Illinois has ended their death penalty, making them the 16th state to abolish it. And there’s no reason Washington can’t go next. It’s too late in the legislature this year, but the problems in Illinois are the problems in every state. And while we aren’t offing people at the rate of Texas or Florida, it’s still a stain on us that we do it at all.
So we have a chance to say we believe as a state that we are going to have more compassion, more humanity, more decency than the people on death row. We can say no to an irreversible punishment and yes to our humanity. It’s time to end the death penalty in Washington, and make ourselves number 17.
Given the number of times people have been found (especially after the advent of DNA testing) to be falsely convicted, I have never, ever understood why so many of the “get government off our backs!” types support the death penalty. I can’t imagine an abuse of government power more appalling than killing an innocent person.
Wisconsin GOP Senators Use Parliamentary Trick To Pass Union-Stripping Bill
MSNBC reports that 18 Wisconsin GOP senators passed Gov. Walker’s union-stripping bill this evening with no Democrats present or voting. To get around the state senate’s quorum requirement, they separated the bill from the budget, so that no quorum was required. One GOP senator voted against the bill, so the final vote was 18-1. Gov. Walker praised the Senate Republicans for passing his bill.
Now it’s payback time, starting with a nationwide boycott of ALL Wisconsin businesses by liberals, union supporters, and friends of Wisconsin public workers. Do NOT buy Wisconsin cheese, dairy products, or anything else produced in that state.
But that’s only the beginning. Wisconsin’s public workers should go on STRIKE now — a general strike that will shut down that state’s schools and government offices.
AND there needs to be a recall campaign against EVERY Republican legislator AND Gov. Walker, supported not only by Wisconsin’s public employees and progressive voters, but also with the help of their progressive friends in other states.
BOYCOTT WISCONSIN BUSINESSES.
BOYCOTT!
BOYCOTT!
BOYCOTT!
BOYCOTT!
BOYCOTT!
You have a God-given RIGHT to not give your money to any bastard who voted for anti-worker Wisconsin Republicans.
@1 Because they enjoy killing people.
@Roger Rabbit: Yeah, let’s hurt small business owners who have nothing to do with this. Personally, I dont think collective bargaining rates should be taken away, but there are many stories of government workers being overpaid, like the ferry worker expose by king 5, and Im sure there are many more similar stories here and in Wisconsin as well.
They dont enjoy killing people, but I think they just see it as a way to stop crime. The death penalty has been shown to have no detterent efffect, but apparently they don’t accept these numbers. I agree with the first poster. It is quite odd that the people who say we cant trust the government and are “pro-life” trust the government to execute the right person.
@Roger Rabbit: Yeah, let’s hurt small business owners who have nothing to do with this. Personally, I dont think collective bargaining rates should be taken away, but there are many stories of government workers being overpaid, like the ferry worker expose by king 5, and Im sure there are many more similar stories here and in Wisconsin as well.
They dont enjoy killing people, but I think they just see it as a way to stop crime. The death penalty has been shown to have no detterent efffect, but apparently they don’t accept these numbers. I agree with the first poster. It is quite odd that the people who say we cant trust the government and are “pro-life” trust the government to execute the right person.
Ted Bundy proved the death penalty does not stop crime. He went to a state known for using it for his final crime spree.
He could have gone elsewhere and avoided it.
I would also end the death penalty.
1. I do not see how I have the right to kill anyone else except in self defense.
2. I doubt that death sentences are really punishment.
My question is what IS an effective punishment? I suspect that many lifers adapt rather well to this ultimate form of social welfare.
If our goal is punishment, why not sentence murderers to a life like some of Seattle’s street people? Put them on drugs so they can not hurt anyone, prevent than the rice of a bug Mac (with small fries) in their possession, hobble them with some sort of boot so they can not physically harm anyone, and confine them to down Bellevue without access to the mall!
Actually, I would do this for Bernie Madoff a Martha Stwart as well, except Stewart could be pardoned after five years if she kept her cardboard box neat.
@1 Actually, Pete, the anti-death penalty movement has been searching for years for a case of a wrongfully-executed innocent person — that’s the “Holy Grail” of the abolitionists — and so far there’s not been a verified case of an innocent person being executed.
