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On September 22 2011 12:01 acker wrote:
The prosecution dropped the bullet casing crap a decade ago because they mishandled the evidence and the procedure they used was a joke. He was convicted of the other murder based on the listed eyewitnesses and said bullet casing. They don't even have the gun so they can do casing comparison tests with a larger sample size.
Don't make shit up.
That conflicts with what the former prosecutor said in the CNN article linked above:
Davis was convicted of the first, non-fatal, shooting in Savannah's Cloverdale neighborhood that night. Lawton said there was confusion over evidence in the murder case because the shell casings from both shootings wound up in the same evidence bag.
"That confusion was subsequently resolved; it was resolved adequately at trial," he said. "Our problem, from the state's point of view, is the documents, which initially reflect the initial confusion, are still out there and are being exploited to that end."
A jury sat on this trial for weeks/months and still convicted him, and the prosecution has prevailed in every appeal. I'm willing to side with the decisions made by people who have spent years on this case over the opinions of people on the Internet.
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Just an update, time of death has just been announced as 11:08 EDT so yeah, no more questions on what's happening.
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RIP troy davis
11:08
Am I the only person that feels really shaky and got the goosebumps?
It makes me upset and scared that this guy waited for the past 3 hours to die, strapped to a table, and then murdered. I can't imagine what was going through his head.
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On September 22 2011 12:16 ranshaked wrote:
RIP troy davis
11:08
Am I the only person that feels really shaky and got the goosebumps?
It makes me upset and scared that this guy waited for the past 3 hours to die, strapped to a table, and then murdered. I can't imagine what was going through his head.
Hopefully it was "damn I wish I didn't shoot those people," at least for part of it.
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It'll be interesting to read the court dialogues as I don't trust anything that the news media says these days (always misrepresenting information in some fashion).
If he is indeed innocent and these news sources are correct in that nearly all the witnesses have said they gave false accusations under oath, he certainly deserved to live. However if that is not the case, he rightfully died or could have remain in jail instead, whichever is less costly.
Ethically, I suppose the death penalty can be wrong, however I do remember a few years ago when I had read a research report conducted to attempt to show any correlation between states that had a death penalty and the number of violent crimes per capita. As it turned out, there were fewer violent crimes per capita within states that had a death penalty compared to those that didn't. Although perhaps the threat of a death penalty is all that is needed considering the costs to execute someone are very high.
I must ask though, do some of you really think that rehabilitation really works? I wrote an essay on recently released inmates and recidivism back in my sociology class, and found that many former inmates indeed committed a similar crime that landed them into jail to begin with. I suppose before we argue on the debate of rehabilitation and such for criminals, we should first look at our rehabilitation facilities and prison systems first.
And lol@ the dude who thinks that some states still practice human sacrifice (and lol at the notion, I'm sure it happens just as frequently in Europe, too). Sure, animal sacrifice [of domestic farm animals] can technically be allowed under a technicality, but that's it.
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I strongly believe in the quote:
"I'd rather let 100 guilty go free, than punish 1 innocent"
And therefore, since it is not certain it's his fault he atleast deserves to live.
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On September 22 2011 12:13 ShadowDrgn wrote:
That conflicts with what the former prosecutor said in the CNN article linked above:
A jury sat on this trial for weeks/months and still convicted him, and the prosecution has prevailed in every appeal. I'm willing to side with the decisions made by people who have spent years on this case over the opinions of people on the Internet.
The former prosecutor is clearly a unbiased study on all things Troy Davis. Right? Should I quote the defense attorney and insist no physical evidence whatsoever was obtained (/sarcasm) ?
I'm going to go with the "I refuse to read up on the case and see what happened in the appeals process" to describe your train of thought. When the federal court admits that the defense's case to put a man to death isn't ironclad but insists on proof of innocence rather than proof of reasonable doubt...well, that's it.
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According to media witnessed that were there live (they're currently talking so I'm paraphrasing) he went quietly but when asked if he had anything final statement he said he wanted to speak to the victim's family and he said it wasn't his fault, he didn't have a gun, he was sorry for their loss but he didn't take their sun. He said "I did not kill your son, father, brother, I am innocent". He encouraged those present to keep investigating and looking in to what really happened. He aked God to have mercy on those killing him.
Edit: The victims family apparently believe that he was responsible and were happy with the outcome.
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Seems nuts that there wasnt enough doubt in the case even with 7 recantations. However, i also feel like we definitely don't know the full picture considering so many appeals where summarily and fully denied by numerous levels of the judicial system.
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On September 22 2011 12:20 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I strongly believe in the quote:
"I'd rather let 100 guilty go free, than punish 1 innocent"
And therefore, since it is not certain it's his fault he atleast deserves to live.
I've never liked that quote, what if those 100 men then go and kill 100 more men?
Should be something more like
"I'd rather not execute 100 guilty men, than execute 1 innocent man"
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I see people saying it's not about death penalty in general, it's wrong.
The basic problem with the death penalty is that you put so much faith in the justice system that you give them the power to take human lives. Justice is made by humans, so inevitably sometimes it screws up, and things like this are bound to happen.
Institutions just shouldn't be allowed to decide that someone should die.
