Death Penalty

Okay, I hurt myself but I think I did the math and proportionately, using tcis's figures, blacks should only be 9.03% of those who are executed?

Now I wonder how it would look if the statistics are compiled more recently, say in the last 20 years, since we have mostly evolved away from blatant racism, and

Are there any statistics sorted by race on who is committing the most horrendous violent crimes out there?

To me it would be very offensive to assign a quota system to the death penalty.

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tcis wrote:

This means that blacks are being executed at a rate more than 4 times that of whites.
Do you really believe they are committing 4X as many death worthy crimes, per capita?

No, it's far more than that.

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While I will grant that blacks may have committed crimes at a higher rate than whiltes, I do not believe that the difference is this high.

It's higher.

In 2000 blacks committed 7 times more homicides than whites and this represents a low of about a decade.

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Craven,
Okay, I'll assume your stats are correct.

Do you have an explanation for this one:

"The odds of a death sentence in cases in which blacks killed whites were as much as 11 times higher than the capital murder of a black by a white."

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--

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tcis wrote:

Craven,
Okay, I'll assume your stats are correct.

Don't do that.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

There is the US department of justice source.

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Do you have an explanation for this one:

"The odds of a death sentence in cases in which blacks killed whites were as much as 11 times higher than the capital murder of a black by a white."

No. Frankly my intent was to simply provide a fact, I do not support the death penalty, even if it is/were racially fair.

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stuh505 wrote:

Walter,

I live in the US, my country has a democracy on the front-end at least. Yes I am sure that our prisons are designed to keep innocent people protected from violent people! I'm pretty certain of this, in fact, totally certain!

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You think it means nothing that 75% of the people who were exonerated by DNA evidence were initially convicted based on eyewitness testimony?

"DNA evidence" could mean anything. It could mean that they found the hair of a dog on the murder victims porch from 10 years ago. Obviously this is not relevant to the case!

"eyewitness testimony" also could mean anything. We don't know what each witness claimed to see. I would wager that none of those eyewitness testimonies were claiming to actually see the murder take place.

The point is that you cannot just compare forms of evidence like this, without comparing the CONTENT of the evidence!

To say that DNA evidence is better than eyewitness evidence is ridiculous. It depends entirely on the case and the evidence that was picked up there.

The DNA evidence WAS relevant to the cases in my statement. It was so relevant that it served to exonerate the accused person. You would lose your wager, but I don't care to spend time doing the additional research. However, lets leave off the eyewitness and go on to confessions. In 25% of cases where DNA evidence exonerated the accused person there was a confession! If the same ratio holds true in those cases in which there is no definitive DNA evidence, then that means over 600 people are innocent but will die based on coerced confessions.

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tcis wrote:

"The odds of a death sentence in cases in which blacks killed whites were as much as 11 times higher than the capital murder of a black by a white."

I don't have any explanation for the disparity but in one of my Criminal Justice classes we had to read a study that found that this disparity holds up no matter who sits as Judge or on the jury. In a case where there is a black judge and a majority of jurrors are black they are still 11x more likely to sentence a black to death for killing a white than they are if they killed another black person. I'll have to see if I can find the study on the 'net somewhere. Made for interesting reading.

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craven thanks for pointing out that statistic so i don't have to.

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There aredifferent theories and objectives of punishment with these topics:
- Retribution,

this only matters to individuals with a score to settle

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- Deterrence
--General deterrence

prison for many crimes is meant to be a deterrance, so this is correct

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--Individual deterrence

no, only general

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- Incapacitation

no, this is what guns are for

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- Rehabilitation

no, they would be rushed to some sort of institute where people attempted to rehabilitate you...im pretty sure in prison you are just locked up and there is nobody there trying to teach you how to get ready for society.

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If the same ratio holds true in those cases in which there is no definitive DNA evidence, then that means over 600 people are innocent but will die based on coerced confessions.

yes, but as i already pointed out...they have already been convicted based on all the evidence. the advance in DNA knowledge has allowed people to go BACK and understand previous case data more in order to exonerate people...but this can never happen again, and there is nothign to go back and re-analyze the evidence with especially if there wasn't even DNA evidence...so these 600 people will either be executed or rot in jail for the rest of their lives and it is not any nicer to make them rot in jail

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People in jail watch television, read books, play sports, get educated and work at jobs within the prison. I would not call that rotting. However, it is rare to hear of someone volunteering for prison, so I doubt if the prisoners actually want to be there.

The DNA discussion just served to point out that there may, and probably are, innocent people slated for execution.

Earlier posts in this thread had pointed out that innocent people may die because the death penalty was not an option. My intent was to point out the potential that innocent people could die no matter if we have a death penalty. Since the saving of innocent lives is not a determinant, then what is?

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Opposed.

I'd rather risk supporting a murderer in prison 'till he dies of old age than executing a guy who happened to be close enough in appearance that an eyewitness couldn't tell the difference.

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Edgar, I realize it may have little relevance to the issue being discussed, but may I ask what happened to your brother?

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limbodog wrote:

I'd rather risk supporting a murderer in prison 'till he dies of old age than executing a guy who happened to be close enough in appearance that an eyewitness couldn't tell the difference.

yes you are the third one to bring this up...but I don't see how people think it is a considerable possibility for any mis-accused prisoners to be set free. when the evidence was already presented, and DNA evidence already existed, when the case is done...what could possibly cause the case to get re-examined?

john/nyc wrote:

People in jail watch television, read books, play sports, get educated and work at jobs within the prison. I would not call that rotting. However, it is rare to hear of someone volunteering for prison, so I doubt if the prisoners actually want to be there.

it seems so unnatural to lock people up in cages, so inhumane. i simply do not think it should be considered an option. i think it would make more sense to put them on an island. but when confinement is meant to be life long, people should at least have the option to take death.

i also am morally opposed to having the taxpayers support brutal criminals for life sentences. it just doesnt make any sense

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Stuh, what do you suggest for those who do not wish to die? Especially for those who do not deserve to... for example criminals not guilty of murder or anything similar.

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if they arent guilty of murder, yet they have been sentenced to life, then their free lives have already been ended...and we would not really be taking anything away by killing them.

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I believe in the lottery system. If society allows executions every person above the age 18 recieves a summons, determined by the draw, to be the one to release the poison into the victim - er, I mean meanevilnastyperson - once the needle has been inserted into a vein. In that wise societal members have performed their duty as killers.

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stuh505 wrote:

if they arent guilty of murder, yet they have been sentenced to life, then their free lives have already been ended...and we would not really be taking anything away by killing them.

I can't believe that is an appropriate conclusion for those who value their lives.

The flow of your logic (which I believe comes to a sound conclusion) leads me to believe that a life sentance is often too harsh a punishment, which seems one of few ways to avoid your natural conclusion.

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perhaps life sentences are too harsh, I'm not exactly sure with the respective crimes for all punishments...I'm not commenting on that. I am merely saying that a life sentence should never exist...if someone is bad enough that they should never be released, they are bad enough to be killed.

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tcis wrote:

"The odds of a death sentence in cases in which blacks killed whites were as much as 11 times higher than the capital murder of a black by a white."

I just finished reading a study that made the same claim (above).

Those of you out there who are for the death penalty...how can we live with that discrepancy while sending people to their death?

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Wow, I worded that horribly... Smile

The point was, if their life is essentially over, THAT is the problem, and not what to do next.

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I agree, Stuh, and it is a seperate issue.

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