California to abolish the death penalty

[Beastmode]

It will be on the ballot this November. This state keeps getting worse. If you do a horrible crime..... We will put you on timeout. With 3 hot meals a day, cable TV, AC, heat, clean clothes and all the healthcare you need. O I almost forgot we will pay you $1 a day for every day you are in prison just so you have money when you get out. Alot of people dont know that.

[solus]

yea unfortunately they havent actually used the death sentence in decades. Those on death row just live out there lives there and we have to pay the taxes

[FoCoHugh]

The guy who killed my sister is on death row. I am willing to do the deed, if they would only let me know when and where.

[MULEY51]

The guy who killed my sister is on death row. I am willing to do the deed, if they would only let me know when and where.

I feel for you and completely understand your feelings. Sorry for your loss.

As to abolishing the death penalty....I completely disagree with abolishing it. Unfortunately, this kiss ass state won't follow through even when the death penalty was the sentence.

[Caninelaw]

The approved method of execution for Commiefornia's death row is old age. I don't even know why they're wasting money on a ballot measure over this as by de facto there is no death penalty in Commiefornia.

[Beastmode]

I say we go back to public stonings and hangings. This would definitely make people think before they act.

[Fugaloo]

Cheaper this way, same results

[Common Sense]

yea unfortunately they havent actually used the death sentence in decades. Those on death row just live out there lives there and we have to pay the taxes

But without the death penalty, instead of living out their lives in prison at our expense, they will eventually be paroled out to the public. The death sentace may never be carried out, but folks on death row aren't paroled.

[Where's Bruce?]

Can't speak for the state but if anyone gets past my locks, alarm, 3 dogs and enters my home with evil intent...I'll deliver the death penalty myself and it will be recorded by my nine surveillance cameras.

[Sniper Chuck]

What does anyone expect? Moonbeam is governor. He will never allow an execution, ever. Remember, the last time he was gov he vetoed the bill that 2/3 the public voted for.

[Caninelaw]

But without the death penalty, instead of living out their lives in prison at our expense, they will eventually be paroled out to the public. The death sentace may never be carried out, but folks on death row aren't paroled.

Supposedly this will make the death penalty cases into life without the possibility of parole. I guess then Mike Farrel and his ilk can start protesting the morality of that then.

[californiabull]

The guy who killed my sister is on death row. I am willing to do the deed, if they would only let me know when and where.

I feel for you brother. I'd love to help you complete the deed, you can use my guns and ammo. You don't need to suffer anymore, he does and unfortunately isn't, yet...

[Val]

I'm a native born citizen of Kalifornistan. If it were'nt for the fact that I can't leave my grandkids, I would be out of here. The issue with the never used death penalty in Kalifornistan has nothing to do with the killer. The issue is the endless appeal process. Since most State legislatures are lawyers, they have this endless legal appeals process which provides job security for the legal profession. Of course it is all tax payer funded.

Abolishing the death penalty will have no affect on the life of killers since they die of old age on death row, but it may stop the endless appeal process that support many of those in the legal profession. If indeed that were to happen, I'm for it.

[markt800]

i say kill them all, three strikes and your dead

[Bullfrog 31581]

Its funny how 200 years ago the death penalty was carried out a lot more, a lot faster, by the Founders under the same Constitution(s) [state and federal] that today are interpreted to demand an endless appeals process.

I'm all for allowing appeals, but it seems ridiculous that they require years to get through. If needbe more appellate courts should be created under a mandate that requires a speedy execution of sentence, say a year from the date of sentence. If it means creating special courts that do nothing but hear death penalty appeals, so be it. Just so long as they are done with and ready for execution within a year. That's what I'd do with my magic wand anyhow.

[#1Predator]

I'm afraid I will vote against the death penalty. After 30 some years in law enforcement, I've seen how mistakes, jumping to conclusions, "bending" the facts to fit a preconceived conclusion and personal agendas can lead to bad consequences in a person's prosecution. No man is perfect. When man's imperfection is involved in the decision (dare I say, the God-like decision) to ultimately end a person's life it gives me the chills. Death is a condition man cannot reverse.