They thought they’d found such a case in the person of Roger Keith Coleman, who was executed by Virginia in 1992 for raping and murdering his sister-in-law. Coleman maintained his innocence to the end, and his case garnered internationl attention, including an appeal for clemency from the Pope. But in 2006, DNA retesting confirmed that Coleman was the killer — there was only a 1-in-19 million chance he wasn’t.
There is a significant — if not substantial — possibility that Texas executed an innocent man in 2004. Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death for the murders of his three young children in a house fire. The prosectuion case depended entirely upon the conclusion of a local arson investigator that the fire was intentionally set — a conclusion which has been castigated by nationally recognized arson experts who, in so many words, called the local investigator incompetent and said his investigative techniques amounted to voodoo science. GOP Gov. Rick Perry refused to read a report calling the conviction into question just hours before Willingham’s execution, and then replaced members of a commission investigating the possibility of a miscarriage of justice, stacking it with his own political cronies. The Willingham execution now appears highly dubious, and Perry’s handling of the case can, in any event, only be considered atrocious.
Here in Washington, there have been 5 executions since 1976, of which 3 were voluntary (i.e., the inmates wanted to be executed) and 2 fought their death sentences. Of these 2, Charles Rodman Campbell was clearly guilty of murdering 3 people, 1 of whom was a child, and Cal Coburn Brown was executed for the torture slaying of Holly Washa, of which he was clearly guilty.
It’s very hard to get executed in Washington, as the fact of only 2 involuntary executions in the last 35 years plainly indicates. You have to commit a truly heinous crime and all but 1 of these 5 committed multiple murders. In my view, they had it coming.
One of the arguments against the death penalty is that life without parole is, in some ways, a harsher penalty than death. The fact 3 of the 5 criminals executed by Washington since 1976 voluntarily dropped their appeals and wanted to be executed indicates this. There’s no dispute that executing someone costs more than incarcerating them for life. (Incarceration costs taxpayers roughly $25,000 a year; if you multiply that by, say, 40 years you get $1 million; the minimum cost to impose and carry out the death penalty is $2 million.)
Still, there are crimes so offensive to one’s sense of humanity, so cruel and monstrous in their nature, that they seem to cry out for ultimate retribution. Would you really let an Adolf Hitler serve life in prison for his crimes? What about Westley Allan Dodd, who kidnapped, sexually molested, and tortured 3 young boys before killing them? One of Dodd’s victims was a young boy whom Dodd hanged in a closet, then when the boy was nearly dead, Dodd cut him down and revived him, brought him back to life — and then hanged him again, this time until he was dead. Even Dodd, after he was caught, admitted he deserved to be put to death.
What about the Carr brothers, who brutally tortured and murdered five victims in their early 20s out of racial hatred? What about the perpetrators of the Texas dragging case, another race-motivated hate crime? Personally, I think those killers deserve to be dead, and there’s a certain satisfaction in putting them to death that you can’t get by locking them up and throwing away the key. Prison is too good for some people.
Call it revenge, or retribution, or whatever you want, I really feel that in very extreme cases there’s a place for it.
I remember reading a news article years ago about an interview with a retired prison warden who had presided over several executions in his state. He said he went into the job being against the death penalty, but described one serial killer in particular as a “mad dog” who “needed to be put down.” Some of these killers, he said, were so inhuman that he changed his mind about the idea of never executing anyone, under any circumstances.
That’s pretty much where my head is, on this issue. I’ve thought about it a lot over the years. I’m a lawyer who’s all too well acquainted with the weaknesses of our legal system. I’m a liberal and a humanist who believes that, in general, the deliberate taking of human life is a moral wrong. Yet, there are exceptions. There’s no doubt in my mind that, knowing what I know, if I could be transported back in time to 1928 and put a loaded gun to Adolf Hitler’s head I would pull the trigger without hesitation or twinge of conscience. Knowing what the Carr brothers or the Texas draggers did, if someone asked me to push the button on those guys, I would. For me, it comes down to a feeling that there are a few people who have it coming and, by their own voluntary actions, put themselves in that position.
