"I am innocent, innocent, innocent. Make no mistake about this; I owe society nothing. Continue the struggle for human rights, helping those who are innocent, especially Mr. Graham. I am an innocent man, and something very wrong is taking place tonight. May God bless you all. I am ready."

- Herrera's last statement prior to execution by the State of Texas.

The death penalty has not and will never be a crime deterrent. It only creates problems like this one.

Powerful stuff. Something that i have always said is this:

True justice never has and never will be dealt by human hands.

So I guess the real murderer in this story was the government.

I think it was Iowa that had dropped the death penalty several years ago when it was determined that in the last 100 years of having it, the estimate that they had wrongfully executed 52 people, based on new evidence.

"If you support the death penalty and only one single innocent person is killed, and killing an innocent person is murder, then you become murderers. So, you also deserve to be killed. This is the paradox of the death penalty, and you cannot avoid this paradox." -Dr. Heller

The moral to this story is don't be drunk and mexican.

what is the song playing in the background?

Its sounded like a version of the song America, i think Ray Charles sung a version

the song is "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", not sure who's singing it. Willie Nelson maybe?

Excellent and chilling.

... kill the jury!

Death penalty is ineffective and plain sad. Yay for living in Australia!

The only way the death penalty would be a deterrent is if it were administered publicly and painfully. Even then, it still wouldn't be very effective.

*shortfilms

Adding video to channels (Shortfilms) - requested by Sarzy.

>> ^Aniatario:
"If you support the death penalty and only one single innocent person is killed, and killing an innocent person is murder, then you become murderers. So, you also deserve to be killed. This is the paradox of the death penalty, and you cannot avoid this paradox." -Dr. Heller


Only if you knowingly killed an innocent person.

"I do a lotta stuff to protect myself, man. I keep my receipts; I collect receipts because that's a trail of where you been. Everywhere I go I get a receipt, I don't care, and I never go more than a half hour without buying something cuz you could kill somebody in a half hour and then you gonna need an alibi. So every 15 minutes I buy something - a stick of gum, can I get my receipt for that, please?
'We don't have receipts for gum, my friend.'
Well you gonna have to, uh...
'We don't have receipts.'
Well look, you gonna have to write me one or something. I gotta have my receipts.
'I don't have receipt!'

And then, you know, if it's like that I'll end up arguing with him just to, you know, so he remembers me, you know what I mean?

Give me my goddamn receipt, pussy!
'What!'
You heard me, punk.
'Eh? Fuck you! Kiss my ass!'
Yeah, kiss my ass too. What time is it?
'5:15!'
Alright.
'You were in here messing with me at 5:15! You wasn't out killing someone cuz you were in here fucking with me!'" -- Patrice O'Neal

DrAlcibiades said, "(It is murder) Only if you knowingly killed an innocent person."

Interesting consept. So, If I went out and knowingly killed a guilty person, in your world that's not murder?

The Death Penalty is neither a deterrent nor a punishment, it is merely revenge, not even for the victims or their relatives and loved ones, but for a blood hungry society.

>> ^wraith:
The Death Penalty is neither a deterrent nor a punishment, it is merely revenge, not even for the victims or their relatives and loved ones, but for a blood hungry society.


It's a little more than that. What use to society does the serial killer serve? Why should we provide a life for someone who freely chooses to take it from others? It costs you and me money to keep these people locked up in prison where they get 3 meals a day, free medical care, TV, etc. If we are sure of the guilt of a mass murderer, then what is the point in keeping them alive? They are a cancer to society. You don't try to co-exist with a cancer. You eradicate it to the fullest extent possible.

>> ^DrAlcibiades:
>> ^Aniatario:
"If you support the death penalty and only one single innocent person is killed, and killing an innocent person is murder, then you become murderers. So, you also deserve to be killed. This is the paradox of the death penalty, and you cannot avoid this paradox." -Dr. Heller

Only if you knowingly killed an innocent person.


Wrong.

They killed a person. And they couldn't know that he was 100% guilty. That makes them murderers.

I'll pre-empt a stupid reply with a stupid answer:
Obviously they weren't 100% certain, otherwise he wouldn't have been an innocent man, get it?

Here's the slightly more intelligent answer:
You can't be 100% certain someone is guilty. That's it. No more to add, that's the bottom line.

Got it on camera? Cool, i can show you some aliens i filmed.
Got 2000 witnesses? Cool, i've got £10 million and i can give you 20000 witnesses.
Saw him do it? Who can prove you're telling the truth?
I saw it? But who can prove *i'm* telling the truth?
He's running around shouting "i did it"? How do we know he's sane? How can we trust the doctor saying he's sane?

