I would note, however, that only the second half of that graph suggests an inverse correlation between murder rates and executions. The first half, in contrast, shows a direct (downward) correlation. For you to argue that the graph supports a causative relationship between the lack of executions and murders, you would have to explain why the first half of the graph supports the complete opposite conclusion.
OCCOM BILL wrote:In greater numbers thanks to a system that sets murderers free to kill again. This is where your position completely ignores the reality of the dilemma. Repeat offenders kill more innocent people than anyone's even hypothized the DP solution does.
Exactly how many murders have been committed by inmates who have received sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole?
Also, this bit below puzzles me too. Kinda like it puzzled Walter. How can people who are on life without parole still end up killing many people? Is security within prisons that horribly bad? (And if that is so, wouldnt the problem be with bad prison security rather than with the concept of life-without-parole convictions itself?)
FreeDuck wrote:I neither made this contention nor this suggestion, so I don't know where you got this one.2) we issue these sentences only in the case of offenders who seem likely to murder again
FreeDuck wrote:Feel free to disagree till your heart's content. Many of my favorite people show a tendency to set aside reality in pursuit of their ideals when discussing subjects of this magnitude.If so, I disagree with all three of those.
I can understand that, but, the reality remains; convicted murderers have killed a lot more innocent people post-conviction than the State has even been accused of... AND there can be no doubt that executed men can't repeat their offenses. If you can set aside your idealistic desires and examine the true statistics, unlike the deterrent hypothesis, this is a simple matter of cold hard facts.
nimh wrote:
Also, this bit below puzzles me too. Kinda like it puzzled Walter. How can people who are on life without parole still end up killing many people? Is security within prisons that horribly bad? (And if that is so, wouldnt the problem be with bad prison security rather than with the concept of life-without-parole convictions itself?)
How would you like to be a prision guard in a facility populated with criminals who had nothing whatever to lose if they were to kill you?
Just following the discussion here, but O'Bill, could you reply to this point of Joe's as well?
joefromchicago wrote:I would note, however, that only the second half of that graph suggests an inverse correlation between murder rates and executions. The first half, in contrast, shows a direct (downward) correlation. For you to argue that the graph supports a causative relationship between the lack of executions and murders, you would have to explain why the first half of the graph supports the complete opposite conclusion.
Good of you to abandon that outrageous claim; but I'll not be sucked in to your 'to support the death penalty you also have to support heinous methodology' nonsense. Sorry.
This I will accept as the crux of our disagreement. I respect your desire to hold the state to a higher standard. My dissention comes from a belief that protection of innocents from murderers supersedes the importance of striving for perfect justice.
I share your ideal, but not the level of importance you place on it. I reject the supposition that a repeat offender's next victim is any less compelling than the State's. Seems like an appropriate time to agree to disagree.
Been there, tried that, and it hasn't worked. Google Kenneth McDuff for perhaps the best (of many) examples of why.
As the chart reflects: In 1960, there were 56 executions in the USA and under 10,000 murders. This is right about the time the Anti-DP campaign was really getting some traction. Prior to that; there was little doubt about what the ultimate punishment could be... so that period doesn't reflect any real inconsistencies.
I'm ill-equipped to prove the relevance in the comparison, but the numbers speak volumes to me.
Nor do I have an answer for "how many murders have been committed by life-without-parole inmates". I don't have the patience to do a "Nimh job" of finding and accumulating the data, but did take the time to dig up enough cases for myself to determine that the number was considerably greater than the 6 possible instances of erroneous State condemnation on the comprehensive website Joe linked.
OCCOM BILL wrote:Good of you to abandon that outrageous claim; but I'll not be sucked in to your 'to support the death penalty you also have to support heinous methodology' nonsense. Sorry.
I made no outrageous claim, so there is naught to abandon.
OCCOM BILL wrote:No, certainly not.joefromchicago wrote:That logic is 180% from your position on drug prohibition. Reduction doesn't require absolute success to be beneficial now, does it?If capital punishment worked as a deterrent, then there would be no need for capital punishment.
