To tell you the truth probably no difference. A vast majority of the murders are inner city perpetrated by people with no regard for the law, life or anything else for that matter. The thought of the death penalty probably doesn't even cross their mind. Here in Pennsylvania 3 people have been put to death since 1976. Currently there are approx. 250 people on death row. They are more likely to die of natural causes or killed by another inmate that actually be put to death. That's a stat I'd like to see, I'd bet more inmates on death row have been killed by other inmates than put to death...Originally Posted by e404pnf![]()
+ Reply to Thread
Results 31 to 47 of 47
-
-
Originally Posted by thecoalman
Now that DNA evidence is so commonplace, false convictions have been dramatically reduced. -
Originally Posted by adam
DNA evidence in and by itself is not 100% accurate either, how better to frame someone than plant just such evidence. I'm just saying with the recent convictions overturned I'm beggining to question how many people are sitting on death row that didn't do it, How many have already been executed. Your life is quite a price to pay and the evidence should be overwhelming if that's the price. -
No, its no consolation for those still falsely convicted but that doesn't make the statement any less true.
Yeah I question whether the guy being executed truly did it too, and the system always will as well, that's why we wait soooo long before executing someone, to make sure that there is no more doubt as to their guilt...at least as best as can be determined. And that's why we have a penal system so utterly deferential to the accused. Any reasonable doubt as to their guilt whatsover and the jury cannot convict.
I'm just saying that DNA evidence has greatly added to the certainty of many convictions and that most of the individuals exonerated while on death row were the result of new DNA tests on past evidence. That's just a statistical fact. Had those tests been available originally they would not have been convicted.
Its not so much that DNA can so conclusively show that someone is guilty, more often its that the DNA evidence exonerates the individual. All it takes is a reasonable doubt. If there is ANYONE elses DNA present at the scene or on some key piece of evidence, that can be enough to prevent conviction or at least prevent a sentence of death.
DNA technology has given both the prosecution and the defense a powerful tool for ascertaining the TRUTH and that is why there are less false convictions as a result, whether its a case for capital punishment or not. -
still, to this day no one has ever produced the name of someone executed who was innocent since the dp was again made available.
in contrast there are those sentenced ti life who are released or escape and go on to kill again.
with each innocent man freed and guilty executed the system gains validation. as adam noted the chances of executing an innocent man grow more remote each day. -
Ruben Cantu. He is actually an example of someone executed here in Texas who was later found to be innocent. I don't know of any other examples but there have been lots of close calls, and by close I mean a few days. Most of them involved african american men falsely accused and framed back in the 50's-60's. They basically had to wait until after the civil rights movement to get a fair trial.
All in all I agree with you. I think there are holes all throughout the US penal system but one area where we very rarely err is with the death penalty. I doubt many other countries spend ~10-20 years and several million dollars on every death row inmate to ensure that there's no defense left for them to make. -
Roger Keith Coleman Virginia Conviction 1982 Executed 1992 Coleman was convicted of raping and murdering his sister-in-law in 1981, but both his trial and appeal were plagued by errors made by his attorneys. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the merits of his petition because his state appeal had been filed one day late. Considerable evidence was developed after the trial to refute the state's evidence, and that evidence might well have produced a different result at a re-trial. Governor Wilder considered a commutation for Coleman, but allowed him to be executed when Coleman failed a lie detector test on the day of his execution.
Larry Griffin Missouri Conviction 1981 Executed 1995A year-long investigation by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has uncovered evidence that Larry Griffin may have been innocent of the crime for which he was executed by the state of Missouri on June 21, 1995. Griffin maintained his innocence until his death, and investigators say his case is the strongest demonstration yet of an execution of an innocent man. The report notes that a man injured in the same drive-by shooting that claimed the life of Quintin Moss says Griffin was not involved in the crime, and the first police officer on the scene has given a new account that undermines the trial testimony of the only witness who identified Griffin as the murderer. Based on its findings, the NAACP has supplied the prosecution with the names of three men it suspects committed the crime, and all three of the suspects are currently in jail for other murders. Prosecutor Jennifer Joyce said she has reopened the investigation and will conduct a comprehensive review of the case over the next few months. "There is no real doubt that we have an innocent person. If we could go to trial on this case, if there was a forum where we could take this to trial, we would win hands down," stated University of Michigan law professor Samuel Gross, who supervised the investigation into Griffin's case. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 11, 2005). Read the NAACP report on Larry Griffin's case.
