he and Sinthasomphone were lovers, Dahmer showed the officers the two semi-nude Polaroid pictures he had taken of the youth the previous evening. The officers later reported having noted a strange scent reminiscent of excrement inside the apartment (this odor emanated from the decomposing body of Hughes).[125] Dahmer stated that to investigate this, one officer simply "peeked his head around the bedroom but really didn't take a good look." The officers then left, with a departing remark that Dahmer "take good care" of Sinthasomphone.[123][126]

Had they conducted a background check upon Dahmer, it would have revealed that he was a convicted child molester under probation.[127]

[Number23]

14. So it was three women?? I thought it was one older black woman

Actually, it looks like it was two young black women!

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-07-30/news/9103240096_1_konerak-sinthasomphone-police-chief-philip-arreola-jeffrey-dahmer

Dahmer`s killing spree could have been stopped on the night of May 27, when police were called into a bizarre incident. They found a 14-year-old Laotian boy naked, bleeding and dazed. They had been called by two young black women who obviously thought something was wrong.

[Chitown Kev]

15. I recall three women

the older women was the one that talked to the police is what I recalled. It was one of the younger women who lived in the building with Dahmer and told the police about the smells from Dahmer's apartment.

I excerpted that from Wikipedia...which has been known to be wrong, but they do source their stuff...let me go back and check it out.

UPDATE; Checked Wiki's source, that source says two women as well, a 16 and 18 year old.

12:35am...Yes, there was a third woman named Glenda Cleveland, the mother and the aunt of the two younger women.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/112910479.html

[gwheezie]

16. I can no longer support the dp

We've been wrong, innocent people have been executed and it is unfair. People commit horrible crimes and get away with it and someone else may commit the same crime and be killed.

[NuclearDem]

18. Hate it for so many reasons.

1) It's far more expensive than LWOP.

2) Execution methods are in no way humane.

3) No recourse for wrongful executions.

4) Racially disproportionate.

5) Morally wrong.

[Kind of Blue]

22. Good points, NuclearDem.

Especially no recourse for wrongful executions

[randys1]

19. No, bad. Uncivilized, wrong, abolish it and then you dont need to talk about it anymore

If decapitating prisoners was legal, would you want to discuss the legality of it?

If killing someone by tying them to two horses and have the horses run in separate directions was legal, would you want to discuss the legality of it?

If killing someone by dropping them out of an airplane at 15,000 feet was legal, would you want to discuss the legality of it?

No, you would say hell no, nothing to discuss, abolish it, right?

So why is it OK to do it with a needle or gas? Which most of the time doesnt work so they have to kill the prisoner in some god awful way.

Wrong, not complicated, and you all know it.

I am consistent, you can count on me to NEVER compromise my position on Black people and their rights, Women, Gays, etc., and I will never compromise on this.

And I love this AA forum and the people in it, you give me hope for the human race.

[Kind of Blue]

20. You give me hope, randys1!

[randys1]

21. Back atcha brother.

[Number23]

33. KB is a sister, randy! A beautiful, intelligent, spectacular sister

[randys1]

34. Thanks, nice to know who I am talking to, watch me forget though LOL

[Kind of Blue]

36. Sorry, randys!

I posted before seeing Number23's reply.

[Kind of Blue]

37. Oooh...Thank You, Number23!

[Number23]

39. Girl, you know all of that is nothing but the truth.

[Kind of Blue]

35. Well, sista...

[JustAnotherGen]

23. I'm for human life

I am. It's that simple.

I'll go so far as to say I'm Pro Choice in practice and Pro life in belief.

Big difference - one is a personal medical decision that has nothing to do with me.

One is 'state' sanctioned by a government of the people and by the people. Not in my name.

[Starry Messenger]

24. There are people so evil I don't want them to be alive

But we've gotten this wrong so often, and the process is so horrible, that I've gone in the last 15 years from supporting dp to not supporting it. But I'd be lying if I said if I was sad when a horrible criminal doesn't make it to old age. Like others, crimes against children I find particularly abhorrent.

[Number23]

25. "But we've gotten this wrong so often, and the process is so horrible,"

And that's what makes me hate it so much. It has been wrong so often. It is so often used against the most vulnerable in our society. And there are so many people -- many of whom black, many of whom poor -- that have languished on death row for years only to find out they didn't even commit the crimes they were on death row for!!

And yet, knowing all of that, as long as their are people who get their kicks preying on people in this world I just can't see it not being an option. This is one of those issues to me that is just not black and white.

[Starry Messenger]

26. I know, there are some sick freaks.

Lots of them taking up valuable oxygen and hurting people. I don't worry much about their happiness in prison, that's for sure.

[Tarheel_Dem]

27. I agree with this.

[greatauntoftriplets]

28. Illinois banned the death penalty a few years ago.

This was after a Republican governor emptied death row because there were too many wrongful convictions. It was a great day for this state.

[MrScorpio]

29. I oppose the DP in all cases nt

[kwassa]

31. Innocent people are on death row.

Scott Turow once declared, as attorney and author, that those on death row are guilty of having a bad lawyer.

Look at those that have been exonerated after being in prison for decades. If that sentence was death ....

Our justice system is too flawed, and always will be.

[betsuni]

32. Hate it.

Here in Japan a man and woman were just released after twenty years in prison for murdering their daughter, which they didn't do. She died in a fire at home that was an accident. When there's a suspicious death, the police seem to grab the nearest relative and keep them up for a few days under florescent lights until they confess. Done. Wouldn't be surprised if half of all supposed murderers are innocent. I can easily imagine being in that situation.

[Cali_Democrat]

40. I'm totally opposed to it.