OCCOM BILL wrote:This I will accept as the crux of our disagreement. I respect your desire to hold the state to a higher standard. My dissention comes from a belief that protection of innocents from murderers supersedes the importance of striving for perfect justice.
Yet you will settle for nothing less than perfect certainty against recidivism.
OCCOM BILL wrote:I share your ideal, but not the level of importance you place on it. I reject the supposition that a repeat offender's next victim is any less compelling than the State's. Seems like an appropriate time to agree to disagree.
Then it's the appropriate time to conclude that you're wrong.
OCCOM BILL wrote:As the chart reflects: In 1960, there were 56 executions in the USA and under 10,000 murders. This is right about the time the Anti-DP campaign was really getting some traction. Prior to that; there was little doubt about what the ultimate punishment could be... so that period doesn't reflect any real inconsistencies.
That is complete nonsense. There was never a period in modern American history when the death penalty was the only punishment for homicide. You'll have to do a much better job of trying to explain how your own evidence contradicts your conclusions.
OCCOM BILL wrote:I'm ill-equipped to prove the relevance in the comparison, but the numbers speak volumes to me.
I think that statement speaks volumes about you as well.
OCCOM BILL wrote:Nor do I have an answer for "how many murders have been committed by life-without-parole inmates". I don't have the patience to do a "Nimh job" of finding and accumulating the data, but did take the time to dig up enough cases for myself to determine that the number was considerably greater than the 6 possible instances of erroneous State condemnation on the comprehensive website Joe linked.
Are you joking? You didn't even find one case where someone sentenced to life-without-parole went on to murder someone outside the walls of a prison. And this despite your claim that "Life-without-parole inmates have killed more innocents after sentencing than anyone here has suggested the state may have. That's not opinion; it's FACT." Your "facts," however, are nothing but unsubstantiated assertions, and your conclusions are no better.
In 1965, Robert Massie murdered mother of two Mildred Weiss in San Gabriel, Calif., during a follow-home robbery. Hours before execution, a stay was issued so Massie could testify against his accomplice. Massie's sentence was commuted to life when the Supreme Court halted executions in 1972. Receiving an undeserved second chance, Massie was paroled, but eight months later robbed and murdered businessman Boris Naumoff in San Francisco. Does that date sound familiar?
In 1985, 13-year-old Karen Patterson was shot to death in her bed in North Charleston, S.C. Her killer was a neighbor who had already served 10 years of a life sentence for murdering his half-brother Charles in 1970. Joe Atkins cut the Pattersons' phone lines, then entered bearing a machete, a sawed-off shotgun, and a pistol. Karen's parents were chased out of their home by Atkins. Karen's mom ran to the Atkins home nearby, where Joe then murdered his adopted father, Benjamin Atkins, 75, who had worked to persuade parole authorities to release Joe from the life sentence.
10/2003 - Ohio
Prison Inmate Gets Death Sentence In Strangling
An Ohio prisoner convicted of strangling his cellmate will be executed. The prisoner, Timothy Hancock, 33, initially got a life sentence for the November 2000 slaying. However, Warren County prosecutors appealed to demand stiffer punishment, and a new sentencing was ordered. Hancock's death sentence will be automatically appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court, which is required in capital cases. Hancock was convicted two years ago of killing Jason Wagner, 25,of Lancaster. They shared a cell at Warren Correctional Institution near Lebanon. Hancock was serving a life term for a 1990 murder.