I think the death penalty has been used way too much. I’m proud of the fact I live in a state that has used it with extreme reluctance and in very few cases. Yet, I think we should keep it on the books — for those truly horrible cases that cry out for societal retribution. I feel that to say we’ll never execute anyone, under any circumstances, no matter what they did, devalues the worth of the innocent lives they took. There are a few motherfuckers in this world who simply have it coming to them and I feel we need to retain the option of dishing it out.
Disagree with me if you want. By all means, let’s have a lively debate. Prove my thinking misguided, if you can. My ideas are not frozen in stone; I’m always willing to rethink my positions on public issues based on new facts or cogent reasoning. For now, my position on this issue is, keep the death penalty in our statutues, but use it very sparingly and only in cases of the most egregious crimes where there is no doubt of guilt.
On a personal note, until today all 5 of my siblings were alive, but I received word tonight that my youngest brother committed suicide today. He was 54.
No civilized society kills its own, no matter how despicable some of its own might be. I do always wonder how those who call themselves “pro-life,” are pro-death penalty. We need to grow up and shed our juvenile concept of an eye for an eye.
@6 In a war, there’s always collateral damage. Any Republican warmonger will tell you that. But I don’t think there are very many small business owners who support unions or vote Democraic.
Collateral damage is unfortunate, but Republicans don’t overly concern themselves about killing innocent people (including women and children), so I’m not going to get too worked up about a little economic pain falling on people who may not have voted for those Republican assholes in the Wisconsin state senate in order to get at those who did. That’s an unavoidable consequence when malefactors use innocent people as human shields.
@11 How should a “civilized society” respond to those who are utterly uncivilized? How would you deal with the atrocities committed by the Soviet invaders against Afghan peasants? One of the things they did was, they would go into a village, and to make the villagers tell them where the resistance fighters were, they doused children in kerosene and burned them alive in front of their parents. Would you kill the Russian soldiers who did that? I would. If they were acting under orders, then I would exonerate them, and go after whoever ordered them to do it.
Another thing the Russians did to the Afghan people was, they took young girls up in helicopters, raped them, and then threw them out of the helicopters.
There are also numerous documented cases of Russian troops bayoneting pregnant women in the abdomen.
They lined up old men, made them lie prone on the ground, then ran over them with tanks.
Some people deserve to be killed. To my way of thinking, it’s very hard to argue otherwise.
Rog,
I’m going to disagree with you on this one. Humans commit unfathomably horrific acts. Acts we truly can’t understand because there is evil in the world. I can’t, however, sanction state-sponsored executions of those within custody. I believe there are just wars, situations in which killing others is most certainly justified. On the other hand, I believe that capital punishment degrades us.
@19 I expected you too, and being as we’re both liberals, we can disagree on an issue and still remain friends. That’s one of the differences between us and conservatives. Not the only one …
to not too
@19 If Hitler had been captured alive, would you have supported executing him? Were his crimes immense enough for you to make an exception for him?
That was the question Israel faced when Mossad captured Eichmann. The Israelis didn’t seem to struggle with the question very much …
22
Say I’m the prison’s warden and I knew that Hitler probably wouldn’t make it through the day if he had to do his break time with Cell Block B. I might not intercede if the guards took him to Cell Block B for his break time. There is a difference, not morally perhaps, between that position and supporting state-sanctioned execution.
Roger
We disagree here.
Eichmann got of lightly. I fail to see why his death was a punishment? Compared to what he did, it was reward.
The only rational for the death penalty .. other than to eliminate someone who is very dangerous … is revenge, that is the pleasure the living get out of seeing the bad guy get his. But is it revenge if Eichmann wanted to die? Is it revenge if by dying he avoided a more serious punishment?
As an atheist I do not like to use the Deity as an exemplar, but maybe Dante will serve the purpose. I do not remember Virgil leading Dante buy some perp being “punished nby eternal sleep.”
If I could have captured Hitler (something my Dad might have actually done), I would hope I can could give him some punishment far worse than the one he chose for himself!
SJ,
Well said. Death is too easy an end for the worst of us.
@24 I don’t think Eichmann wanted to die. He went to quite great lengths to escape retribution for his crimes. And what’s wrong with taking pleasure in seeing a bad guy get his? That script has sold tickets to many a Hollywood film …
Gingrich: Adultery Is Patriotic!!