Get it now? Court justice is handed down on the basis of percentages. You gather enough evidence and you get a conviction. If you have not quite enough evidence, you don't. So where's the thresh-hold? 75% sure and you can assume he's guilty? Then you're wrong 25% of the time.

The DNA/fingerprints/etc. argument fails when you find 1 single false positive.

Nice try, and i daresay a few people on the sift were fooled by the patented Penn&Teller BULLSHIT! style comment that appear regularly underneath every discussion about gun control. Please think before upvoting, chaps.

All in favour of the death penalty should volunteer to play russian roulette on TV. Then I might believe they have the courage to risk their own wrongful execution just to keep prison costs down a bit. Step up, put your money where your mouth is.

Wanna different way to reduce prison costs? Erm... maybe fund education properly, legalise marijuana, etc, retards.

>> ^Aniatario:
"If you support the death penalty and only one single innocent person is killed, and killing an innocent person is murder, then you become murderers. So, you also deserve to be killed. This is the paradox of the death penalty, and you cannot avoid this paradox." -Dr. Heller


Putting the whole argument of the death penalty aside, this doesn't strike anyone else as a major logical fallacy? While you may like it because it supports your particular views, it's terrible logic and looks like perfect fit for a syllogistic fallacy.

for some reason I REALLY don't care. Even if innocent people die, who cares? I think this is a senseless cause unless you have been directly influenced by a wrongful execution. I have been to jail and there are people in county, let alone the federal pen whom without the world wouldn't suffer. Some people are just deviants that've strayed too far from a norm that we've collectively agreed upon and they'll never get it. They'll keep on fuckin you because you are you. Why pay their meal ticket?

Personally I think rehabilitation, if possible would be a better choice. Jail or prison doesn't rehabilitate though. I don't know how to rehabilitate some of these criminals. They're too far gone. Anything aside from torture wouldn't even come close to touching their psyche and of course we can't torture them. So I'm suppose shell out more cash every pay check so that I can house a lifer just because he has "found Jesus". Fuck that...and fuck jesus while we're at it. Don't even get me started on the ridiculous religious debates I've been in with people that've been in and out of the prison system numerous times over the years.

Um yeah, pay their meal ticket! Not only does it give innocent people time to come up with further evidence, it's CHEAPER to keep people in prison for life!!! Don't believe me? There's some smart peoples doin' the research.

But lets look at the death penalty another way. "During 2007 24 countries, 88% in China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States alone, executed 1,252 people." What wonderful company we are in. The UK banned it in 1973. It is banned in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, Australia, even Mexico. In fact, Mexico refuses to extradite some criminals who really need to face justice in the US because we might execute them.

There was a time when the US was a world leader. Now we can't even follow the trends set by the rest of the world.

Everybody else is evolving beyond the revenge bloodlust. When are we going to grow up?

>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^DrAlcibiades:
>> ^Aniatario:
answer:
You can't be 100% certain someone is guilty. That's it. No more to add, that's the bottom line.


I won't be as long-winded as you but suffice it to say you are just plain wrong.

>> ^Lurch:
>> ^Aniatario:
"If you support the death penalty and only one single innocent person is killed, and killing an innocent person is murder, then you become murderers. So, you also deserve to be killed. This is the paradox of the death penalty, and you cannot avoid this paradox." -Dr. Heller

Putting the whole argument of the death penalty aside, this doesn't strike anyone else as a major logical fallacy? While you may like it because it supports your particular views, it's terrible logic and looks like perfect fit for a syllogistic fallacy.


I suppose that's true, but what's the assumption that includes the premise?

The assumption that killing someone with the consent of government is still murder?

It's definitely more a case for philosophy, to see if there's logic to the concepts of murder, government, justice, and possibly even death.

That little syllogism does present a strong argument though. What makes it right for you to take a life, when the reason you're taking a life was that someone else took a life first? Doesn't that seem paradoxical?

It ain't QED, but it's persuasive.

>> ^NetRunner:
What makes it right for you to take a life, when the reason you're taking a life was that someone else took a life first? Doesn't that seem paradoxical?
It ain't QED, but it's persuasive.


I suppose that's where you get to the philosophical side. The Dr. Heller quote just strikes me as too simple and very general. There are persuasive arguements on both sides. Innocent people can actually be put to death. No system is perfect. We can continue to improve methods for preventing the conviction of innocent people, but it will most likely never be 100% accurate. There are long time periods and lengthy appeal processes between the sentencing and actual carrying out of an execution to allow for new evidence to be revealed, but sometimes that fails as well.