Don't get me wrong. I have no qualms about a person defending themselves or others from an aggressor with deadly force. I have no fear in that regard. However, I do fear the government and its ability to make such a decision as to who should die and who shouldn't. Having been in government, I have a great fear of what the government can do and to what extent it is willing to go in order to deliver "justice".

Need proof? From Reuters News Service, May 1st, 2012:

Headline:
Wrongly convicted Colorado man set free after 16 years

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...84000620120501

How could this be reversed if he had been put to death for rape and murder?

Having said all that, a life sentence should be just that...life. No parole, solitary confinement, no tv, no access to the legal law library, 1/2 hour in an exercise cubicle w/o human contact, solitary showers, etc. Hard time should be hard time. Alcatraz was hard time. In the early 1900s the term "stir crazy" came into use. Hard time was hard. Too bad that term and its significance has all but disappeared today.

[Marty]

They'll abolish it just like they abolish all penalties for doing wrong ( ie. committing a crime ).
It starts early too. Just try to penalize a juvenile offender or a 'banger.'

Living in California has become its own persecution for those of us who chose to live within the law.

[Val]

i say kill them all, three strikes and your dead

You can make statements like that if it makes you feel better, however it will never happen. In Kalifornistan the rights of criminals are held in higher regard by the lunatic fringe liberals, than the rights of law abiding citizens. Perverts are released so that they can repetitively prey on our children. Criminals in our prison are given better food, medical, free legal fees, TVs, congugal visits and sports equipment than our disabled vets receive. It's crazy but the lives of criminals continue to improve.

[palladin]

Without Rule of Law...that's the new catch phrase for the curent climate in the U.S.A

I might be for the death penalty if the state made it harder for the innocent to
get punished. DNA testing or something like Texas were you have to be confirmed by several witnesses
as the offender.

[mtnsammy]

This is an arguement with so many emotional sides there is no one answer. As when the death penalty was commuted before all those on death row would be changed to life without possibility of parole. Whether we hire mercenaries to take out deathrow using a half cent sales tax or force them into labor camps for our feelings of penalty, there will always be evil in society.

I too have 20 years as a cop and have studied the application and use of the death penalty. I have every "Death Row" magazine, have driven one convict to death row, toured death row in California, spoke with Wardens of death row. I am still no expert and I have too many emotions on the subject. I know too many families that suffered including one still open case that has not seen a jury since 2007.

Death is permanent. Our taking a life is permanent. Our choice to take a life is not. Prison reform vs society reform has kept this a very difficult topic. My choice is life. I pray for the victims and I wish I could take some of their pain. Until we find healing for the victims I will continue to pray. As far as the suspects, rot in hell until you face your God.

[Bullfrog 31581]

Something to keep in mind when looking at the recent DNA exonerations is that many of the exonerations don't actually prove the person's innocence, they just create some exculpatory evidence that causes the appellate courts to give the defendants the benefit of the doubt.

For example, take the article Pred posted. You have a rape/murder where the rapist left his DNA in and on the victim. There were no witnesses to the crime. The suspect gets picked up, charged, and convicted for unknown evidence (let's say for the sake of argument that its simply because he was the last person seen talking to the victim). Some blood stains at the scene can't affirmatively be ruled out as the Defendant's but that's as specific as it gets. Years later, we find out that the blood stains and other DNA inside and on the victim definitely belong to X person who is doing time for the same kind of thing already somewhere else. In that case, you probably have a truly innocent person.

However, many or most of the DNA cases that are lumped into the numbers are where there is ample evidence linking Defendant to the crime, but there was a mystery hair or blood stain in victim's car or something of that nature. Years later it turns out the hair or blood belonged to an unknown person. That doesn't mean the Defendant didn't do it. It may just mean the victim gave a ride to someone the week before and that person shed a hair or two. The blood might be from a neighborhood kid that skinned his knee at soccer practice. None of those things necessarily prove the Defendant's innocence. Yet those sorts of things also get convictions overturned, more so than the case of the truly "innocent" person.

