Death Penalty

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Regarding coercion.......Moreno already admitted to fingering Cantu because the police told him that they wanted him to do so. The police even went so far as to bring up an unrelated case about Cantu in an effort to get Moreno to finger him. Depending on how you define coercion, this could easily fit the bill. Coercion, by the way, was really just an example. The point is that we didn't allow for the fact that the evidence used against Moreno could be faulty and we executed him on false info. Killing more people will inevitably lead to the same mistakes. As long as we have the death penalty, innocent people will be put to death.


I have posted more than one example of prisoners who have been convicted and executed and been shown by independent organisations to have been wrongly convicted and executed. In my search for further resources, I have turned up more than 20 similar cases. I can provide detailed links to all 20 that I have found so far, if you'd like. State that occasionally putting an innocent man to death is acceptable. I'll live with that. Don't state that we aren't putting innocent people to death, though. It's too easy to find examples if you actually look for them.

[ May 12, 2006, 03:58: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

Yes, 20 out of the thousands that have been guilty. Very low percentages.

Since 1976, 1020 convicted murderers have been executed.. Lets say 20 of those were convicted incorrectly. Thats 0.0196, or 1.96%. Thats if all of your sources check out.

So if we had not reinstituted the death penalty, 20 people would have been saved that deserved it. 1000 would be sitting in jail, or released. Both of those could do damage to either more innocents, or to other inmates that don't deserve death (their crimes don't warrant it).

 

Moreno, the victim who was allegedly coerced, was an illegal immigrant.

I admire your faith in the US' legal system but I think it is naive. I'm not trying to be a jerk but I think you are thinking there are certain rules in place that aren't really there - for example, the three eye-witness rule sounds like something from the middle ages perhaps but isn't a state law.

 

First of all, people being considered for the death penalty don't get released, Saber. Like I said, I can deal with you arguing that it is acceptable to occasionally put innocent people to death. I take issue with foolish assertions that we aren't putting innocents to death. Also, I found 20 in a cursory internet search. There are probably more. Illinois pulled 13 people off of death row after finding out that all of them were innocent. They have executed 12. That means out of 25 people they have sentenced to death, more than half were completely innocent of the crime. That said, what are the odds that the 12 they executed are innocent? My math sets those odds very low. I'm not going to debate the numbers, anyway.......because I think one is too big a number to wrongly put to death. Unfortunately, we are going to imprison people wrongly...and it is somewhat necessary. Killing people, however, is never necessary. It doesn't even work as a deterrent. If it did, the US would have lower murder rates than nations without the death penalty (we don't) and states with the death penaly would have less murders than states without (they don't, either). The government never needs to execute anyone.

The only place I've ever seen it was the Quran.

 

And

Sorry to lump these together, but both concern Fel's assertion that a certain level of evidence is necessary to execute someone. Technically, what Drew says (first quote) is accurate. However, that is not the whole story. For example, 1st degree murder is not an executable offense in some states that have the death penalty. I'll use my home state of Maryland as an example. We have the death penalty in Maryland, but it is only enforcable for more than one count of 1st degree murder. To put it another way, if you only kill one person, you can't be put to death for it. So regardless of what the evidence is, unless you are convicted of murdering multiple people, you won't be put to death.

Secondly, in the vast majority of states that have the death penalty, the sentencing segment of the trial is seperate from the conviction itself. The first part is the standard trial where the jury only decides on guilt or innocence. If the accused is found to be guilty, then the second phase of the trial starts to decide on whether or not the convicted will be put to death (provided his crime(s) meet that state's criteria). But even this isn't automatic. First the prosecution has to request that they are seeking the death penalty. Secondly, the jury has options other than the death penalty open to them - namely life in prison, or life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

What all of this is saying is that in many states the possibility of putting someone to death falsely is reduced because of the criteria required to even seek the death penalty. To use my Maryland example, I think the odds are low of you being convicted of a single murder, and they must be significantly lower to convict you of multiple murders.

That statement is completely ridiculous. Theoretically, any info used in any trial COULD be faulty. Any eye witness has the possibility of not being reliable. Any person could be coerced into giving false testimony. Any police officer can manufacture false evidence against someone. What does that leave us with? Just hard evidence like fingerprints and DNA samples? Anything that cannot be proved with 100% accuracy is not allowable in court? So we can't have any circumstantial evidence admitted either? If we want to use that as an arguement then we should just do away with the trial system entirely.

 

The standard of proof in a death penatly case is no different than the standard of proof in any other criminal case. A death penatly case can use the exact same type of evidence that is used in any other case to obtain a conviction.