Anyone who’s read the news of the last 24 hours knows Newt Gingrich wants to be President of the United States. He’s got a little problem, though: Three marriages, two of which he trashed by having affairs, and both of the wives he cuckolded were fighting cancer when he cuckolded them.
So, how to deal with the public relations problem presented by Gingrich’s odious behavior in his personal life? In true Republican fashion, of course: Turn truth and morality topsy-turvy. Evil is good; good is evil; truth is lies; lies are truth. It’s the Republican Way.
“Newt Gingrich says his passion for his country contributed to his marital infidelity.”
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03.....to-affair/
You read that right, Gingrich claims he cuckolded his wives due to his love of country. Well, if you’re running for president and you’ve made a career of fucking women you’re not married to, while you’re married, what else can you say? Evil is good, good is evil …
Personally, I think Newt Gingrich and John Edwards have a lot in common.
Poll: Americans Want Cuts In Military Spending
“A majority of Americans prefer cutting defense spending to reduce the federal deficit rather than taking money from public retirement and health programs, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41....._politics/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Don’t expect the GOP majority in the House of Representatives to pay any attention to this poll. After all, they don’t represent the “little people.” They’re there to protect the interests of militarists and billionaires. Which means increasing military spending while cutting food stamps and heating assistance to the poor. After all, if you were made poor by Republican economic policies, you’re immoral and therefore your children deserve to starve or freeze to death, whichever occurs first.
I wonder how many hungry children could have been fed for what Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” aircraft carrier stunt cost?
God I love beating up Republicans! It’s so sould-satisfying!!
Never mind the typo in #31. Shit happens. Typos happen, too.
If you’re a Republican troll, you probably didn’t even realize there’s a type in #31. Republicans can’t spell. They can’t think, either. All Republicans are good for is leaning on if you’re a dog and need to take a piss.
typo not type
This blog could use an edit function that actually works.
@25 Death is an interesting subject. What is death? The end of existence? Or the beginning of unimaginable eternal bliss? I don’t know. All I know for sure is that Jack Daniels No. 7 is damn good stuff and I can’t think of any earthly reason why Republicans should get all the Jack Daniels No. 7.
With respect, if this forum is going to keep some dignity, @2, 3, 5, 6, 12, 13, 27, 28, 29, 30 should all be deleted as wildly off-topic.
I like you Rog, but try not to hijack a debate. What pray tell does the Wisconsin situation or “Mission accomplished” have to do with the death penalty?
Meanwhile, back on topic…
If the death penalty is the deterrent so many claim how come Arlington, Austin, Dallas, El Paso and Ft. Worth are routinely in the top U.S. cities for violent crime? Texas executes four times as many citizens as any other state. Doesn’t it stand to reason that Texas would be in the bottom 25% of states with violent crime per capita? Funny then that Texas is usually in the top 25-30% of violent crime per capita every year.
Even if you accept the premise that no innocent people have been executed (and the number of DNA exonerations in non-death penalty cases makes it statistically nearly impossible that NO innocents have ever been executed in the last 100 years) the cost of execution vs. lifetime incarceration should make the tea partiers and regular republicans go crazy. Execution is a stunning waste of taxpayer dollars for which a lower-cost alternative has been established.
@10
Since no one else seems to have noticed, my condolences. I definitely don’t have the power of written word to express the sympathy and sadness I feel for the surviving families of suicide.
RR @ # 10: My condolences, also. I also never really know what to say, especially in this situation.
RR @ 9: I agree completely. At one time I was all in favor of a frequent application of the death penalty, then I became opposed to it in principle, but I’ve settled into the position which you’ve taken, as well.
The Campbell case was a turning point, for me. If a prisoner on work-release takes his first opportunity to kill the victim of his first crime, and her family, then it is a mortal threat to our entire justice system. If we can’t protect our witnesses, police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and prison workers, we will soon find ourselves in a situation similar to that of Mexico now, or Columbia before that. In both of those countries the justice system has, in at least some areas, broken down so completely that the government has ceased to function. Protection of those persons is vital for the system to continue to funcion.
