General News Death Penalty ruled unconstitutional in California by federal judge

Federal judge rules California's death penalty unconstitutional - SFGate

What do you guys think about this?

 

Hmm. Ultimately I don't disagree with the death penalty, and neither does the judge it seems. But he acknowledges that the procedure for executing people is not what it should be.

Personally I wish there were a way to speed up the process. That doesn't mean I relish the thought of people being killed for their crimes, but if you're going to sentence someone to death, make it snappy. Otherwise you could have just given them life in prison.

 

Fiscally, I'm all for getting rid of he death penalty, since it costs more to sentence someone to death than life with no parole.


Socially, I take a more moderate stance.

 

This is Furman all over again. The Supreme Court ruled in 1972 in Furman V. Georgia that the death penalty had to have some degree of consistency across the country, and put in place restrictions on what crimes could be punished with death. This basically put a moratorium on executions nationwide. 4 years later in 1976, the decision was reversed in Gregg V. Georgia, but the premise was basically the same.

My thought was that California was the only state that did it right, by granting every possible appeal before execution, which resulted in this huge backlog. Combined with the conservative "Get tough on crime" legislation that expanded the death penalty, this was the result.

Now whether it serves an illegitimate purpose is up for debate. However I think that based on the 14th Amendment, the death penalty in and of itself is constitutional. The way it's applied, well that has to be on a case-by-case basis. Here in Michigan, we got rid of capital punishment in 1837, and every year there's somebody saying that we should get it on the ballot and reinstate the death penalty, but it will never happen.

 

It's a shame such debates are conducted in terms of what is constitutional, rather than what is right.

 

^^ This. Right now, there are no reliable drugs that ends somebody's life in a humane manner. There are misfires with the current death penalty system since the drugs that were previously used are no longer available. Some would ask why these people deserve to die in a humane manner. I cannot answer that question. I'm talking this in more of a legal manner. There have been some massive lawsuits that have been won over the years that have been because of botched executions.

Also, the mental effect that killing somebody has on the person that is administering the "medication" is inhumane. That person has done nothing wrong, so why do they deserve to live with the guilt of taking another's life? This also goes for states that still allow the firing squad and the gas chambers. Somebody has to be the one to push the button, or pull the trigger.

 

In most states, the executioner is a volunteer from the community, or a member of the prison staff who volunteers for the job. In Florida, he can remain anonymous and gets paid $150 per execution.

As for the constitutional/moral side of it, I think it should only be administered when the crime is so disgusting and depraved that it actually deserves the death penalty, and I'm strongly opposed to using it like Texas does, where if you kill you get killed.

 

And thus began the Reign of Terror.

--

But seriously, I do agree with Hexagon. People's humanity shouldn't be based around the fact that an old document technically forbids an immoral procedure. But still, better than nothing.

 

I don't like the death penalty, so I'm happy that they're getting rid of it. My views basically align with Bryan M's.

 

Even with the appeals, innocent people still manage to be executed, along with an expensive price to pay. A lot of people have suggested to reduce the amount of appeals, but we'll get a result like Texas, a whole bunch of innocents murdered in the name of justice.

 

The founding fathers were omniscient beings who knew everything and could see the future.

 

I wish the judicial system would stop getting soft and greedy nd corrupt yknow ? The court should've sentenced shanda sharer's murderers to death .

 

Constitutional is all we have. People don't agree on what's right. To take a pertinent issue, gay rights. A lot of people feel that being with the same sex is wrong, and would ban it under penalty of law. But because the constitution asserts that all men (and presumably women) are created equal, we are obligated to treat them as such until they infringe upon the rights of others. As for the document's validity, it's not beyond consideration, but that's what the courts and the amendments are for.

^Aussie792, my wording may have been harsh and reign of terror-ish :S but before the appeals process is still a sometimes years-long procedure of investigation, hearings, trial, and sentencing. It's not like "Welp, we think he did it. Off with his head!" I just think that having a majority of death row inmates dying of causes other than execution is peculiar.

 

I don't feel that the government should be in the business of who lives and who dies. If someone does something so awful that it is presumed that they should die for their crimes, then I think they ought to be forced to live every day of their lives behind bars, living with the consequences of their actions.

 

I'll just leave this here
[YOUTUBE]Kye2oX-b39E[/YOUTUBE]

 

Good! Death penalty in CA = dying while waiting on death row. Seriously, it's a huge waste of space and money. Plus, knowing how stacked the system is against certain minorities, this could only be a step in the right direction.

 

That's the problem with execution. If you do whatever you can to make sure you don't execute an innocent, it takes forever to get around to any executions and costs a right mint. By the time you finally execute someone, it's been so long that the deterrent value is incredibly suspect. You also still kill an innocent every once in a while. You could try restricting the death penalty to only very rare and horrible crimes, but that wouldn't really be a deterrent, given that it wouldn't much be in the public eye. If you streamline the process to make it faster and cheaper, it still takes a while, and innocent people get executed more often. It seems that whichever direction we take things get bad. Given that we don't even use the death penalty much, it obviously isn't particularly important, so we really ought to just stop using it altogether. It's too much trouble to go through for too little gain.

 

I personally don't see it as a deterrent at all, I just think that it should be on a case-by-case basis, and that there shouldn't be any automatic death sentences. For example, in Texas, if you kill a cop, that's almost an automatic death sentence. I don't think killing a cop warrants the death penalty, much less automatically. But when the crime is so disgusting like the home invasion murders in Cheshire, Connecticut, or the Oakland County Child Killer from the 70's who killed, raped, and dismembered 5 children just south of where I grew up.

 

You say it yourself; it defines the rights of men. You say it is presumably extended to women, but for a long time it wasn't. If you holds the constitution above what is right, you could easily argue for the denial of rights to women. That is besides the point, though. What is right must take precedence above all else, otherwise wrong is being done. What happens when the two things conflict? The rest of the world either has no constitution, or doesn't regard theirs so highly, and we do fine.

It's all very well that the constitution defends what you think is right, but what about when it doesn't. One cannot escape the issue of subjective morality by ignoring morality entirely. I might add that a supposed constitutional right to equality never seems to have stopped anyone discriminating in the US, be it women's rights, black people's rights or us queers. Yes, rights are now being given to us, but only as the tide of public opinion changes, just as it was with the other rights movements.

 

Unfortunately, They still don't really know the identity of the Oakland County Child Killer. He has probably passed away from natural causes by now. If they did find him I do think he should get capitol punishment. I do also think if the evidence supports 1st degree murder, the death penalty should be on the table for the judge.

BTW. Matthew Shepard's killers did not get the death penalty only because Matt's family took it off the table.