Supreme Court ruling against death penalty for child rapists

[Anonymous]

I posted earlier. To be candid, I am opposed to the death penalty for many reasons. The probability that we have executed an innocent person is high. One only needs look at the numbers of those who have been freed from death row and exonerated. Those on death row are more often than not, impoverished and as a result often have incompetent counsel, some of whom have been drunk or asleep during trial -- b/c in some states, esp. in the south, those lawyers who defend the indigent are the bottom of the barrel.

The cost to the taxpayer is higher for a death row inmate because of the many avenues of appeal and as evidenced by our shockingly high murder rate, it is certainly no deterrent.

I can certainly understand that many of you are moved and passionate about the welfare of children. But we cannot let angry lynch mobs govern our system of justice. This ruling, in my mind, is another step in moving away from the barbaric practice of state executions. It's time. We all want revenge when someone harms an innocent child. But unless we can guarantee a person's culpability with absolute certaintly, we cannot morally take someone's life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, come on! That decision was the best one.
When a child finds out that his/her uncle or cousin could be killed if he reports the crime, what kind of burden is placed on that child?
It is NUTTY to execute someone for that type of crime. I wouldn't put it past some States to put 16 year old boys on death row for touching their 11 year old girl/boy friend, if given the right to do so.
Thank goodness for people like Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, Ginsberg, and Stevens.

Thank goodness for Kennedy! He was the swing vote in today's ruling in favor of the 2nd admendment.

He might have voted against the death penalty for these vermin, but at least we can still keep our weapons to disepnse justice ourselves!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, come on! That decision was the best one.
When a child finds out that his/her uncle or cousin could be killed if he reports the crime, what kind of burden is placed on that child?
It is NUTTY to execute someone for that type of crime. I wouldn't put it past some States to put 16 year old boys on death row for touching their 11 year old girl/boy friend, if given the right to do so.
Thank goodness for people like Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, Ginsberg, and Stevens.

Thank goodness for Kennedy! He was the swing vote in today's ruling in favor of the 2nd admendment.

He might have voted against the death penalty for these vermin, but at least we can still keep our weapons to disepnse justice ourselves!

uhhhh... angry lynch mob much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, come on! That decision was the best one.
When a child finds out that his/her uncle or cousin could be killed if he reports the crime, what kind of burden is placed on that child?
It is NUTTY to execute someone for that type of crime. I wouldn't put it past some States to put 16 year old boys on death row for touching their 11 year old girl/boy friend, if given the right to do so.
Thank goodness for people like Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, Ginsberg, and Stevens.

Thank goodness for Kennedy! He was the swing vote in today's ruling in favor of the 2nd admendment.

He might have voted against the death penalty for these vermin, but at least we can still keep our weapons to disepnse justice ourselves!

uhhhh... angry lynch mob much?

Yes, as the cliche goes, if they can't get it right, you gotta do it yourself!

Maybe you should go into criminal defense of child rapists, you might get job satisfaction...you know doing something good for the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE. EVER.

Not just in these cases - but in all potential death penalty cases. I am troubled by the harm of the death penalty not on those who are put to death but on those who must do the killing. It is harmful to us as a society to put people to death, imho.

No, it is harmful to the victims to keep these people alive. Life without parole does not even happen all the time.

I posted this story on another thread about guns. Long story short, my good friend was brutalized in her home. She was raped for HOURS (I think it was an 18hr ordeal) by 2 men. She was raped in her vagina, mouth, and anus. The brutal rape caused her much internal injuries and I can't even imagine what that would have done to a 5yr old girl. She was then shot in the neck and left for dead. She is alive and doing well years later. However, she has a special number she can call at any time to make sure these 2 guys stay behind bars and will be notified when they are up for parole (yes, the could walk our streets again, like may brutal criminals do in this country-thank you liberals!). Even though these guys are locked up, she does live in fear that they could somehow get her again and she also has a legitimate fear that they could one day be released. They should be dead, just the way they thought they left her. One of the rapists even got to get married in jail to his sweetheart pen pal-how charming

I read your post and f/u post about your friend on the guns in house thread. Your friend sounds like such an amazing person -- wow. Can you give her a hug for me? The resiliency of the human spirit is inspiring.

This is horrible. And I feel for your friend; I too am close to someone who was raped, on *his* way home from work as a teenager.
His brutal attacker is walking the streets now in the state where the attack happened, a state run then and now by conservatives. So check yourself on the "thank you liberals" comment.