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It's cases like this that remind me why I am becoming a lawyer.
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The death penalty is revenge, not justice.
And reading the Times article today was appalling. Several times they quoted the prosecution saying "he had multiple chances to prove his innocence". Excuse me?
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Sanya12364 Posts
RIP. Troy Davis. The man maintained his innocence to the end, and based on the circumstance of the case and trial, I'm partial to giving him the benefit of the doubt.
As for the death penalty, I'm of the school that justice is making the victim(s) whole and rehabilitation of the criminal if applicable. The death penalty doesn't fit unless the criminal believe that it is the only way to atone for the crime.
As for "I'd rather let 100 guilty go free, than punish 1 innocent," the really insidious part of convicting an innocent is that the real criminal gets off free because the justice system stops seeking out the real criminal. The evil of punishing an innocent is compounded by the effective pardoning of the guilty.
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On September 22 2011 12:24 MilesTeg wrote:
I see people saying it's not about death penalty in general, it's wrong.
The basic problem with the death penalty is that you put so much faith in the justice system that you give them the power to take human lives. Justice is made by humans, so inevitably sometimes it screws up, and things like this are bound to happen.
Institutions just shouldn't be allowed to decide that someone should die.
Then honestly, neither should they have the power to convict and ruin people's lives. Mistakes will always be made, people will always intentionally do wrong. We are not a benign species, and as such some sacrifices should be made and some control should be given up to the State to attempt to make the best, safest life for the majority (I do realize that every country really doesn't give two shits about fully assisting the people with their needs, but that's for another post).
Until that day that we as a species think of the whole rather than as an individual, we absolutely must allow the state to make those types of decisions, despite the fact that there is a margin of error (and lets be honest, it is a rather acceptable margin for error).
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If Cole publishes an "if I did it" book in the next year like Casey Anthony and Simpson, I'm going to break something.
On September 22 2011 12:35 Naio wrote:
Then honestly, neither should they have the power to convict and ruin people's lives. Mistakes will always be made, people will always intentionally do wrong. We are not a benign species, and as such some sacrifices should be made and some control should be given up to the State to attempt to make the best, safest life for the majority (I do realize that every country really doesn't give two shits about fully assisting the people with their needs, but that's for another post).
Please tell me that you are not a citizen of the United States. If you are, please tell me that you cannot vote and do not plan on reproducing.
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I do feel that some crimes warrant the use of the death penalty and yet I am still opposed to the death penalty.
Although it fits certain potential crimes in reality there is too much gray area in many cases to be sure that only the guilty are being executed.
There is also inequality in the use of the death penalty. Blacks are more likely to be executed than whites for similar crimes and men are more likely than women to be executed for similar crimes.
For those reasons alone the death penalty should be abolished.
I also have a problem with the state using death as a punishment. People have a right to kill in self defense but not for revenge. If someone breaks into my house and tries to kill my family and I shoot them dead then that is fine. If they break in and kill my family and I fail to kill them I can't decide to hunt them down and kill them a week later. The person would deserve death yes, but I don't like the idea of the state being so much more powerful than the people.
And finally, let's be honest here, there are a shit ton of people, maybe even the majority of people, develop a mob mentality quite easily and just want to see someone put to death just for the sake of it. For a recent example look at the Casey Anthony trial. It is one thing to feel that she is guilty, and to think that if she is guilty then she should have been executed. Now look on youtube for some of the live reactions to the verdict, look back at the coverage of the trial...people with nothing invested in the trial, no stake in the outcome and yet they nearly salivate at the thought of the women being put to death and get enraged when she doesn't.
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To add the opinion of a person pursuing a PHD in criminal justice: simply put, there is a strong scientific consensus amongst people who study criminal justice that the death penalty has _no_ deterrent effect. You can find it virtually anywhere - every couple of years, the Journal of Law and Criminology posts expert polls on that stuff. About 60% think there's no deterrent, 30% think that the deterrent is insignificant, and 10% think it works.
There are also a damn ton of examples of it. The New Yorker had a pretty great article about potentially the first person who may have his case over-turned posthumously - IE the state of texas will admit that it murdered a legally innocent man.
-Cross
(http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann)
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Ruben Cantu was even more fucked up than that case. One witness, no physical evidence, botched police procedure, witness recants two years after execution. Prosecutor went directly into the anti-death penalty camp in record time.
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On September 22 2011 12:39 macil222 wrote:
And finally, let's be honest here, there are a shit ton of people, maybe even the majority of people, develop a mob mentality quite easily and just want to see someone put to death just for the sake of it. For a recent example look at the Casey Anthony trial. It is one thing to feel that she is guilty, and to think that if she is guilty then she should have been executed. Now look on youtube for some of the live reactions to the verdict, look back at the coverage of the trial...people with nothing invested in the trial, no stake in the outcome and yet they nearly salivate at the thought of the women being put to death and get enraged when she doesn't.
Yeah, the Casey Anthony thing was one of the creepiest things thats happened in the US. People who shouldn't give a shit at all were frothing at the mouth to have some woman put to death, even though the evidence to prove she was anything more than a total loser / severely negligent was non existent.
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EPT