With the plea deal given to the Green River Killer, I had believed that it would have been impossible to use the death penalty in Washington ever again. Defendants could claim that the application of the death penalty was arbitrary and discriminatory, since the killer of some 50 women was given the option of life in prison, whereas no other defendants (we hope) could exceed those numbers. But the death of the corrections officer in Monroe may prove that is not the case. The state can argue that it has a vital interest in protecting it’s correction staff by keeping the death penalty option open for those already serving what is effectively a life sentence, and have little else to lose.
Roger, my deepest sympathies for the loss of your brother.
@37 “What pray tell does the Wisconsin situation or “Mission accomplished” have to do with the death penalty?”
They’re all related to the same thing:
REPUBLICANS SUCK
@38 I don’t think anyone argues the death penalty is a deterrent anymore.
If you go back 100 years, then we can surmise that some innocent people have been executed, given the state of police science 100 years ago — coerced confessions and all that. We don’t know, but the likelihood seems rather high.
It’s a lead-pipe cinch that, in the last 100 years, the death penalty was applied to people who didn’t kill anyone for crimes like rape; and it also was used as an instrument of oppression against African-Americans, especially in southern states.
None of this is relevant to the current death penalty debate. There is no state, to my knowledge, that has a death penalty for non-homicidal crimes anymore. (You can, however, get the federal death penalty for espionage and other crimes that don’t directly involve killing someone.) A handful of states, led by Texas, are in my opinion way too prolific in their juries’ willingness to sentence people to death.
The argument here, though, concerns abolition — no death penalty, ever, for any crime, or for any criminal, no matter what. I don’t agree with that. I think society should retain that option for the tiny number of profoundly hideous crimes that are so shocking to the conscience that any other penalty seems inadequate.
@40, 42 Thank you. My feelings about it are complicated. He wasn’t a nice guy. He was accused of being a wife beater and raping his own sister. But it’s doubtful his conscience bothered him, because he was in denial mode. He was motivated to take his own life by health and financial problems; he was in constant physical pain and chronically depressed. He wrote a suicide note, then swallowed the whole bottle of his anti-depression pills.
I just hope that wherever he is now, he has the peace he didn’t have in this world.
Hey Roger – I’m sorry for the loss of your brother. It’s a hard way for him to get to a place where he wouldn’t hurt anyone any longer.
Re: your comment from last night (sorry, I don’t spend all day in comment threads, life calls…), there have been a number of cases where there’s been strong evidence of innocence, but no iron-clad conclusion for a very simple reason: investigations almost always stop after the execution, and court appeals always do. There’s no DNA to test easily (unless you disinter a body), no defense lawyers or Innocence Project at work. So to say nobody has been executed who’s been proven innocent is a little misleading, particularly given the alarming numbers of people on death row who have been proven innocent. It’s a significant enough number that, statistically speaking, it’d be astonishing if innocent people haven’t been executed. Though as you point out there’s not much evidence of that in Washington state. But as a former resident of both Texas and Virginia, I can promise you it’s happened there.
My sense is most support of the death penalty is emotional: “the bastard deserves to die.” And I respect that emotion, though I don’t share it – and I also don’t see how conservatives can argue that tax dollars for abortion should be outlawed because some of the public has moral objections to the use of tax dollars to take life, but not make the same connection with capital punishment. At least the Catholics are consistent on this.
Personally, while I understand the emotional response to a horrific crime, I’m absolutist the other way: I can’t countenance the taking of a life for whatever reason, short of self-defense. But there’s also strong arguments against the death penalty due to the cost, the unlikelihood of repeat offenses when the alternative is life without parole, the often random (except for class and race) application (c.f. Ridgway), and the well-established complete lack of any deterrent effect. Especially since most killings are either crimes of passion or are committed by idiots, or both.
And I agree that life in prison seems like a far harsher punishment, especially since most killers are fairly young when they commit their crime. That’s a long time to be miserable. But then, I don’t believe in an afterlife, so better to make sure the punishment happens in this life.
@47 I think one of the strongest arguments against the death penalty is its randomness — it truly is a lottery. The counter-argument is that if you commit a crime that makes you eligible for the death penalty, by your own actions you’re rolling the dice and taking your chances.
Ohio is planning to execute an inmate today in a case where the victim’s relatives oppose the death penalty and execution. This raises the question: Where the victim’s survivors oppose execution, should a governor respect their wishes and commute the sentence?
