Jessica gets her Justice today!

[Falls City Beer]

Originally Posted by Ltlabner

At the end of all this back and forth remains some sad facts.

Jessica died clutching a stuffed animal trying to claw her way out of a grave.

Coey is a sick man who need to pay some price for his actions. Argue over the amount of the price, but laws are about punishment and he should pay something for his actions.

We don't disagree on the last point. Justice often involves punishment. I'm a firm believer that justice should be both rehabilitation and punishment; I just don't think it should be vengeance.

[Chip R]

Originally Posted by Falls City Beer

No, he was a convicted sex offender at the time of Jessica's murder.

So he had served his sentence and was released?

[Falls City Beer]

Originally Posted by Chip R

So he had served his sentence and was released?

He was convicted in 1978 of sexually assaulting a girl, sentenced to 10 years, but was paroled in 1980.

[Chip R]

Originally Posted by Falls City Beer

He was convicted in 1978 of sexually assaulting a girl, sentenced to 10 years, but was paroled in 1980.

Thanks.

The reason I asked - besides not knowing the details of the case - is that it seems a bit contradictory to me that the reason people want him executed is that it costs too much to keep him in prison rather than executing him. However if he had been in prison to begin with - for whatever reason - Jessica would still be alive today. Seems like a small price to pay for a child's life.

[RFS62]

Considering the cost of an execution as a factor in deciding if we as a society are going to execute people seems obscene to me.

It's a moral question only.

And it's a bridge I can't cross. I don't believe in the death penalty.

[registerthis]

Originally Posted by Ltlabner

I'm not looking at execution as an overall cost savings plan. Mearly minimizing the costs of the inmate who's been sentenced to death.
...
But have those costs been increased over time as due to external factors unrelated to the cost of the execution itself?

The costs aren't being minimized though. You can't look at the cost of an execution as simply the excecution itself in a vacuum. You can't disassociate the appeals, reviews and various other processes that go into it, because they are an inseperable and necessary part of the capital punishment system.

The execution of people is one area where I don't mind the government spending some extra money to make sure they get it right. i'd prefer they didn't do it at all, but so long as the punishment is in place, they might as well make themselves as certain as can be that they're killing the right person.

I object to many of the ways my tax money is used, but that doesn't mean the government should stop using it as they deam fit

Sure, there are lots of ways to complain about the use of your tax funds--but do you really want to compare the killing of a human being with, oh, welfare reform? Or tax law? Or environmental protectionism? Our government decides how to spend the money it receives via taxes, and you or I may disagree with that--but I'm not talking solely about the financial costs of execution, I have a problem with a government asserting the right to execute human beings when other methods of recourse are available.

If our government decided that hacking off the hands of thieves was an appropriate punishment, would you simply shrug your shoulders and toss it into the category of things your government does that you simply don't agree with?

Who said anything about rehibilitation not being possible? Some criminals stand a good chance to be rehibilitated and reintroduced to society. By all means we should invest the resources to help these people out. Other other cases rehabilitation is likely not possible. .

Was merely responding to your earlier post regarding the amount of money used to support the prison system--you listed housing, feeding, and health care, but neglected to mention a fundamental purpose of prisons, rehabilitation. Whether your ommission was intentional or a mistake, I was simply stating that a sizeable portion of money placed into prisons goes towards rehabilitation objectives.

[registerthis]

Originally Posted by Chip R

Thanks.

The reason I asked - besides not knowing the details of the case - is that it seems a bit contradictory to me that the reason people want him executed is that it costs too much to keep him in prison rather than executing him. However if he had been in prison to begin with - for whatever reason - Jessica would still be alive today. Seems like a small price to pay for a child's life.

And killing him now will do nothing to bring Jessica back. I understand people *wanting* to watch him die for the heinous crime he committed, but that is called vengeance--not justice.

I'd like to whack the guy who broke into my car last year in the head with a baseball bat, and perhaps knee him in the groin a couple of times. But that is precisely the reason why the punishment of the individual who broke into my car--assuming that they had ever caught him--should not be left up to me.

[Falls City Beer]

Originally Posted by RFS62

Considering the cost of an execution as a factor in deciding if we as a society are going to execute people seems obscene to me.

It's a moral question only.

And it's a bridge I can't cross. I don't believe in the death penalty.

I agree. It is at base a moral, not a financial, issue. It has to be; human life is irreducible.

[GAC]

Originally Posted by registerthis

And killing him now will do nothing to bring Jessica back. I understand people *wanting* to watch him die for the heinous crime he committed, but that is called vengeance--not justice.

