US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1969

On May 16 2015 04:55 Djzapz wrote:
And it's in.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/15/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-sentenced_n_7283680.html

Tsarnaev sentenced to death.


Ah so it's a jury of "some of your peers", and generally those who are more likely to go for a guilty verdict and harsher punishments in general. Seems reasonable. (?????)

What the fuck.

On May 16 2015 05:07 NovaTheFeared wrote:


There isn't much point in having a trial if some of the jurors say we will categorically vote guilty/not guilty, regardless of the law or trial to come. If they pre-judge the case. I'd probably want someone removed if they said they were going to vote guilty/execute 100% of the time without regard to the law too. I don't think moral opposition to the death penalty is alone enough for disqualification, but a conviction to never vote for it under any circumstances in the upcoming trial almost certainly is.

On May 16 2015 05:15 Mohdoo wrote:
So weird seeing people push for death. After reading about life in the prison he would go to, and how his specific experience would be, that is clearly worse than death. They let him off easy.

On May 16 2015 04:55 Djzapz wrote:
And it's in.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/15/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-sentenced_n_7283680.html

Tsarnaev sentenced to death.


Ah so it's a jury of "some of your peers", and generally those who are more likely to go for a guilty verdict and harsher punishments in general. Seems reasonable. (?????)

What the fuck.

On May 16 2015 04:55 Djzapz wrote:
And it's in.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/15/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-sentenced_n_7283680.html

Tsarnaev sentenced to death.


Ah so it's a jury of "some of your peers", and generally those who are more likely to go for a guilty verdict and harsher punishments in general. Seems reasonable. (?????)

What the fuck.

On May 16 2015 05:15 Djzapz wrote:

I understand that the moral opposition to capital punishment would be a bias but then again so is the contrary, either way you end up with a judgment is unrepresentative of the "peers" of the defendant. Selecting jurors more randomly (disregarding their openness to capital punishment) would have the advantage of not handing out that barbaric punishment. If the legislator can't be bothered to move forward, I'd at least be happy to see judicial procedure change to be more reasonable...


I'm guessing he'll be on death row for some time.

On May 16 2015 05:16 ZasZ. wrote:


? The death penalty is legal in this case, and the prosecution was seeking it. Providing a strong opinion about something and showing that you will not be swayed on that opinion no matter what is an easy way to get kicked off of a prospective jury, no matter what that issue is. If we want a fair sentencing you need a group of people that are open to all options depending on what transpires during the trial.

On May 16 2015 05:19 ZasZ. wrote:


See, you're injecting personal opinion into there. It's your opinion that a fully random jury would have the "advantage" of not handing out that "barbaric" punishment. Some people disagree.

On May 16 2015 05:19 Djzapz wrote:

Yeah I understand that. That being said, "legal" is not always right, and I was arguing just before that if you go get jurors that most likely lean toward right-of-center repressive BS, you're inherently more likely to get harsher sentencing.

I guess I had never thought of it that way. By having the death sentence, even when the death sentence isn't selected in the end, you naturally select a jury which is more likely to agree on harsh sentences. It's kind of a cute way to continue handing out expensive sentences and harsh punishment for crimes even though all studies show that it's pointless and costs a lot of money.


No one disagrees with the obvious statement which statistically makes perfect sense that if you cherrypick 12 individuals which are open to capital punishment, your odds of having 12 individuals (for instance) who are open to capital punishment are higher (100%) than if you pick 12 at random (x%).

No one disagrees with that because it's just a thing that is obvious.

If you're saying that it's only my opinion that this is an advantage, well that's obvious. Congrats :o

On May 16 2015 05:28 ZasZ. wrote:


Is it necessarily right of center to be supportive of the death penalty in certain circumstances? I never understood that mentality, since it is by the same reasoning that I support both abortion and the death penalty. Basically that all lives do not have the same inherent worth and there is a case to be made for ending them in the case of an underdeveloped fetus a mother doesn't want or a criminal who is sentenced to life in prison with no chance of rehabilitation.

On May 16 2015 05:34 Djzapz wrote:

I'm reasonably certain that people who are favorable to the death penalty are right of center, yes, despite your reasoning which is not unreasonable. Of course, due to the nature of randomness, certain juries would defeat the odds, but nonetheless I do believe that there is an inherent bias that exists due to that selection criterion.

On May 16 2015 05:42 GreenHorizons wrote:
This particular case though doesn't really have that problem on it's face, there's no question he did what he did. Another qualm I have with the death penalty is whether it fits my perception of why we do the things we do. Rather than get all meta, I'll just say I'm not sure killing people for crimes (no matter how heinous) actually helps anyone in the long term.