Both of the above statements are true. You can look at the Federal Rules of Evidence and individual states' rules of evidence and you'll see this is true - you can probably google them up and see for yourself.

You can convict someone of theft or burglary entirely on circumstantial evidence and you can do the same for a capital crime.

The point Fel made was that a capital crime required "extra" proof (three eyewitnesses, etc.) relative to other crimes; that is not true.

The bifurcation of the trial process is not a matter of requiring more or less proof than any other crime; it is simply a bifurcation of the process. They do the same thing in complex civil trials as well on occassion - splitting the liability trial from damages, or maybe splitting punitives, or maybe splitting...

 

Yeah, I know. I was saying, if America had not reinstituted the death penalty in 1976 (and thus, there would be no death row), those 1000 convicted criminals would either be in jail or have been released. They would never have been on death row, and so, they would have the chance of being released.

 

Laches,

Allow me first to apologize. I realized in re-reading my last post that I singled out Drew's statement as being true, which naturally would give the reader the impression that I felt your statement was not true. That was not my intention. In fact, what I was actually planning on doing is stating how each of your statements were true, and then give examples of how other factors also become involved in the process of handing out a death sentence. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, I forgot about going back to your comment, which is why no further mention of it occurs in my previous post.

I think it is obvious to anyone with any familiarity with the legal system, that Fel's example of needing three eye-witnesses to convict someone of murder is not accurate. I can't imagine that rule is in effect in any state. All I was trying to point out is that in states that have the death penalty, just because you kill someone doesn't mean you automatically get the death penalty upon conviction. It is in the second phase of the trial where there will be arguements presented for and against the execution, and mitigating factors brought up. Again, I apologize for completely botching this message in my last post.

 

Geez. I said "or something like that", clearly indicating I wasn't absolutely sure what I was talking about. No need to rip me a new one for 'lying'.

No, the point I was making was that it is not so easy to get someone executed in places other than Texas, which is true by Aldeth's example. BTA's post goes farther in depth on the general side, but then there's the general attitude in Texas toward the death penalty to consider, comparative to other places. Mitigating circumstances might mean more in Maryland and other places than they do in Texas.

 

Here is what I believe to be correct:

What you are saying is that a capital crime may have different elements than some other crimes. That is true but it is not true that someone can not receive the death penalty without the state proving some heightened element that may not be found in some other type of crime. For example, you raise the element of intent and indicate that in a capital crime there must be proof that the act was deliberate. This is not any different though than numerous other crimes. It is hard to talk about without specific statutes to look at but under the model penal code you may be death penalty eligible if you commit the appropriate type of crime with either purpose or knowledge (I.e. I intended to kill this person vs. I knew what I was doing could/would result in someone’s death.) The other types of intent the model penal code includes are reckless and negligent. If you added them all up, it is my guess that there are more purpose and knowledge crimes than there are reckless and negligent crimes. Attempt and conspiracy crimes for example have the same proof requirements regarding intent as a capital crime might. Distribution. Kidnapping. Felonious retraint. False imprisonment. Interference with custody. Many sexual assault crimes (not the statutory ones) require a minimum of knowledge. Indecent exposure. Arson. Burglary. Trespass. Theft. Forgery.

So, with respect to intent, proving a capital crime doesn't really require the state to prove anything greater than it would have to prove in theft (ex. purpose to kill or knowledge vs. purpose to deprive the owner of possession.)

The second thing you mentioned was the example of a 'defendant being a future danger'. To be death penalty eligible the state need not prove this. The state must establish certain aggravating criteria but the aggravating criteria may be definitional - so, in a felony murder claim a person may be death penalty eligible if the state proves that the person committed the underlying felony and someone died (see the Willingham case cited above as a likely application of the death penalty to an innocent man under these circumstances.) There are no extra aggravating conditions that need be proven. Additionally, other aggravating conditions are pretty wishy washy and don’t really amount to much. For example, sometimes aggravating factors include things like “heinous” or “especially cruel” but such factors don’t really mean anything additional to many (most?) jury members in many cases - many people say that any murder/rape/arson etc. fulfills this requirement.

The real determination, in my opinion, as to whether someone receives the death penalty for a death penalty crime is often whether the prosecutor decides to seek the death penalty.

And, you mentioned that there must be a unanimous decision by the jury before a death sentence can be handed down. This varies by jurisdiction but some jurisdictions allow someone to be found guilty of a crime, even a capital crime, without a unanimous jury decision. Florida, for example, doesn’t require a unanimous jury verdict or recommendation of death by the jury to receive the death penalty.