Joseph O'Dell Virginia Conviction 1986 Executed 1997 New DNA blood evidence has thrown considerable doubt on the murder and rape conviction of O'Dell. In reviewing his case in 1991, three Supreme Court Justices, said they had doubts about O'Dell's guilt and whether he should have been allowed to represent himself. Without the blood evidence, there is little linking O'Dell to the crime. In September, 1996, the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated his death sentence and upheld his conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review O'Dell's claims of innocence and held that its decision regarding juries being told about the alternative sentence of life-without-parole was not retroactive to his case. O'Dell asked the state to conduct DNA tests on other pieces of evidence to demonstrate his innocence but was refused. He was executed on July 23rd.
David Spence Texas Conviction 1984 Executed 1997 Spence was charged with murdering three teenagers in 1982. He was allegedly hired by a convenience store owner to kill another girl, and killed these victims by mistake. The convenience store owner, Muneer Deeb, was originally convicted and sentenced to death, but then was acquitted at a re-trial. The police lieutenant who supervised the investigation of Spence, Marvin Horton, later concluded: "I do not think David Spence committed this crime." Ramon Salinas, the homicide detective who actually conducted the investigation, said: "My opinion is that David Spence was innocent. Nothing from the investigation ever led us to any evidence that he was involved." No physical evidence connected Spence to the crime. The case against Spence was pursued by a zealous narcotics cop who relied on testimony of prison inmates who were granted favors in return for testimony.
Leo Jones Florida Convicted 1981 Executed 1998 Jones was convicted of murdering a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida. Jones signed a confession after several hours of police interrogation, but he later claimed the confession was coerced. In the mid-1980s, the policeman who arrested Jones and the detective who took his confession were forced out of uniform for ethical violations. The policeman was later identified by a fellow officer as an "enforcer" who had used torture. Many witnesses came forward pointing to another suspect in the case.
Gary Graham Texas Convicted 1981 Executed 2000
On June 23, 2000, Gary Graham was executed in Texas, despite claims that he was innocent. Graham was 17 when he was charged with the 1981 robbery and shooting of Bobby Lambert outside a Houston supermarket. He was convicted primarily on the testimony of one witness, Bernadine Skillern, who said she saw the killer's face for a few seconds through her car windshield, from a distance of 30 -40 feet away. Two other witnesses, both who worked at the grocery store and said they got a good look at the assailant, said Graham was not the killer but were never interviewed by Graham's court appointed attorney, Ronald Mock, and were not called to testify at trial. Three of the jurors who voted to convict Graham signed affidavits saying they would have voted differently had all of the evidence been available.
Cameron Willingham Texas Convicted 1992 Executed 2004
After examining evidence from the capital prosecution of Cameron Willingham, four national arson experts have concluded that the original investigation of Willingham's case was flawed and it is possible the fire was accidental. The independent investigation, reported by the Chicago Tribune, found that prosecutors and arson investigators used arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances. Willingham was executed earlier this year in Texas despite his consistent claims of innocence. He was convicted of murdering his three children in a 1991 house fire.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=111
Texas is the worst offender in seemingly not giving a shit about the innocence or wrongful incarceration/convictions of people. I'm appalled at the number of times courts have refused to hear updated evidence based on information re-examined by technological advances. The system is not flawed, it's the people in charge that are kill-happy ********.
There are more. This is just a list I found online. I researched one case in depth years ago, and the things that went on almost make you want to throw up. The guy was innocent, DNA could prove it, but nobody in the court cared to hear about it, his appeals were all denied.
And unlike the assertions that "well those people probably deserved to be in there anyway", the truth is a number these folks were usually arrested with a clean record and genuinely good people. It makes you feel better to say "well the ones that are wrongly convicted probably did something else anyway and deserve it anyway" but that's just not even remotely true. Tookie here would probably be the exception, rather than the rule, for that sort of sentiment.Want my help? Ask here! (not via PM!)
FAQs: Best Blank Discs • Best TBCs • Best VCRs for capture • Restore VHS -
Originally Posted by adam
Originally Posted by lordsmurf -
Originally Posted by thecoalman
Deterrent is definitely an intended purpose of the death penalty, but the greater one is probably money. It costs too much to keep a guy, who we know we will never release, in prison for 50-60 years. You are talking about spending millions of dollars on some scumbag. At some point we just put them out of their misery to balance our budget. -
Arguing insanity is insane in itself. Killing someone with, rare exception, is like the ultimate act of insanity. And if a person does not actually know the difference between right and wrong or what they where doing at the time, then the death penalty should be seen as a mercy killing.
I hate to be thought of as on the middle of the fence or flip flopping on a subject and worse yet I hate to not have a firm answer or grip on a given subject. I like to think that it means that I am open minded enough to see more than one side of an issue, but I fear that it really means that the subject is too complex to really have only one answer.