Could care less about those people who want to watch him die. That's their problem. IMHO, it's not about personal vengeance. Even though there is an obvious emotional element involved. How is anyone to feel if that happened to their child? But that should not be a factor when it comes to sentencing (i.e. appeasing one's personal vengeance). It is about justice being served. Look at the particulars, and the facts/truths, of this case. He deserves to die based simply on the heinousness of the crime commited, that he willfully murdered an innocent young girl (after sexually abusing her).

The punishment should fit the crime. He maliciously took a life. That has been proven as an absolute in a court of law. His life should be forfeited.

The appeal process in this country is a joke and needs to be streamlined. Everyone deserves an appeal, that is obvious. But there should be a limit on that appeal process, and then a timeframe inwhich that appeal is to be fulfilled and acted upon. Having people sitting on death row for 20 years is simply a huge miscarriage of justice IMO.

[GAC]

Originally Posted by Falls City Beer

human life is irreducible.

Incapable of being reduced or of being diminished?

Tell that to the victims who had their lives violently taken from them, and their surviving family members. And this mindset within our judicial system that there is still some hope that these criminals can be somehow rehabilitated may be noble, but rarely attainable when one looks at the prison system as a whole.

It's simply great to see, as a society, that we are so concerned about "restoring" these criminals to be being productive members of that society while trampling over the victims and their families. That certainly proves our humaneness.

[Falls City Beer]

Originally Posted by GAC

Incapable of being reduced or of being diminished?

I meant irreducible in terms of reducible to a dollar figure. One way or another.

[WMR]

Originally Posted by GAC

Incapable of being reduced or of being diminished?

Tell that to the victims who had their lives violently taken from them, and their surviving family members. nd this mindset within our judicial system that there is still some hope that these criminals can be somehow rehabilitated.

It's simply great to see, as a society, that we are so concerned about "restoring" these criminals to be being productive members of that society while trampling over the victims and their families. That certainly proves our humaneness.

GAC, it's not their fault, society has ******* all over them their entire lives, their mommy didn't hug them enough when they were little, they got picked last for kickball, no one would go to prom with them, they had to wear clothes from the secondhand store, they have ADD, OCD, SOME sort of mental illness that explains/excuses their behavior, hmm, what am I missing... THEY were abused, so their abuse of others can be more easily understood

And my point, FCB, was NOT about the death penalty on its face but rather that mitigating a crime on mental illness grounds often leads to the person being rehabilitated and released. Is that fair? Can sexual predators BE rehabilitated? My criminal law class/theory taught me that they cannot. What are we to do with them? Keep them in a rubber room the rest of their lives? Stick them in with the general population and let them do our dirty work for us?

[Falls City Beer]

Originally Posted by WilyMoROCKS

And my point, FCB, was NOT about the death penalty on its face but rather that mitigating a crime on mental illness grounds often leads to the person being rehabilitated and released. Is that fair? Can sexual predators BE rehabilitated? My criminal law class/theory taught me that they cannot. What are we to do with them? Keep them in a rubber room the rest of their lives? Stick them in with the general population and let them do our dirty work for us?

Well, I'm glad your law theory class cleared that up for us. Look, people are paroled after two years of a 15 year sentence, too. Is that fair? Probably not. But you're arguing a separate point, not the central point--this isn't a recidivism discussion; it's a sentencing discussion. I know that the reality of the legal system is that bad guys get out WAY too early way too frequently. I get it. But that's not really the point.

It's simple: depending on their crime: institutionalize them or imprison them.

And you're just being daft if you think most sexual predators are created by missing prom or not being picked to host the next Kiwanis meeting. They're generally created by the same behavior they now exhibit. Does it excuse the behavior? Of course not. But it does explain it. I don't know if rehabilitation works, but imprisonment and rehabilitation are the only real options outside of execution; and I'm certainly hoping you aren't suggesting that someone should get the death penalty for leering at a kid on the park bench, as disgusting as that may be.

But spare me your prosecutor's tripe about "cutting through the red tape" and gaining justice. Save it for your stump speech.

[WMR]

Everyone's got a story and a potential excuse.

You don't believe in self-determination. I do.

[Blimpie]

I had a Social Psychology professor in college (late 1980s) who informed us that it cost--at that time--around $ 65,000 per year at the Florida State Prison to house an inmate on death row without regard to the cost of his legal appeals. At that time, Ted Bundy was sitting there, so it was topical. On the other hand, it cost roughly $ 75,000 to sucessfully perform an execution at that facility (electric chair). So, from a cost basis, there is no comparison between the two.

Where the battle lines should be drawn is on the moral ground and whether or not capital punishment has been shown to be a deterrent to crime. It has not. Unless the point in time comes where they decide to reinstitute public executions, that will not change.