I personally see the death penalty as something that should be maintained, but in a different way. Not for cost saving reasons, but for some of the reasons Rottenseed listed. I think some people are so far beyond the capability to live in a civil society that the only answer is to lock them away permanently or destroy them. Is it any better to have people locked away with life sentences without hope of parole? Rehabilitation would be nice, but I believe it's just as naive to think every prisoner can be changed as it is to believe everyone that will be sentenced to death is guilty.

Look at prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood. I can't see any reason why they shouldn't all just be put to death. This is a prison gang responsible for over 1/4 of all murders in the federal prison system. These are people, some with life sentences, that operate like an organized crime family. That is the ideal scenario for the death penalty. The guilty and already convicted that prove their complete inability to reform. To answer your original question, to put those men to death is not paradoxical to me at all. They are killers that do so by choice. An execution is carried out to stop them from killing again. That's a 25% reduction in prison murders right there.

The economics of the death penalty vary according to the country in which the penalty is dealt. I doubt it cost as much to hang Saddam as it would have to keep him in prison the rest of his life. On the other hand, in the U.S. with the endless appeals, it takes over a decade, on average, to execute someone. During that decade, more money is spent on legal fees than would be required to jail someone for life. China is probably another country where the cost of execution is low, although the government there is not about to say.

Richard Rhodes' book "Why they kill" is an interesting read. While a little rigid, he details a process whereby violent criminals undergo "violentization" that ultimately results in a self-identity as a violent person. I don't think evidence supports a high success rate of rehabilitation of truly violent individuals.

I've always been a bit ambivalent about executing criminals who have committed truly heinous crimes, such as rape and murder of children. I don't care much about having them around. And I do believe criminals caught in the act, or with conclusive DNA evidence, or even a body or two buried under freshly poured concrete in the basement can be held guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

I did hear someone advocate the "wrath of God" penalty for child murderers, as only God should have the right to take a man's life. The guilty party is taken to the top of a tall building each time a thunderstorm approaches. They are handed a lightning rod as it draws nigh and told, "let's see what God thinks of your ass this time."

Dark humor, but told by a comedian on TV one night, so don't pin it on me.

"If you support the death penalty and only one single innocent person is killed, and killing an innocent person is murder, then you become murderers. So, you also deserve to be killed. This is the paradox of the death penalty, and you cannot avoid this paradox." -Dr. Heller

This doesn't seem that sound to me.

The deterrence theory is one of those sociological questions that's complex enough that it can only be evaluated scientifically within a very modest degree of certainty. On that kind of question, a probabilistic stance (e.g. 85% likelyhood x is true) seems more appropriate than a gut feeling

If the unfavored hypothesis (deterrence will prevent at least 1 murder) is true (we can't really know), than our opposition to the death penalty would make us "murderers" according to Dr. Heller.

Agnes Heller is, humorously, a professor in the very discipline that should help her avoid logical inaccuracies: philosophy. It's this kind of thing that's making the younger generation of philosophy academics move toward "experimental philosophy" ("x-phi") --philosophy that doesn't ignore science and statistics

(See "The New New Philosophy," NY Times.)

Well spoken chilaxe

>> ^jeremy1967:
>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^DrAlcibiades:
>> ^Aniatario:
answer:
You can't be 100% certain someone is guilty. That's it. No more to add, that's the bottom line.

I won't be as long-winded as you but suffice it to say you are just plain wrong.


Stating an opinion about a fact. Boy you're in for some trouble on the sift!

Don't MAKE me drag descartes from his grave into this argument, he'll talk jive and lose his temper faster than a black reporter in a country-ass fucked up town!

jeremy1967 worte:
It's a little more than that. What use to society does the serial killer serve? Why should we provide a life for someone who freely chooses to take it from others? It costs you and me money to keep these people locked up in prison where they get 3 meals a day, free medical care, TV, etc. If we are sure of the guilt of a mass murderer, then what is the point in keeping them alive? They are a cancer to society. You don't try to co-exist with a cancer. You eradicate it to the fullest extent possible.

1. Do you really think that "we" "provide" "you" with a life?
2. Murdering people is a burden for any society that must be avoided. How can murdering be illegal for an individual but legal for a society?
3. Cancer is not a self aware being.

Fact a: In a "normal" judicial system, the death penalty with all associated costs is far more costly than life imprisonment.
Fact b: Murderers who killed in the heat of the moment are far less likely to kill again than other persons are to kill for the first time. Who should you imprison to protect society?

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