The law views all crimes, whether shoplifting or mass murder, as acts committed not just against the victim but also against society. When a state puts a killer to death, it does so in the name of society as a whole, and in furtherance of a broad social interest, and not just as “justice” for the victim and the victim’s relatives. A crime is an offense against the social order, and is punished in the name of the state, not in the name of the victim.
Roger: Sorry to hear about your brother. No matter the circumstances – it is always tough to lose a sibling, parent or child. My condolences.
Roger: I disagree on the death penalty. It is not a deterrent and it costs more than life imprisonment. Plus, many mistakes HAVE been made.
There are 76 people who have been on death row and been exonerated since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated.
476 people have been executed since 1976 and the pace of executions is picking up. It is only a matter of time until an innocent person is executed in this country – heck, for every 7 executed persons there have been 1 person released from death row who was found by DNA evidence or other means to be innocent.
“@47 I think one of the strongest arguments against the death penalty is its randomness — it truly is a lottery. The counter-argument is that if you commit a crime that makes you eligible for the death penalty, by your own actions you’re rolling the dice and taking your chances.”
Hmmm. Perhaps we are going about this the wrong way. Maybe anyone convicted of an offense which is subject to the death penalty should have to engage in a forced game of russian roulette?
In Japan they do use the death penalty, but with one big difference. The prisoner never knows when he is going to die. It may be next week, it may be next year, it may be a decade from now. All he knows is that every time he hears steps coming down the corrider, they may be coming to take him to his execution.
@51 Yes, the Japanese excel at cruelty, don’t they?
My brother’s suicide yesterday touches upon an issue that’s been discussed on HA before — how the government suppresses the medical profession’s ability to give patients enough pain relief to make life bearable. When human beings are forced to live with excruciating pain, self-inflicted death can seem preferable to living with that level of pain. Under current government policies, many doctors are fearful or at least reluctant to prescribe pain medications in sufficient strengths or dosages. Another fallout effect from these policies is that many people with chronic pain conditions who can’t get relief from their physicians turn to illegal street drugs or alcohol for pain relief. At some point, these policies are not only wrong-headed, but just plain wrong.
@50 I personally support using the death penalty only in an extremely limited number of exceptionally egregious cases where guilt is not in question. I would support a significant tightening of the criteria that make a case death-eligible. Conservatives, of course, want to go in the opposite direction: They want to make executing people easier.
I agree with @54.
I personally support using the death penalty only in an extremely limited number of exceptionally egregious cases where guilt is not in question.
Wesley Allen Dodds comes to mind.
@53 Roger
I am certain you are wrong.
If a patient is in enough need, physicians can and do prescribe doses that are lethal.
The hard part may be deciding “enough need.” Despite Lee Rosenberg’s assertions, most docs work as hard as they can to make patients comfortable. Someone in severe pain may feel they need more drugs but, if the patient is able to live, giving more drug may require crossing over the border between analgesia and killing the patient.
The decision, while hard, is made all the time with terminal patients. Deciding what to do when a patient in pain is viable is a lot harder. Doctors are taught to preserve life and even the few who agree that suicide should be an option would tell you that a lethal dose should never occur unless it is the patient’s decision.
Long term pain is a terrible thing. One more reason why I believe in an unintelligent designer.
SJ: Docs are very wary of prescribing too much pain meds except for some terminal conditions (lung cancer). There have been prosecutions for too much opiate prescriptions….too much opiates and it causes respiratory depression and death – too little and, due to tolerance, pain relief is not sufficient.
Carl farts:
‘….we are going to have more compassion, more humanity, more decency than the people on death row.’
Well I tell ya what then Mr. Tenderhands, since your so against the death penalty and oh-so fucking concered about the poor little parasites on death row, perhaps you can offer them room & board in your house and see how all that compassion and humanity works out. If you don’t like the fact that we have capital punishment here in WA., then you are free to pack up your Prius and get the fuck out. Your argument has no merit whatsoever. Deal with it.
When monsters commit crimes so henious and viciously reprehensible, then they forfeit the right to live in society, whether locked up or otherwise. I say let’s revive the Guillotine!
Quit whining Roger Wabbit, no one cares what a crusty old dementia patient has to spew. Run along now back to the home.