12/4/01 - Alabama
Triple killer serving life without parole kills another inmate; finally gets death sentence
A Holman Prison inmate found guilty in September of murdering a fellow inmate was sentenced to the electric chair in an Escambia County courtroom. Cuhuatemoc Hinricky Peraita, 25, of Rainbow City, Ala., who was serving life without parole for 3 murders in Gadsden, was found guilty of capital murder and of having committed a murder after being convicted of other murders within the past 20 years. Prosecutor Reo Kirkland convinced a jury that Peraita held fellow inmate Quincy Lewis down while another inmate, Michael Castillo, stabbed him with a prison-made knife. Kirkland said during the trial that Peraita played an important role in the death of Lewis by grabbing him around the neck, forcing him onto a bunk and holding him while Castillo stabbed him with a knife. According to Kirkland, testimony from a medical examiner showed that 2 different stab wounds would each have resulted in the death of Lewis. One of those wounds was to the chest, the other to the neck. Peraita's defense team argued self defense and that Peraita and Castillo had paid Lewis money to leave them alone. They said despite paying Lewis, he continued to threaten them and that Peraita had been slapped by Lewis not long before the murder. Peraita gets an automatic appeal due to the death sentence. Judge Brad Byrne handed down the death sentence. His alleged accomplice, Castillo, pled guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter recently in exchange for a 20-year sentence. Judge Joe Brogden accepted the plea on Nov. 6.
9/21/01 - Alabama
Holman inmate convicted of capital murder
A Holman Correctional Facility inmate was found guilty of capital murder Friday in the stabbing death of another inmate. An Escambia County jury deliberated for less than an hour before finding Cuhuatemoc Little Warrior Peraita, 25, guilty in the 1999 prison stabbing death of inmate Quincy Lewis. Peraita waived his right to have jurors recommend to the judge if he should be sentenced to life in prison without parole or to death. Peraita instructed his attorneys not to fight prosecution efforts to seek the death penalty. Circuit Judge Bradley Byrne said he would schedule sentencing at a later date. It was not the 1st capital murder trial for Peraita. When Lewis was stabbed, Peraita was serving a life without parole sentence for killing three of his former co-workers during a 1994 robbery at a fast food restaurant in Gadsden.
1/8/01 - California
Inmate wants to die rather than ``lingering'' on death row
A California death row inmate imprisoned for 21 years dropped his appeals Monday, setting the stage for a rare execution in the state with the largest number of condemned inmates. Robert Massie, 59, could be executed within months for the 1979 murder of a San Francisco liquor store owner. Of nearly 600 condemned men and women in California, eight inmates have been executed since 1978, the year state voters reinstituted capital punishment. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Legge dismissed Massie's federal appeals late Monday. The judge has already ruled Massie competent to quit fighting his conviction, and gave Massie until Monday to change his mind. In his petition to end his appeals, Massie told Legge that he would rather die than continue living on death row in San Quentin, which is located a few miles north of San Francisco in Marin County. He said life on death row is a ``lingering death.'' So even if his death sentence was somehow reversed or commuted by an appeal, he would remain in prison for the rest of his life for shooting Boris Naumoff to death at a San Francisco liquor store. That is why he wants a ``swift execution.'' Massie has spent most of his life in prison. In 1965, he was convicted of murdering a San Gabriel woman and sentenced to death. But his death sentence was commuted after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down California's death penalty laws. Because of lenient parole laws at the time, he was paroled in 1978, a year before he killed Naumoff.
3/22/00
Indicted in guard killing
BEEVILLE -- A convicted killer already serving a life sentence was indicted Tuesday for capital murder in the death of prison guard Daniel Nagle. Robert Lynn Pruett, 20, could face the death penalty if found guilty of the Dec. 17 attack on Nagle, who was fatally stabbed with a sharpened rod while patrolling the Texas Department of Criminal Justice McConnell Unit near Beeville in South Texas. It was the first fatal attack on a Texas corrections officer since guard Minnie Houston was stabbed to death in 1984 by an inmate at the Ellis Unit near Huntsville, a prison official said. Pruett, from Channelview, was serving a life term for a murder committed when he was 15, according to prison records. Nagle had been president of the Beeville chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents corrections officers. Nagle is survived by his wife, a former corrections officer at McConnell, and three young children.
