Amnesty International is a great organization yet they are partially bias. I agree that we need to revamp our Justice System to prevent those who are innocent from getting trapped in the system an dyet we also need ot retain the punitive system of the Death Penalty.
No I am not for taking away any human rights except in the case of murderers. We make our streets safer for our officers by executing murderers rather than letting them loose to kill once again.

I'm for the death penalty, but I'm also concerned about innocents being executed. I think the best way to handle that is to prevent any conviction from happening without physical evidence that identifies the perpatrator. Nobody should ever go to jail on the testimony of others without solid physical evidence to back them up.

Yes I completely agree with you. Witness testimony should not be all that is offered up in order to convict. There should be solid physical evidence. DNA or other such evidence.
I researched the Amnesty claim and apperently that number is the total number since 1900. Of course way back before the 60's we had a very bad justice system which has gotten much better over the years.

I was just listening to NPR's Talk of the Nation today (good radio program if you have a few hours to kill in the afternoon). On Fridays they do a "Science Friday" episode. Today they had a segment on Forensic Sciences and how unreliable they actually are. I think they stated that fingerprinting evidence is accurate 95% of the time. 95% is a pretty good number if you're betting on a horse race or playing the lottery. But when it comes to criminal convictions, life inprisonment, or the death penalty... its not something I'm willing to trust.

Once again I noted that Dyshade made reference to "executing murderers rather than letting them loose to kill again". Please find one place in all my posts in this thread where I advocated letting murderers loose. PLEASE! If you can't, stop claiming that is what I am advocating.

It is a known fact that if you convict a criminal to life in prison they can come up for parole. If paroled it is a good chance that they will repeat thier crime. DNA Evidence is better than fingerprint evidence. 95% is damn good. Close as you can get to 100%.

In fingerprinting, there is a 24 point matching system.. Unless you take a perfect fingerprint yourself, you almost never get a 24 point match.. Most common is a 20 to 22 point.. 23 if it's clear... But thats the uber system.. Standard system is 12 point.. you need better than 9 to use it in court effectively.. Many prosecuters won't take anything less than an 11 into the courtroom.. But some will occasionally try to use an 8 or better. ergo the 95% rating..

As Dy said, DNA is much better for these type of cases.. DNA backed by fingerprints and vids are, many times, a slam dunk case...

Actually, no. 96%, 97%, 98%, and 99% are all closer to 100%. And it sure must suck to be those 5 guys out of every 100 that get fucked by an imperfect system. Particularly if one of them are sentenced to death.

I have never ever heard of anyone getting convicted of murder on fingerprint evidence alone. If you have I would love to hear it.

They should bring back the chain gangs.

Believe me they won't want to ever go back.

Sorry to pick on you again.

How many offenders repeat their crimes? When chain gangs or not were around? A fair few. A few too many at that.

If crime of such a horrific nature has been proven fully beyond any doubt. Then and only then should the death penalty be applied to such persons who would without any doubt always pose a deadly threat to the general public. That means those who can never be rehabiliatated.


But while the chance remains that an innocent man or woman might be wrongly convicted. The death penalty will claim the lives of the innocent as withthe guilty and one innocent in 1000 guilty is one too many lives. For that the death penalty should be questioned. After all you can not bring back a man or woman who was executed when later on evidence dictates they were what they claimed to be all along innocent. A pardon does not make up for their death.

Temptress,

The whole idea of imprisonment is to reform. There should be alchohol & drug treatment, there should be an opportunity for a GED, and there should be some job training so convicts will have the means to make an honest living when they get out. But you also have to make prison unpleasant so the convicts will choose to pursue those opportunities for reform.

Also, why should convicts get to freeload on taxpayers money? I think chaingangs are fair as the convicts are paying for some of the costs of maintaining prisons with public works. The chains are put on so they don't try to escape when they are taken outside of the walls to work.

Repeat offenders? That is a good reason as any for capital punishment. Some people are simply not going to reform.