Killing someone after something like this feels a lot more like vengeance than it does justice.

On May 16 2015 05:49 Djzapz wrote:

I'm morally against capital punishment in all cases and to my senses I've rationalized my position sufficiently. You've said your main concern is the killing of innocents and I'm entirely with you on that. In cases like this one where the defendant is clearly guilty though, I'm still against capital punishment for a bunch of reasons, practical and moral.

However, there is one argument for capital punishment that has had me conflicted, only one. Spare me all the angry vengeful bullshit and appeals to emotion like "what if he'd killed your mother". That's worthless. The one thing that bothers me is the real tangible threat that is posed to prison guards and other prisoners when it comes to keeping a potentially dangerous criminal in prison for decades. I have no response to that.

That being said, I highly doubt (not that I know anything) that Tsarnaev would be the kind of person who would be a threat to anyone in prison.

On May 16 2015 05:55 GreenHorizons wrote:


Yeah I think you bring up an interesting point, I think the threat would come from having to protect him. It would be an additional burden and would put the guards in more danger.

Though then that case could be made for pedophiles (which have insane recidivism rates) or people like the SC cop if he gets convicted.

On May 16 2015 05:42 GreenHorizons wrote:
My opposition to the death penalty comes first from executing innocent people. It's impossible to give back what you take from an innocent person on death row but eventual freedom is a redemption one can offer. When you kill an innocent man or woman for a crime they didn't commit, posthumous redemption is of little-no value to the deceased.

This is why I am not a blind supporter of abortion, and have serious qualms about it in many cases (particularly after the first and especially the second trimester).

This particular case though doesn't really have that problem on it's face, there's no question he did what he did. Another qualm I have with the death penalty is whether it fits my perception of why we do the things we do. Rather than get all meta, I'll just say I'm not sure killing people for crimes (no matter how heinous) actually helps anyone in the long term.

Killing someone after something like this feels a lot more like vengeance than it does justice.

On May 16 2015 06:11 ZasZ. wrote:

And I understand the argument for convicting an innocent person, but at the very least that is much less likely than it used to be with modern forensic technology. But I would also think that it should be impossible to convict and sentence an innocent person to life in prison, let alone the death penalty, given the evidence required to reach such a verdict. But I could be naive on that.

On May 16 2015 06:11 ZasZ. wrote:


Well if you look at it from an opportunity cost standpoint, you could avoid having to take care of this person for the rest of their lives by killing them. Similarly to how I feel like American prisons should have a lot less drug offenders, I feel like American prisons should have a lot less people serving life sentences. Prison should be for rehabilitating violent criminals, and even if it were possible there is no point in rehabilitating a person who will be in jail their entire life.

So I would argue it helps the taxpayers. I realize that death row, the appeals process, and executions are not necessarily cheap, but they don't have to be expensive. That seems more like a problem with the system than the death penalty. Give them one or two appeals in a timely fashion and then get it over with, no need to drag it out.

And I understand the argument for convicting an innocent person, but at the very least that is much less likely than it used to be with modern forensic technology. But I would also think that it should be impossible to convict and sentence an innocent person to life in prison, let alone the death penalty, given the evidence required to reach such a verdict. But I could be naive on that.

On May 16 2015 06:11 ZasZ. wrote:


Well if you look at it from an opportunity cost standpoint, you could avoid having to take care of this person for the rest of their lives by killing them. Similarly to how I feel like American prisons should have a lot less drug offenders, I feel like American prisons should have a lot less people serving life sentences. Prison should be for rehabilitating violent criminals, and even if it were possible there is no point in rehabilitating a person who will be in jail their entire life.

So I would argue it helps the taxpayers. I realize that death row, the appeals process, and executions are not necessarily cheap, but they don't have to be expensive. That seems more like a problem with the system than the death penalty. Give them one or two appeals in a timely fashion and then get it over with, no need to drag it out.

And I understand the argument for convicting an innocent person, but at the very least that is much less likely than it used to be with modern forensic technology. But I would also think that it should be impossible to convict and sentence an innocent person to life in prison, let alone the death penalty, given the evidence required to reach such a verdict. But I could be naive on that.

On May 16 2015 06:28 Djabanete wrote:

Where are you coming from that you're comfortable deciding that some else's life has "no point" any more, especially when that someone, if they could talk to you, would disagree with you unequivocally? Where are you coming from that you're okay with killing someone because it looks to you like their life has "no point" anymore? If you kill someone, don't let it be because you think their life has no point. Have a real reason. I think the place you're coming from is cynicism and naivete.

I wouldn't want to live the rest of my life in jail, but if I had to, I still wouldn't think my life was pointless. Would you?