BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 02:59 PM

There is no reason to kill folks, if the public can be protected, and life imprisonment would mean that-unless you are proven innocent. However, in some countries, like in Canada, life means 25 years- and likley less with parole. The exception is if the guilty party is deemed mentally ill of deemed to be a dangerous offender.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 03:34 PM

"Rights of the victimw" does indeed open many doors. Who is the victim when a Sikh, for instance, murders a daughter who has shamed him? In my view the only real victims of murder are the murdered. I don't mind the term being extended for convenience, in the absence of anything more precise, and I'm happy for impact statements to be taken into account when sentencing, but I don't think these secondary victims should be accorded rights above anyone else.

No-one deprived through murder of a friend or relative can ever be compensated. Allowing such people a say in any punishment (as is the case in some parts of the world) removes consistency. One so-called victim might be compassionate; another vengeance-driven. In a democracy it is surely better that sentencing should be in accord with codes and guidance drafted by elected legislators.

I suspect that Guest# would be looking for vengeance rather than compassion from any involvement of "victims." For my part I take the view that when considering an appropriate response to any crime, in the cold light of day, any question of vengeance should be taken right out of the equation, or we are no better than those we presume to judge and punish.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 04:05 PM

"' suspect that Guest# would be looking for vengeance rather than compassion from any involvement of "victims." '

Then you would suspect wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 04:07 PM

My apologies.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 06:00 PM

Regarding the last couple of posts from Peter K (Fionn) and Guest,#:

"Without the death penalty, there could well be more personal revenge killings and vigilantism, and perhaps even family/clan feuds, because the families of victims [do not - gram. error] feel their loved one did not get justice." JotSC two days ago.

In other words, a death penalty, judiciously and sparingly used can give the victim's survivors a sense of justice and closure, without resorting to individual revenge.

JotSC

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 07:06 PM

a death penalty, judiciously and sparingly used can give the victim's survivors a sense of justice and closure

As long as they're willing to reduce themselves to the same level as the perpetrator.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 07:39 PM

Here in the UK, and relying only on my own observation, there was a tendency in the years immediately following abolition for victims' survivors and newspapers to say the perpetrator should have hanged. More recently comment has been around the length of prison term, with any yearning for execution now much rarer.

Meanwhile popular support for restoration seems to have dwindled a bit. Whereas it was at one time 70 per cent or higher, and an oft-cited example of Parliament's capacity to lead rather than be led, a survey for Channel 4 TV in 2009 showed 55 per cent in favour across Great Britain (49 per cent in just England).

In the UK de facto abolition was secured in 1965 - the last executions were in 1964 - though it was not completely off the statutes until 1998. In 1966 parliament held its nerve in the face of two colossal crimes that brought renewed strength to the restoration cause: the Moors murders by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, and the murder of three police officers by Harry Roberts and others. (Hindley died in prison; Brady, as a diagnosed psychopath, is in a secure hospital, and Roberts is still in prison having long since completed the 30-year term originally recommended.)

Two or three years ago a couple of petitions were run, more or less in parallel, under a Government initiative whereby 100,000 signatures for any cause would trigger a parliamentary debate (but with no commitment to legislate). That in favour of restoration attracted 26,000 signatures; that against, 33,000 (approximate figures, from memory).

This is consistent with trends in several other countries. As I noted above, the US is the only nation to have gone back to capital punishment having previously abolished it. (It was abolished de facto in the States following Furman v Georgia in 1972, and restored a few years later with Gregg v Georgia.)

There is no evidence to suggest that victims' relatives, or anyone else, take matters into their own hands following abolition, and there is much evidence that capital punishment has minimal if any deterrent effect. It seems that perpetrators just assume they won't get caught.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 09:12 PM

Peter, in the USA there are three sets of laws in place to do with CP. They are Federal, State and Military. Then of course there is family law: hurt my family and I hurt you. I'm not saying that's the best thing, but it is a real thing.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Jul 14 - 09:33 PM

Yup. An eye for an eye & the world ends up blind.