[Anonymous]

Again, Emmit Till should serve as a reminder to us. This can be a NUTTY society.

[Anonymous]

There have been so many mistakes, and innocent people jailed, and put to death, that I think we need to rethink our death penalty policies. Prisons are over crowded, and people, who should never be released, are because there just isn't enough room and money to house all the criminals. Simple drug crimes tie up our system, and clog up the jails. There are people who are in jail, that should be in treatment. Drugs are just as easy to obtain in jail, but often at a higher cost to the user, and those who were not hardened criminals when convicted, are paroled as such.

Those in jail for crimes against children, are the lowest of the low, and often the victims of rape while in prison. A friend of mine was working as an EMT and had to pick up the remains of a notorious murderer/child molester, that was killed in prison. He said that it wasn't much of a surprise, as this prisoner was in general population.

The CPS worker brought up a good point. Crimes against children are not taken that seriously. There were animal protection rights in place before there were laws giving children rights. Not many know this, but the CPS laws were based off the laws in place for the SPCA.

I was really disturbed by the poster who gave the example of a 16 year old and his 11 year old girlfriend. I am sorry, but there is no way in hell a 16 year old should have a girlfriend that is only 11 years old, especially if there is sexual contact involved.

[Anonymous]

I am not implying inappropriate contact, but any contact could be percieved that way.
Also, I agree that no 16 yr old should be with an 11 year old, but in some parts of the country that is still normal.
You see, it will be the 16 year old with th elow IQ that fondles the rich influential man's daughter who is told that he raped her, and of course he confesses, then....execution.
Yeah, we should stop criticizing the "crazy" Arabs for human rights violations.

[Anonymous]

oh my gosh, PP - sure that COULD happen, but let's deal with the most likely situations here. Someone can get framed for murder too, but that's not what's going on the vast majority of the time. Let's stick to what's predominantly the case.

also - to those citing the Till case - yes, it was horrible. but it was 50 years ago. If Obama being the Democratic nominee doesn't point to the fact that we have changed a lot as a country in 50 years, I don't know what does.

[Anonymous]

This is plain old black and white to me, no grey in my mind.

Death penalty to child rapists. The end. I don't care HOW much money it costs in appeals.

Secondly, this is something that those "crazy" Arabs are doing correctly. Publicly I might add, with a noose. Bravo!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is plain old black and white to me, no grey in my mind.

Death penalty to child rapists. The end. I don't care HOW much money it costs in appeals.

Secondly, this is something that those "crazy" Arabs are doing correctly. Publicly I might add, with a noose. Bravo!

I agree. We should start chopping off fingers when someone steals, too.
If we don't kill the child molesters, they should at least be castrated. Or be tortured. Or something. Sitting in a prison isn't enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is plain old black and white to me, no grey in my mind.

Death penalty to child rapists. The end. I don't care HOW much money it costs in appeals.

Secondly, this is something that those "crazy" Arabs are doing correctly. Publicly I might add, with a noose. Bravo!

My first thought was to agree. But then I considered those women who are stoned to death for "adultery" (i.e. premarital sex).

Anyway, death to child rapists for sure. But I think even life without parole would be ok assuming they were not given the privilege of isolation and were instead "fed" to the general population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is plain old black and white to me, no grey in my mind.

Death penalty to child rapists. The end. I don't care HOW much money it costs in appeals.

Secondly, this is something that those "crazy" Arabs are doing correctly. Publicly I might add, with a noose. Bravo!

My first thought was to agree. But then I considered those women who are stoned to death for "adultery" (i.e. premarital sex).

Anyway, death to child rapists for sure. But I think even life without parole would be ok assuming they were not given the privilege of isolation and were instead "fed" to the general population.

Of course I only cherry pick from the Arab system. Certainly, they have earned their "crazy" title in many other ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think some people would be changing their tune if this touched them personally, but that's the case with a lot of things...

I was assaulted by a stranger when I was only 12. I could not agree more with the courts ruling, even though I would like to kill the man if I ever saw him. I would also like to punch people that piss me off, but I don't think that should be legal either. The purpose of our legal system is not revenge.

My attacker was never even charged. He has been in and out of jail for a myriad of other crimes and seeing that he is behind bars does not make me feel any better..or any safer. The paranoia has pretty much made me afraid of everyone.

[Anonymous]

If one were to look at the murder rates with our country and countries with no death penalty, it looks as though capital punishment is not really much of a deterrent.