I strongly support the death penalty, and I wish we used it more often on more crimes and swifter. Namely, I think it should be extended out to forcible rape and child molestation cases as well. Under the Founders and through most of our history it was used for rape. However, the Supreme Court in the 1970s held that the death penalty for anything but premeditated murder is cruel and unusual punishment. Funny how the 8th Amendment hasn't changed since the time of the Founders yet what they considered perfectly constitutional has magically become unconstitutional. Perhaps the Supreme Court Justices that thought that needed to have their wives or daughters raped before they understood that sexual abuse is often far more cruel to a victim than death.

I'm dealing with a situation now where a 35 year old man has molested an 11 year old girl. When this man was a teenager, he raped a girl at knife point. The system did nothing to him except send him to juvenile detention for a few years. He would have been executed as a teenager would that first case have happened 60 years ago and he wouldn't be around to hurt this little girl now. It would have been worth sacrificing any minor chance that this guy might reform to save this little girl from a lifetime of relational/sexual dysfunction and PTSD she's going to endure.

Concerning the execution of the innocent, I checked the main anti-death penalty sight on the web and they could only find about a dozen people ever that MAY have been wrongfully executed in the US, and of those many of them sound like guilty defendants who were spouting liberal conspiracy theory BS stories instead of real cases of innocent people being mistakenly convicted. That doesn't mean people don't get railroaded sometimes. Check out my take on the Martin/Zimmerman case as an example of someone who I believe is being railroaded for political reasons. Yet, that's not a problem with the system, that's a problem with individuals within the system not living up to their ethical obligations to knowingly do justice above all else. There will always been corrupt people in government. No government or rule of law will function correctly no matter the checks and balances if its made up of the wrong people. If the wrong people are making the wrong judgment calls, we shouldn't' scrap the system. We should remove the wrong people and replace them with people that will do the right thing. Concerning a case where a person is found guilty but the evidence is so-so, that's where a judge needs to use his or her discretion to sentence someone to something other than death.

God Himself mandated the death penalty. If it was good enough for Him its good enough for me. In those days no one could be convicted without the testimony of 2 witnesses, except in a rape case where a victim and rapist were alone away from where other witnesses would be. There the testimony of the victim was enough. Some of these questionable cases that come up now were people convicted in cases that should have been screaming reasonable doubt even before the DNA evidence came out. Not only is there a problem in those cases with the prosecutor, people should be questioning the adequacy of the juries, which means they should be questioning the adequacy of themselves. As society devolves so does the common sense of juries and voters.

Concerning death v. life in prison, I do not believe life in prison adequately brings closure to victims in sex cases. A victim usually needs to know that the person that raped them isn't in a jail cell fantasizing about what they did to the victim and what they'll do again if and when they somehow get out. As a practical matter, there's a lot more we can be doing with the tax-payer's money besides warehousing them away in lives they don't find all that bad (remember the perverts usually find ways to enjoy each other in prison anyhow). Also, we have already seen through the decades that cash-strapped state governments can and will turn people out that otherwise should be doing life in order to free up prison space. Finally, I worry about a SHTF event where security may break down enough to allow lots of these people to escape on mass. If one has a dangerous pit-bull that the writing is on the wall that its going to maul a child as soon as it gets a chance, one doesn't leave it in a flimsy cage in the back yard so that some severe weather could mangle the cage and allow the dog to escape. What a prudent person does it dig a pit, shoot the dog, bury it, and forget it ever existed. We should do at least that much to the perverts and the excessively violent.

It is your choice to make though whether you keep the death penalty. The Founders invisioned every state as having the absolute authority over their criminal laws and punishments. In fact, originally the Bill of Rights never even applied to the States. As the Founders imagined it you could be as cruel and unusal as you want to be at the state level, limited only by your own state constitution that was free to allow or prohibit whatever it wanted. That your Constitutional rights applied to the States is something that didn't develop until the early 1900s under a new interpretation of the 14th Amendment. So ya'll have at it. Just be prepared to live with the consequences of whatever you decide.