Once again.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Musket
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 03:01 AM

John on the sunset coast shows precisely the mindset that thinks judicial killing to be acceptable.

To say that killing a prisoner prevents families from killing others as revenge. Or murder as we call it in more civilised parts of the world.

Closure is when a jury says guilty. To expect or condone another death in another family is encouraging the idea that life is cheap. To perpetuate this playing to the ignorant crowd political showboating merely shows that the federal approach doesn't seem to prevent states from developing unequally. Sadly, in some states you can still hear those fucking banjos.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 05:06 AM

A historic perspective in Britain.


the history in Britain 

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 05:14 AM

Some USA information on the deterrent value of capital punishment in the link below:

Quote from the article:
""One argument in support of capital punishment is that the threat of death deters murder more effectively than prison. However, research indicates that the death penalty is no more effective as a deterrent to murder than the punishment of life in jail. States with the death penalty on average do not have lower rates of homicide than states without the penalty.""

Comment:This statement assumes that "life in jail", means life in jail, not 25 years, nor 10 years before release in parole, as in some locals.


some USA material on deterrent value 

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Stu
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 07:01 AM

<>"...without resorting to individual revenge."

It's not revenge because they didn't flick the switch? Is it that easy to abdicate responsibility for the death of a person?

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 07:57 AM

Australia, an early alternative British approach to criminal punishment:


Australia versus punishment 

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 08:15 AM

Still on the fence re this question. But feel that arguments about eye for eye, reducing society to level of the perepetrator, & so on, are facile. Even if revenge is the main motive, part of criminal law, as I say above, is concerned with society's expression of stong disapproval of offence by means of making him suffer, and achieving a sense of , in the modern agreed term, 'closure', in addition to the simple question of deterrence. As I have often said, here & in other contexts, thew whole concept of punishment as such is a dodgy one; but no society has ever come up with an alternative. Even communes and such reserve exclusion or expulsion as an ultimate deterrent.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 08:56 AM

I guess at a minimum, capital punishment does deter a guilty person from repeating that crime in society. (Whatever this value is).
;)

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 08:57 AM

"Or murder as we call it in more civilised parts of the world."

Where did you get the idea you're civilised? You call having a House of Lords civilized? You call having a Monarch civilised? You call what English landlords and industrialists did to Ireland in the famine civilised? You call Dickensian times civilized? You call Bedlam civilised? Pray tell, for the great unwashed across the ocean, define this term you make use of: civilised.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 09:28 AM

Interesting point on what is defined as murder Guest,#. I suspect it has been defined throughout history in "the eye of the beholder." One example may be, some in the Some may see colonial foreign military actions (a recent example may be bombings) as falling in that category. I suspect those doing it see it differently.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 10:16 AM

I think you're right, Ed T. Much of it is in the eye of the beholder.

That said, let it be known that Canada last executed a human on December 11, 1962. England last executed a human on August 13, 1964. It is worthy of note that for Scotland the date for last execution is August 15, 1963; for Northern Ireland it is December 20, 1961, and for Wales it is May 6, 1958.

I have always wondered why mass murderers like Pinochet from Chile who died in Chile in 2006 and Amin from Uganda who died in Saudi Arabia in 2003 were allowed to escape the death penalty. I guess you kill one person it's murder, kill ten thousand it's a statistic. Note that neither Amin nor Pinochet spent any substantial time in jail. So much for that, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 01:12 PM

The death penalty, and much criminal procedure, is up to the States,

At present, 32 states out of 48 have the death penalty.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Musket
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 02:22 PM

# (whatever that means) questions whether we are civilised in The UK.

The answer is yes, thanks for asking.

