Is the appeals system a good and reliable way to enforce such a serious penalty?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Effectiveness of the Appeals System
Tonight, we talked about the Death Penalty and whether it is a good thing or not. There were a lot of different opinions - some opposed and some in favor. I made a comment about how the appeals system, which is full of highly trained and knowledgeable judges, is a refiner for difficult constitutional questions, like this one.
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With the technology we have today it is hard to believe that a whole lot of innocent people get put to death. I’m not saying it isn’t possible I just don’t think it is very probable. Like our professor said it goes through up to 3 different appeals courts, with very skilled and very well educated judges, and from there the decision is made. But even than I think there are only certain people who deserve the death penalty, out of all the people in the class who said no one deserves to die for a crime they have committed, I would like to know what they think we should do with Osama bin laden? Yes I think he deserves a fair trial but, do any of you think he would have any remorse whatsoever about what he has done??
Plus our prison systems are not perfect, I’m sure there is a lot of corruption that goes on, how easy would it be for him or any other person in this world to still organize crime behind bars. Don’t believe it could happen last December police busted an organized crime ring that had taken over 2.2 billion dollars in gambling bets, and drug deals from inmates in New Jersey. If that can happen I don’t think it’s too hard to order a hit on someone or organize a terrorist attack. I do not think these kind of people (murderers) deserve to live.
This is why we have an appeals process no case is the same, to make a life or death decision I’m sure is not simple in some cases, so again this is why we have such experienced judges to determine the facts, if they mess up I think the appeals system works well, not perfect but well. That is the job of our judicial system, it is up to them to determine how great a threat any given person is to our citizens of the United States of America. And punish accordingly.
I wasn't in class for this topic unfortunately, so I'll make my contribution to the subject here. Personally I think that our system is flawed. The appeal system that we have and the effort of the highly experienced judges that work on these cases is definately needed, they have the life of people in their hands and with such a responsiblity they need to take their time and make sure that the man or woman in question is truly guilty.
That being said, the flaw comes in with how much time is needed, how many tax-payer dollars need to go to feed, cloth, educate and eventually put to death someone on death row? I for one am completely and whole heartedly for the death sentence. If any person committs a crime punishable by death, such as murder, I do not want to waste my money keeping him alive, get it over with as soon as the appeals and requirments are met, do it quick, cheap, and get him out of the system!
Someone in class mentioned that the guilty will be punished more by staying alive and serving time in prison than they would being put to death. This reminds me of an article I read years ago about an inmate in the Utah state prison who was being moved to the state prison of north Carolina. He was petitioning the prison board to stay and serve his time in Utah instead of the prison in the south. "They do hard time there," he said, "with hard labor in the fields." Someone from the newspaper interviewed him and he said the prison was much nicer in Utah- he got to have a t.v. in his room and other luxuries that he wouldn't have in north Carolina.
I also know a man who served time in the Utah state prison for tax fraud and he said it was like a vacation. He read, played tennis, exercised and didn't have to go to work at all. And all the while the state was paying welfare benefits to his wife and children. Something is really messed up about this type of system... many seem to think prison is the worse option but I tend to believe that it just gives life support to the perpetrator. They often live better in prison than they would out of it!
I agree.. with the technology that we have today it's very slim that we put innocent people to death. If you were to ask me a few years ago if I believe in the death penalty I would say YES. My views on life has changed a lot. Kyle asks a good question in regards to Bin Laden.. Yes he deserves a fair trial and he probably does not have ANY remorse for what he did - but does that mean we need to punish someone by putting them to death? Let them suffer - Yes it may cost us more money to support this - but I rather PAY more and get them scums off the streets then take their life away. We shouldn't have the ability to determine someone's death. If a predator is raping, murdering etc.. yeah its wrong & disgusting, but if we send them to the death penalty- what's the message we're sending to the younger generation & society in general? It's wrong to kill... but it's ok to send those predators to the death penalty???
Hey Jenn, I'd like to comment. "If a predator is raping, murdering etc.. yeah its wrong & disgusting, but if we send them to the death penalty- what's the message we're sending to the younger generation & society in general? It's wrong to kill... but it's ok to send those predators to the death penalty???" The message we are sending to the younger generation and society is choice and consequence. If we take away consequences for choices people make, it justifies their actions. And society doesn't learn from that.