I am pro-death penalty when done right. That, being said, puts me in an awkward position when things get botched up and an innocent gets the wrong treatment. What do I say? Oops, sorry? Not good enough, just by having thought that the death penalty is an option, makes me somehow guilty if the wrong person gets the axe. The evidence and conviction need to be rock solid. Every option exausted, and no doubt about it.
It seems that when ever I read about a bad conviction, that there were so many issues that should have raised red flags in the case that it is almost insane that a conviction was allowed at all. Yes, hind sight is twenty/twenty and we have more and newer methods in evidence gathering and processing now, but it still seems that many of the older cases that are being overturned were so botched up that it was almost criminal in the things that the courts allowed to happen.
Instead of me feeling the guilt, maybe those that botched up should be held accountable for their actions or lack of action.
Tuff callIS IT SUPPOSED TO SMOKE LIKE THAT? -
Originally Posted by ZAPPER
1. Its not "no doubt about it", its no reasonable doubt about it. Otherwise everyone could argue divine intervention and have introduced doubt (however implausible).
2. The system is (probably) one of the best. However, like all things, when you introduce a set of random variables (human beings) into an otherwise well thought out concept there are bound to be problems.
Case and point woudl be Communism. Its a really good idea in theory, but by putting human beings into the equation it quickly becomes a royal disaster. Lazy, shiftless, greedy, power hungry bastards that we all are makes the concept of "equal" for everyone impossible. Good thing too, I personally believe people should be rewarded for hard work and intelligent thinking.
3. Do you ever seek medical care? If so, are you then guilty for supporting a system that regularly kills people due to ignorance, incompetence or just a general lack of giving a shit? Same difference except there was no judge or jury to impose the penalty. -
Originally Posted by smurf
i remember the case from when i lived in houston. an open/shut case with no room for doubt. so i was curious and checked into it. it didn't take much time to find the inside scoop. to see his excusers shredded look here-
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/graham.htm
well researched, footnoted and a forced retreat of his defenders. classic.
when i get time i'll check into the ruben cantu story. adam seems to follow the law pretty devoutly. if he was indeed wrongly executed it is curious as to why the anti crowd has not embraced his story. instead they cling to a never ending string of easily disproved cases that undermines their credibility.
And unlike the assertions that "well those people probably deserved to be in there anyway", the truth is a number these folks were usually arrested with a clean record and genuinely good people. -
actually it's more difficult to get executed in texas than you think....
henry lee lucas
Henry Lee Lucas might be America’s most prolific serial killer. On the other hand, he might be the biggest liar since Baron von Munchhausen. After experiencing a self-described "religious conversion" in prison, he decided to bare his soul and confess to an astronomical number of murders. Later, however, he recanted most of his testimony. Among law enforcement officials, the exact number of his crimes remains a matter of debate. Still, even if Lucas’s final body counts falls far short of the five hundred victims he originally claimed, he nevertheless ranks as one if the most depraved serial killer in history.
Subjected to untold horrors by his insanely abusive mother, Lucas began indulging in sadistic depravity while still a child. By thirteen, he was engaging in sex with his older half-brother, who also introduced Henry to the joys of bestiality and animal torture. One of their favorite activities was slitting the throats of small animals, then sexually violating the corpses.
Early in his childhood, Lucas was compelled to dress as a girl by his mother. She would curl her little boy’s stringy blond hair into ringlets and sent him off to school in girl’s clothes.
One year later, he committed his first murder, strangling a seventeen year-old girl who resisted his efforts to rape her. In 1954, the eighteen year-old Lucas received a six-year prison sentence for burglary. Soon after his release in 1959, he got into a drunken argument with his seventy four-year-old mother and stabbed her to death. He also confessed to raping his corpses, though he later retracted that detail.
Receiving a forty-year sentence for second degree murder. Lucas ended up in the state psychiatric facility. In spite of his own protestations—"When they put me out on parole, I said I’m not ready to go. I told them all, the warden, the psychologist, everyone that I was going to kill"---he was release after only ten years. Eighteen months later he was back in prison for molesting two teenage girls.