Mind you, keep selling us those documentaries about life in US. Some people, lap them up. They are up there with world's fattest guinea pigs or whatever Channel 5 show these days. The journalist and news anchorman Trevor McDonald did a disturbing documentary about capital punishment in The USA last year. Truly shocking. We watch it to feel smug perhaps. But we also watch it in the same way as history programmes that show us how we have come on over the last hundred years.

Keep banging those rocks together eh?

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 04:18 PM

In other words, Musket, you don't know what you're talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 04:45 PM

" # (whatever that means) "

That means it's none of your business.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 03:01 AM

"At present, 32 states out of 48 have the death penalty."

Make that 32 states out of 50, Q.

The State of Alaska has never had a death penalty. Hawaii abolished theirs in 1957.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 03:34 AM

"I guess you kill one person it's murder, kill ten thousand it's a statistic."

Yep! Homo sapiens = a species with no sense of proportion.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Musket
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 03:46 AM

So I don't know what I am talking about?

I suppose I'll never talk about how Fred was executed the other day. I'll never have to talk about supply of drugs for judicial killing in my country. I'll never have to fear for mistaken identity leading to my demise. I'll never stop seeing uncultured redneck states as being inferior to more advanced parts of the world.

Oh, and I shall never have to make excuses that my state doesn't execute when the federal government does and all states hand over suspects to those that might kill them.

Ghoulish activities by authorities are a bit old hat around this side of the pond.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 06:00 AM

[Two days late, and hardly relevant, but] on 'judgementalness'/'judgementality', it suddenly came to me in the night that the usual word is 'judgementalism'.
On checking, I found that it had been added to the Oxford English Dictionary last December.

http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/recent-updates-to-the-oed/december-2013-update/new-words-list-december-2013/

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Stu
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 06:42 AM

"Yep! Homo sapiens = a species with no sense of proportion."

Homo sapiens = a species that apparently enjoys and condones the slaughter of it's own kind.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 07:48 AM

Bad taste joke follows. The bottom has fallen out of the UK depilation market now that the Met are doing Brazilians for nothing. The UK can be uncivilised at times.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Musket
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 08:37 AM

No Bridge. UK people can be uncivilised. Im not sure you will be able to quote legislation showing the lawfulness of bumping off Brazilian electricians.

Only one person is licensed to kill, James Bond. Anyone else tries and they risk prosecution.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 12:30 PM

"Homo sapiens = a species that apparently enjoys and condones the slaughter of it's own kind."

The irony is, of course, that we will soon render ourselves extinct and what will be laid down in the rock, a few million years from now, is not the fact that we slaughtered each other but that we wiped out countless thousands of other living things that we were too arrogant, short-sighted and stupid to share the planet with. The American writer Jared Diamond likens non-humans to rivets holding an aeroplane togther - and presently we're busily knocking those rivets out ... when we're not busily killing each other ...

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 11:55 PM

Interesting title. There's no depravity in our past; it's just beginning now.

We killed off the native population of North America and imported people from another continent as slaves, then killed millions of each other supposedly over whether to free those slaves, but did nothing to help the former slaves enter the economic system or to atone for the injustice done to them. We annexed half of Mexico, we massacred people in the Philippines in the name of liberation, we asserted and repeatedly enforced hegemony over all of the western hemisphere and later much of the rest of the world, including destroying whole cities with atomic bombs. But now we're becoming depraved.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 12:48 AM

Guest, you are painting with an extremely broad brush.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 01:07 AM

Guest, just who do you mean by "we?"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 02:14 AM

Although I oppose the death penalty, I think I can say that for the most part the U.S. executes only people who have committed particularly horrendous crimes. And I'll say it again - this is a relatively new development. Prior to about 1850, the majority of executions in "civilized" nations were for political reasons - either to eliminate political opponents, or to exert the authority of the ruling class over the lower class by executing people suspected of committing relatively insignificant crimes. England's Black Act of 1723 instituted the death penalty for over fifty offenses.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Musket
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 03:16 AM

But in 1723 Joe, it was a different UK. On Mudcat, there's possibly only Michael who could give you a first hand account.