The consequence for the choice made needs to be equal to the choice that person made. I know you out there will make the point of what if a woman is raped? Should we rape that guy? lol. no. His manhood should be taken from him for his choice. Guys, if you have rape in your mind, wouldn't think twice if you knew your twig 'n' berries wouldn't exist anymore? If this was implimented, you cannot argue that people would think twice, a third time, and so on before acting.
The appeals system is not reliable enough to be able to sentence to death another human being. I mean, sure, most of the people they put to death, really are guilty of the crime they are charged with, but there have been some that have been put to death who were actually innocent. It is a flawed system. And knowing that, it means that there is some chance that we are wrong, that we are actually putting to death someone that is innocent, no matter how small that percentage is, it remains a possibility. Even if we are 99% sure that we are punishing the guilty party, that still isn't enough to take away their life, the possiilty remains of punishing someone innocent. I don't support the death penalty at all, first because there is this possibility of punishing an innocent person and secondly because it is extremely barbaric and unempathetic.
Many people that commit heinous crimes do so because they are mentally disturbed. They don't rationalize like other people, they don't see things the same way. I think that they should definitely be locked up and we should prevent them from being able to commit further crimes, but as for putting to death such people, that is not up to us to decide.
I see that everyone makes a good point on this issue but of course somethings still aren't makings sense. In some situations the death penalty should be the only option. But why do you think that criminals kill themselves after murdering other people? You think the guilt hits them and they realize they deserve to die? NO! They are taking the easy way out because they know they will get caught and have to sit in a prison cell the rest of their lives. So why should we take their life away for them?
And regarding zz nuge's comment that instead of threatening to rape a man who raped another woman, we should threaten to cut their junk off? Ummm have you ever heard of cruel and unusual punishment???
LOL YES! Hey Jillian, that was what I was looking for, a good rise out of someone. Well, looks like the majority are for mercy, and not true justice. Lets just coddle them until they get out of jail and do it again. Well, whether cuttin his unit off is barbaric and unempathetic, or cruel and unusual punishment, it would sure stop lots of barbaric and unempathetic and cruel and unusual actions from taking place. Just a thought. :) LOL I am amused!
The problem is that we are all just people deciding the consequences of other peoples actions. Some think death is worse than life in person, some think prison is worse - hell some people kill themselves just because they can't bare the pain of life even when no prison sentence is involved! So we can't go off the decision of which punishment is worse. I know that if I or my loved one were violated, hurt or tortured, I would want the person that did it to suffer at least as much as the victim - and in the same way. That is truly "an eye for an eye". Simply "putting someone to sleep" would not nearly be enough for me. But then where would it end? Those are feeling of revenge, not justice. Once a crime is done it can not be undone and no amount of torture, death, or life in prison will make things right again.
Fortunately, people are no longer being hanged for stealing bread or put to death for adultery, and DNA matching among other new technologies has made it so that it is extremely difficult to convict innocent people - especially for such crimes as rape and murder. So the important question is, how do we ensure that this person will never be able to hurt someone again. Death is a good answer. So is life in prison as long as there is no possibility for parole or escape. The next question is how many tax dollars will be needed to pay for this person's life or death? I was for the death penalty simply because if they're dead then there's no question that they'll hurt anyone again and we won't have to pay for them to live another 20 to 60 years. However, Matt made the point in class that the appeals process is at least as expensive if not more, so now I'm on the fence again, but I do think we need to question it rationally and think about the common good rather than what's going to hurt the criminal the most. What is the safest and most cost effective way to deal with the worst of the worst?
This is a hard question. It brings up a lot of other questions, that I don't really know how to find the answers to. I'll explain. The death penalty appeals process, I guess, is designed to make sure that we don't put anyone to death who is innocent. I want to see some solid statistics on how many people are declared innocent in an appeals court after having been declared guilty in their initial trial. And I'd like to see what kind of drop-off there is from the initial trial, to the first appeal, to the second, to the third. What percentage of defendants reach the third appeal and are finally found to be innocent. Does anyone have that information, where it can be found? I'm betting (anyone want to make a bet?) that it's a significantly low number.
Secondly, and this ties in with the above, how much does it cost, on average, to put someone to death? I've heard a million or more (someone have that info by any chance?) Anyway, the fact that we as taxpayers are paying enormous amounts of money just to put a criminal in the earth where he/she (not to be sexist) belongs, is just criminal itself, and deserves a little bit of the ol' death penalty itself. My point is that maybe we could slim down the appeals process to where we could, as a country, put our taxes to better use, like bailing out our poorly run banking institutions! Just kidding. I am tired now.
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