Lucas was discharged from the state pen in 1975. Not long afterward, he met Ottis Toole, a vicious psychopath who became Lucas’s partner in one of the most appalling killing spree in the annals of American crime. For the next seven years, this deranged duo roamed the country, murdering and mutilating an untold number of victims. Like Lucas, the profoundly depraved Toole also had a taste for necrophilia. He also indulged in occasional cannibalism, an atrocity that Lucas tended to shun, since he found human flesh too gamy. For much of their odyssey, they were accompanied by Toole’s preadolescent niece, Frieda "Becky" Powell, who became Lucas’s lover and common-law wife. She would later become his ultimate victim, when at age fifteen she was found dismembered, stuffed in pillowcases, and strewn over a field.......On March 31, 1998, Texas State District Judge John Carter set June 30 as the execution date for Henry Lee. Although his many confessions, he was sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of a female hitchhiker known as "Orange Socks" for the only item of clothing left on her body. During many of his detractions Lucas claimed that he was working as a roofer in Florida when the hitchhiker was killed. No execution date had been set for Lucas until now. He was granted a stay in September 1995 so his claims of false confessions could be investigated. The stay was lifted a year later.
On June 27, 1998 Governor George W. Bush spared Henry's life because of overwhelming evidence proving that Henry was not in Texas when "Orange Socks" was murdered. Although Lucas confessed to killing her, work records and a cashed paycheck indicated he was in Florida at the time of the murder. Bush issued the reprieve on the recommendation of the state parole board.
Coral Eugene Watts
They got more information than they bargained for. Watts confessed to killing 13 women in Texas and Michigan and assaulting six more.
Michigan authorities also granted Watts immunity in Wayne County, where he admitted to murdering reporter Jeanne Clyne.
Since then, Watts has been named a suspect in 26 more deaths in the two states. Aside from his confessions, police could not link Watts to any of the murders, the nature of which varied from strangling to drowning to stabbing.
None of the women were sexually assaulted, and, aside from Watts' claim that he targeted women with "evil eyes" they appeared to have been chosen at random.
"He's the nation's most prolific serial killer, yet the name Coral Eugene Watts barely even registers on the public radar because he's never been convicted of murder," said Andy Kahan, a member of the Crime Victims Unit in Houston, who has followed the case since 1982.
A chance encounter while channel surfing
This most recent chapter in the story of Coral Eugene Watts — whose first name comes from his relatives' southern pronunciation of his birth name, Carl — began in 2002.
Watts was about four years away from release after a Texas Court of Appeals ruled that he had not been notified at the time of his indictment that his felony could be considered aggravated because of his use of a deadly weapon — water.
With that ruling, Watts was deemed a nonviolent felon and became eligible to receive three days' good-time credit for every day served in prison.
The development compelled authorities in Texas and Michigan to begin investigating ways to block Watts' impending release.
"We had resigned ourselves to the fact that he was going to be released to kill again," Kahan said. "You can't rehabilitate a serial killer, considering that his parting words were, 'If I'm released, I'm gonna kill again.'"
Kahan and the victims' families embarked on a media blitz to promote news of Watts' release, highlighting that he had been denied parole six times because he was considered a public threat.
In January 2004, Michigan resident Joseph Foy was channel surfing when he came upon Watts' mug shot on MSNBC.
He notified police that he recognized the man from an unsolved stabbing he witnessed 25 years ago in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale, near the 8-Mile Road made famous by rapper Eminem.
After confirming that Foy had reported the multiple stabbing death of 36-year-old Helen Dutcher in 1979, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox sought to extradite Watts to stand trial.
"This man is a confessed killing machine who has admitted he will kill again," Cox said in a press release. "The specter of Watts' release has haunted Michigan families, the nation, and untold victims and their families for too long."
elmer wayne henley
Prospective victims had to be young and good looking. Corll, Henley and Brooks would recruit them individually or as a trio. They planned regular parties with alcohol and marijuana. What was so astonishing was that Henley and Brooks recruited their friends, childhood friends of many years, knowing full well that these friends would be tortured and murdered. Some of the boys had been castrated; another’s penis had been chewed; some had been beaten or kicked to death.
By the end of the second day of the investigation, the body count had risen to 17. Both Henley and Brooks were told to make a list of every boy that they remembered as a victim. Henley, who never stopped talking, told police that several boys were buried near Lake Sam Rayburn and on the High Island beach. A trip was planned immediately to those sites. Several bodies were discovered fairly soon, but since it was late in the day, further digging had to wait until the following day.
Over the coming days, 17 bodies were found in the boat shed and before the investigation was completed, the bodies of 27 boys had been unearthed – making the serial murder case the largest in U.S. history, beating the existing record of Juan Corona’s 25 victims. -
Originally Posted by ZAPPER
On Sept. 25, 1982, Banks was on paid leave from Camp Hill prison because of his increasingly erratic behavior. Awaking from a haze of prescription drugs and gin at his Jenkins Township home near Wilkes-Barre, Banks picked up an AR-15 semiautomatic and went hunting for his loved ones at 2 a.m.