12/8/99
Killer charged with murdering while on the loose
STAR CITY, Ark. - A convicted killer who escaped and was recaptured in Missouri after crashing into another vehicle was charged in the death of the man whose truck he was driving. Kenneth Williams, 20, of Pine Bluff, will be arraigned Wednesday on a capital murder charge in the shooting death of Cecil Boren which happened after he escaped in October. Williams was charged Tuesday in Lincoln County Circuit Court with murdering Boren at his home near Grady on Oct. 3. Williams left the Cummins Unit of the state prison system in a 500-gallon vat of table scraps from the prison kitchen, which was headed for a barn. Police say after he got off prison grounds, he made his way to Boren's house, killed him and stole his truck. Missouri police spotted the truck at Lebanon, Mo., and gave chase. Officers arrested Williams at Urbana, Mo., after he slammed into a Culligan delivery vehicle, killing the driver. Police found guns and jewelry from the Boren home in Boren's truck after the crash. Williams was returned to Arkansas after waiving extradition. He's also being charged with aggravated robbery, theft of property and escape. He is being held in the more-secure Tucker Unit in an isolation cell. Prison officials say Williams is allowed out of his cell only three hours a week, except for court appearances and medical visits. At Cummins, Williams was in a 34-man barracks, officials said, which gave him some freedom. Williams was sentenced to life in prison for the December 1998 murder of Dominique Hurd of Fort Worth. The girl was a cheerleader at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and was on her first date with Peter Robertson of Vineland, N.J., when she was shot. Robertson also was wounded. Jurors were split over imposing a death sentence for the Hurd slaying. Tuesday's announcement by Prosecutor Steve Dalrymple that Williams had been charged in Boren's death did not say if Dalrymple would seek the death penalty in the Boren case.
8/1995 - California
Serial killer sentenced to death in Riverside murders
When William Suff went to work as a stock clerk for the county in 1986, he lied about his 1974 conviction for murder in Texas. He and his wife at the time were convicted of beating their 2-month-old daughter to death in Fort Worth. Suff was sentenced to 70 years. In March, 1984, he was paroled to California. His wife served 20 months when her conviction was overturned by an appellate court. Suff went on to become known as the Riverside Killer, murdering at least 13 women. After nearly two months of trial and just under four days of deliberation, the jury returned with guilty verdicts on 12 of 13 counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted murder. They deadlocked 11-1 on one murder charge. Jurors also found Suff guilty of multiple murder, lying in wait and use of a deadly weapon - a knife - on five victims. On August 17, 1995, after reviewing evidence and testimony in the high-profile case, the seven-man, five-woman jury recommended the death penalty for William Suff. The 45-year-old man showed no emotion, but relatives of his victims cheered the decision.
I think you're sidestepping the point here, Thomas. "first-time offender" Vs. "repeat offender" is a false dilemma. "Repeat offender" Vs. "erroneous State condemnation" in as far as potential threat to innocent life is the relevant comparison to my point. I believe you've conceded it but muddied the water a little in your response.
I don't see any merit in your hospital comparison because it flies in the face of common sense.
Less innocents killed = the greater good or the lesser evil, whichever you prefer.
Occom Bill wrote:Less innocents killed = the greater good or the lesser evil, whichever you prefer.
Finally, a point we agree on. But the best available statistical analysis doesn't tell us whether capital punishment leads to the lesser evil, as you define it. That's we all fall back on our gut instincts on this issue, which are pro in your case, con in mine.
Sounds like a pretty crappy job, Walter.
You must be a hell of a nice guy.
Thomas wrote:That's fair enough. I suspect you may be counting the 1,000 guilty folks who've been killed in your desire for less dead, though? A brief perusal of the names and numbers killed by repeaters should assure you recidivism has claimed more innocent life than the state. Quite simply; dead men don't kill people.Occom Bill wrote:Less innocents killed = the greater good or the lesser evil, whichever you prefer.
Finally, a point we agree on. But the best available statistical analysis doesn't tell us whether capital punishment leads to the lesser evil, as you define it. That's we all fall back on our gut instincts on this issue, which are pro in your case, con in mine.
I was still referring to the six potential innocents as, unlike you, I care not a whit for the thousand guilty... but that's still fair enough.
If that was true, a professionally calculated multiple-regression tests would have shown that, and they don't.