@ Fel - I don't think anyone meant to imply you were lying.

 

Here is a list of all the reasons for using the death penalty... so Laches, some of your statements are far too large of generalizations to include all states in the US.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=144&scid=10

And thats exactly why every murderer or rapist isn't executed... only slightly over 1000 have been.

 

I'm not sure which of my statements were too large of a generalization but that wasn't my intent - which is why I referred to the model penal code as opposed to specific state.

And, regarding Sabre's link, it may be misleading. For example, I talked about felony murder as being a crime for which you might receive the death penalty in some jurisdictions. Felony murder is only listed as a separate capital crime on Sabre's link for the state of Florida. But, Texas put Willingham to death for felony murder. It is just that felony murder in Texas is included in Texas within its criminal homicide statutes - specifically § 19.03(2)(a)(2) of the Texas Penal Code.

So, some of the statements might appear to be more over generalized than they actually are based on Sabre's list unless you delve a little deeper.

That said, I'm sure I did overgeneralize and I apologize.

@ BTA - There have been SCOTUS cases regarding the constiutionality of not requiring a unanimous verdict. SCOTUS has said that some degree of majority is required but hasn't set a specific number. So, as a made up example, SCOTUS heard one case and said (pulling numbers out of the air) that 10 out of 12 jurors is okay and then it heard another case and said 4 out of 7 isn't okay. They've never said what type of majority you need.

It's been a while but I believe the case I read was with respect to Arizona but it was an older case and that may have changed. I don't know which states do not require a unanimous verdict now but I do know a unanimous verdict isn't constitutionally required. A google search turned up something saying 29 states require a supermajority but my guess is that some/many of them don't allow a supermajority but require a unanimous jury in a capital crim - at least I suspect they do since you don't hear more outcry about it. So, int hat respect a capital crime in these states that I'm guessing exist does require more than other crimes.

 

I was referring to this:

It sounded like you were applying that to all states... in the link I provided, a few of the states needed many aggravating conditions besides the proof that the criminal killed someone. Sorry for misinterpreting your statement.

 

Oh. I think I see what you're saying but just to make sure we're on the same page...

In the link above, some of the states have beside them things like: 18 aggravating factors.

That doesn't mean that a jury has to find there were 18 aggravating factors, it means there are 18 aggravating factors that could exist.

For example, since I know this one, in Pennsylvania the site says there are 18 aggravating factors. But, that doesn't mean a jury has to find there were 18 aggravating factors but rather it means the jury must find that some of those 18 factors exist. There was a SCOTUS case a few years back and if I recall correctly to get the death penalty in Pennsylvania, at least a few years ago, in order for someone to get the death penalty the jury had to find that 1 of the 18 aggravating factors exists if there are no mitigating factors OR that at least 1 of the 18 factors exists and it outweighed any mitigating factor.

The linked page may make it look like you have to find 18 aggravating factors in Pennsylvania but really the site is saying that there are 18 possible factors (and you only need to have 1 exist for death.)

The site may be confusing that way.

 

I'm only stating that we should not execute anyone at all, because mistakes happen. I think our criminal justice system needs to make allowances for the fact that not all convictions will be accurate. We can't just stop imprisoning people that we have found guilty in court just because some people in prison will inevitably be innocent. I'm not saying that. If I were, then I would be making a completely ridiculous statement.

What I mean when I suggest we should be "making allowances for inaccurate information" is simply this: We know some innocents will be put to death if we enforce the death penalty. Knowing this, we can actually ensure that no innocents will ever be executed again.....by not executing people. I apply this logic only to death penalty cases. Only an idiot would suggest not ever imprisoning anyone because we will occasionally be imprisoning someone who is innocent. If we find out we have made a judicial error, we can rectify this somewhat by releasing the prisoner. We can do nothing to rectify such an error when the prisoner is dead.

 

Oh. Well. I'm done then, sorry for the hassle.

 

I'm sorry, but a life behind bars is a lot worse than death, I for one would prefer to be killed than to spend the rest of my life behind bars, I'd be getting off a lot easier. However, I think that there should be no activities allowed in prisons, no pool tables, no gyms, no books, no TV, no nothing, just walls, bars, and time, because I've met short term ex-cons who raved about the pleasent time they had in prison, drugs, music, tv, football, music bands, all of that crap, and on top of all those entertainments available, they have food and a bed for free, that's not punishment, atleast not in the short term.

 

I don't know about that. I'd rather have my freedom than Cable.