In the house, Banks shot three girlfriends who bore him four kids between them: Susan Yuhas, 23, Dorothy Lyons, 29, and Regina Clemens, 29. He also murdered his children Forarounde, 1, Mauritania, 1, Bowendy, 4, Montanzima, 6, and Dorothy's 11-year-old daughter Nancy.
Wearing military fatigues and a shirt emblazoned with "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out," Banks ran out of the house and shot two neighbors, Ray Hall, 24, and Jimmy Olsen, 22, who were trying to flee the area. Hall died from his chest wounds.
Banks then drove to the trailer park home of former girlfriend Sharon Mazzillo, 24. He murdered her and their 5-year-old son Kissamayu as he slept. He shot Mazzillo's mother Alice, 47, and her 7-year-old nephew Scott. He also shot Sharon's brothers Angelo, 10, and Keith, 13, but they both survived. On Sept. 25, 1982, Banks was on paid leave from Camp Hill prison because of his increasingly erratic behavior. Awaking from a haze of prescription drugs and gin at his Jenkins Township home near Wilkes-Barre, Banks picked up an AR-15 semiautomatic and went hunting for his loved ones at 2 a.m.
In the house, Banks shot three girlfriends who bore him four kids between them: Susan Yuhas, 23, Dorothy Lyons, 29, and Regina Clemens, 29. He also murdered his children Forarounde, 1, Mauritania, 1, Bowendy, 4, Montanzima, 6, and Dorothy's 11-year-old daughter Nancy.
Wearing military fatigues and a shirt emblazoned with "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out," Banks ran out of the house and shot two neighbors, Ray Hall, 24, and Jimmy Olsen, 22, who were trying to flee the area. Hall died from his chest wounds.
Banks then drove to the trailer park home of former girlfriend Sharon Mazzillo, 24. He murdered her and their 5-year-old son Kissamayu as he slept. He shot Mazzillo's mother Alice, 47, and her 7-year-old nephew Scott. He also shot Sharon's brothers Angelo, 10, and Keith, 13, but they both survived.
-
The guy I mentioned above could be the poster boy for the insanity defense. Don't know why he wasn't found insane in the first place.
http://www.commondreams.org
doesn't help persuade. they oppose the dp in all cases and rely on dubius claims for much of it.
a quick look here-
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/banks/aftermath_15.html
which is nutural on the dp gives a different perspective.
i have no position on his sanity. others, closer to him are better suited to determine this, much the same i make a habit of deferring to a jury that has heard the case rather than criticize based on media reports.
i do however, find it suspicious that someone can claim mental incapicities when committing the offense, then have a sudden frecovery to fight the dp in their case.... -
There will always be controversy over the death penalty, regardless how long it is around, even if they stop using it ever, they should always keep it around for people there is absolutely no doubt about.... like,
Ted Bundy,
John Wayne Gacy,
& espc. Jeffrey Dahmer!! to name just a few out of many, many more!
In Jeffrey Dahmer's case, now i do not know if they have the death penalty in Wisconsin, i'm guessing not seeing as he was sentanced to 15 consecutive life terms, later a 16th being addedbut they should have shipped him to a state that did have the death penalty!!
The inmate that killed him in prison, did the taxpayers a huge service!!
Saved how many millions of $$$ keeping him alive for the rest of his life, another 40 years maybe ?
In cases like those, don't even waste any more $$ or time and snuff them as soon as possible!! what would be the point but to waste $$ keeping people like that alive
I have read about alot of instances like LS posted & in the case of "Stanley "Tookie" Williams" IF he did not commit that murder, i'm betting he either did kill other(s) or was behind other such crimes. -
Originally Posted by Noahtuck
Similar Threads
-
Set "Output filename" As Default Global "File/segment title" In MkvMerge?
By LouieChuckyMerry in forum Video ConversionReplies: 0Last Post: 9th Jul 2011, 01:52 -
WMV files: Changing "Recorded Date", "Media Created" fields in metadata
By axhack in forum EditingReplies: 5Last Post: 18th Sep 2010, 01:27 -
"stretching" or "cramming" aspect ratio when I convert .avi to MP4
By Agent Bauer in forum ffmpegX general discussionReplies: 3Last Post: 21st Mar 2010, 10:30 -
Review "HYFAI" MP3/MP4 "Nano" clone from ebay
By NG in forum Portable VideoReplies: 29Last Post: 18th Sep 2007, 05:45 -
Staxrip: "Constant Quality" vs. "Exact File Size"
By FallenAngelII in forum Video ConversionReplies: 1Last Post: 9th Aug 2007, 17:40