Good point, however...



Some do reform some do not or cannot not. How can you reform a man or woman who thinks his/her crime isn't a crime? Then what of those who do time for the real criminal? Paid off, money wise or via fear of family eradication. Is it right to execute those? Are the payments of compensation to those wrongly killed through miscarrigage of justice ok and justify the death penalty being imposed?



Taking your changed comment about Dhamer, Bundy etc would you want such persons working on chain gangs? Remember these men never thought they did anything wrong. Pillars of society in a manner of speaking, men/women who manipulate and hide very well the side of them that killed.



How man chain-gangers escaped when such things were around? Look only to those who escape incarceration now?



Yes it costs to keep then incarcerated. Isn't that an acceptable payment to live in a law abiding 'safe' society?



As I said, if it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt and that is 100% proof, that the crime was committed by the accuser. That the accuser could not be reformed or posed as long as they lived a threat to the general public, then and only then should the death penalty apply? If in this day and age science and the law cannot prove such fully, then capital punishment should not be used.



Believe me I would like nothing more than to see paedophiles castrated and executed. As paedophiles cannot be reformed, their sexual preferences remain the same. Therefore my own opinion is they forever pose a threat to society, especially the children.



I have seen the arguments posed that paedophiles are not sick they are doing what was acceptable generations ago. My reply still is what applied generations ago do not apply now and there is no rhyme or reason why any adult or teen does not know this.

Crime pays and in these day and ages those with the upper hand on human rights are sadly those who commit crimes. Criminals are given to soft a treatment. Human rights is to blame for this. You could argue but it falls on deaf ears where were the human rights of the victims Bundy killed? Then the victims and the families of victims mean nothing as long as the criminals are treated to a long holiday instead of being punished.

Yes I also know the arguements posed that being in jail is not easy. Being away from family's friend, loss of some freedom etc. Where were the thoughts of the family, freinds and freedom when the crimes were being done? So, the answer as always is the same one from me to any posing that lame argument. 'Don't do the crime if you don't want the time.'

Serial killers like Dahmer and Bundy knew they were wrong. Remember that they concealed their crimes for years before getting caught.

No, I did not intend to say that serial killers should be on chain gangs. I had responded to an earlier post by Lenina and simply forgot to quote her statement about someone she knew describing jail as being easy.

Serial killers like Dahmer and Bundy should be put to death. It is the only just punishment for their crimes.

Wrong they did not think they did anything wrong. Their crimes were not in their eyes. To know it is wrong is to show remorse and they never showed such. As I said they were pillars of society hiding their true self behind the mask of respectability.

No problems on the confusion on serial killers and chaingangs. But.... where do you draw the line of who can serve on chaingangs and who can't?

As said what if and these damn what if crop up a lot. What if Dhamer was innocent, he took the rap for the real killer who re-committted his crimes. Dhamer by now is dead. The man who said he did nothing wrong is no more, just another travestiy of justice. That is ok?

100% proof of crime that is so heinous and the threat to society will always be present then and only then execute such persons. But ask yourself this is 100% proof on any crime ever given or is it as normally applied. Or is circumstantial proof is what is actually used and that proofing method is no more than 51% at maximum.

There is simply no denying that Dahmer was a serial killer. Too many bodies, too much evidence, he was raping and killing for a long time. Heck, he was eating the bodies.

The serial killers knew that they were wrong, that is why they were careful to conceal their crimes. They had no remorse because they were simply evil, they know that it was wrong and they get satisfaction from it.

As far as chaingangs, all convicts should be put to work. Again, it is an opportunity for them to offset the costs of their imprisonment.

I thought I was adding to the debate there, but I could be wrong. You said 'It will always be a fact that sometimes innocent blood will be spilled in order to assure freedom.' What exactly were you trying to add to the debate with that?

Furthermore, if a post is incomprehensible, why draw attention to it and belittle its writer, rather than just ignoring it? We're all adults here, after all.