By quoting legislation 300 years ago, all that does is show c21 UK (and the rest of the Western world with one large exception..) in sharp relief. Also, at that time gaols were for either awaiting judgement or awaiting execution or transportation. The idea of incarcerating for a period of time and subsequently releasing was a novel idea, usually used for the aristocracy , who rather than being given a fixed term were held "at his Majesty's pleasure." A term still used colloquially today to mean "in prison. "

After all, I spoke of civilised behaviour up the thread somewhere and one clown started rattling on about Bedlam proving me wrong! Why I don't know because The UK was barbaric too up till only 50 years ago. You don't need to go back so far. I suggest reading the debates that reached first the limitations and then the subsequent abolitions. I use the plural because perversely, treason, piracy and a couple of others stayed as an unused option till comparatively recently.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Stu
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 06:57 AM

In 1830 one of my ancestors (a Scot) was on trial in Hampshire for house breaking with four other chaps but avoided the death penalty when him and another bloke was acquitted. The other three were sentenced to death but had their sentences commuted to deportation, and presumably off to Australia they went.

Funny old world.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 09:59 AM

Musket, you know a great deal. However, you're rude.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: frogprince
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 10:07 AM

For the most part the U.S. executes only people who have been convicted of committing particularly horrendous crimes. (No, I'm not going to proceed to belabor the difference with Joe, who was actually making his point pretty well.)

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 01:26 PM

I don't disagree with you, Musket. I'm contrasting the 18th century with modern times. Back in the wonderful days of our ancestors, most executions were for political expedience or for racial or class oppression. Even in the U.S., executions are only for horrendous crimes.

I had more to say, but my message got "ate."

Now I'm out of time.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Greg F.
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 02:03 PM

I think I can say that for the most part the U.S. executes only people who have committed particularly horrendous crimes.

Texas excepted, of course.....

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: akenaton
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 02:15 PM

I am against "Capital punishment", but if a country is to have such a deterrent, at least they should be capable of doing the job efficiently.

The cases of "botched executions" are a disgrace, surely it is not difficult to kill a human quickly and humanely, if the law requires it?

There are some crimes against nature, like the rape and murder of infants, which are so hideous that execution would seem a mission of mercy.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 04:33 PM

Texas has a reputation that some elected officials are apparently proud to promote. Not everyone who lives here is thrilled by the death penalty at all, let alone the frequency at which they happen.

That said, the most recent conspicuously botched executions were in Oklahoma and Arizona.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 05:24 PM

According to searches, Oklahoma still admits the firing squad as 'legal' under some circumstances. (So does Utah, though they haven't used it since Gary Gilmore demanded it in 1977. (he was worried about hanging being botched)

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 10:10 PM

Guest mis-states the case. The man was accused of rape but Clinton (then 27) got the charge reduced to unlawful fondling of a minor under the age of 14.
The man was sentenced to one year in jail, and four years probation.

The man was never proven guilty of rape.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 10:20 PM

"guest" is almost certainly our resident shit-stirrer--Song Wronger, who seems to think that posting anonymously hides his identity.

I sometimes wonder if he might be the alter ego of Karl Rove or Rush Limbaugh....

In any case, repeated attempts to link Hillary to anything is simply part of a general plan to throw mud at ANY perceived Democratic candidate... and is totally irrelevant to THIS thread.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Janie
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 10:27 PM

Suspect that last post was from Songwronger, Q. At least his typical modus operandi. Suggest you ignore it, regardless.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 10:44 PM

Janie, you are probably right, but I felt that a blatant misrepresentation should be challenged.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 03:07 AM

Actually big Pharma has taken the moral high road by refusing to supply lethal drugs to execution states.

Belarus, China and Iran our are only official partners in the global execution arena.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 03:08 AM

Oops I think NK is also another US partner.