DuFreep this poll...

[Deja Q]

Poll question: DuFreep this poll...

http://wcco.com/?can_view=337183705

Do you think Minnesota should have the death penalty?


Be for or against it, but speak your mind!

Heck, answer this one too so we know locally! :D

[MrSlayer]

1. Yes.

I am for the Death Penalty and I would expand the parameters to include rape and child molestation/abuse.

[Kamika]

4. yah same

I think the death penalty is great for cases like

Murder
Extremely violent rape
Child abuse(sexual)
Certain kinds of abuse like extreme torture etc. (this category will be extremely open)

[Deja Q]

8. I concur

It should be controlled and used only under extreme circumstances, but some are vile, vicious, repeat offenders.

Also, I should ask how painless the implementation of the penalty should be. If I mutiliate, humiliate, and murder a bunch of people, should I get an easy death? I don't think so.

In many ways, I am a proud progressive and prefer people being reformed... But there sadly are cases where this action is necessary. Even if society was to be reformed to be a more equitable system, some people will still do very nasty things. A society should take both extremes to deter people (reducing and eliminating the environment which causes people to do these things while showing it will severely punish people who do these nasty things anyway. Our society, as it stands, just about invites every despicable crime imaginable.)

[Kamika]

12. I want it mainly for revenge though

I dont think the death penalty works as a deterrent, I dont think ANY penalty does.. But I know howmuch it means to the families of the murdered person to actually see the murderer get fried.

About how painless it should be.. I don't think it should be changed from today.. (chair, injection etc) because in many cases the family of the murdered person watches.. and I doubt they want to see toenails getting pulled etc :p

[terrya]

2. NO. Resounding NO.

We should be better than this. The death penalty is barbaric. It's disproportionately tilted towards minorities, there sure are flaws (Rolando Cruz, a death row inmate here in Illinois exonerated).

It's a moral issue for me. We can't be like this.

[Wwagsthedog]

21. I'm with you on this one

No government can be trusted with a person's life. How do you say I'm sorry, I made a mistake to someone who is no longer alive? And don't give me the DNA stuff either. Check out the recent performance of the Houston, TX crime lab. Just a clue. It makes the Houston school district look good on how they (don't) count dropouts.

[polmaven]

3. It is immoral...

plain and simple. It is premeditated murder.

[Djinn]

5. for me not so much a moral thing

as a not trusting the justice system thing - too many people are falsely accused or given unfair trials and are later found innocent it's bad enough to let someone out of prison after decades with a "whoops sorry we ruined your life" what do you do when you've already killed them.

[Deja Q]

11. How would you deter "repeat offenders"?

Some people do some really nasty things. While our society should reform its environment to reduce the possibility of these things happening in the first place (making more laws simply resolves no problem but creates more symptoms), how do we show people that we will not tolerate murder, rape, et cetera EVEN ONCE? Giving them free room'n'board, free cable, free health care... with a lot of people wishing that all criminals could be free while the good people get locked up... (which is sad as all sorts of inhuman corporate criminals ARE free to repeat their offenses as many times as possible...)

[polmaven]

17. We keep them in prison for life

with no possibility of release. I have no problem removing them from society for the rest of their natural lives.

"free room and board, free cable, free health care..." Prison is not a day at the beach.

I can't agree that morality should have a price cap, and many experts say that a death sentence costs more than life in prison. I doubt you are willing to take away the rights to every last possible appeal.

[Darranar]

6. NO!

There is no reason to kill those people. Their danger to society is over once they are in prison. The goal should be rehabilation, not revenge.

Also, the death penalty is final. It is impossible to bring a person back to life if evidence is found that he was innocent of the crime that he was convicted of.

[THUNDER HANDS]

7. in principle...yes...in practice...no

The system is too flawed to ever work 100% correctly.

But if it was 100% flawless, I'd probably be for it only in cases of multiple or premeditated murder.

[Myra]

9. No, I don't trust the US criminal justice system.

It's racist and classist.
African Americans are scapegoated and anyone rich
get's away with murder(S).
So I have no doubt that many were/are executed for
crimes they didn't commit.

It's as broken as everything else in this country.

[Deja Q]

13. Excellent points

In fact, I have no rebuttal to offer. While I'd be hard on crime, I'll also readily admit our system is problematic and with every new law created only adds more symptoms to it; the problem itself that causes the violence remains unaddressed.

It's typical of Western philosophy; apply band-aids to symptoms and forget about resolving the problem. :-(

[Myra]

15. Thanks HypnoToad. I don't even have a moral problem w the death penalty.

If I trusted the system I'd just as soon get rid
of monsters like the Green River Killer.
My opposition is purely practical.

And when someone is executed as a result of a mistake,
or a frame up, or corrupt/overzealous police force eager
to get a case off the books and/or get good publicity for
solving a whodunnit, well...it just can't be corrected.

Remember the infamous Boston case of (white) Charles Stewart
who killed his pregnant wife and blamed it on a black attacker?
The police totally violated the civil rights of the black
community in their determination to catch this horrible assailant.
And they quickly arrested a black man. Yay! Serving and protecting
the public. Boston's finest.

But then Stewart's brother confessed to police that he'd discarded
the smoking gun for his brother. So the police had to sheepishly
let their scapegoat go. I have no doubt he'd have received the
death penalty if the brother hadn't fessed up.

It's one case where we found out what happened.
I'll bet there are many more we don't find out the truth.

[Bronco69]

18. I agree 100%

Name a millionaire who has ever been executed. My guess is none. Just because someone can afford a lawyer who doesn't sleep through the trial doesn't entitle them to get prison instead of death.

[Myra]

22. Yup, 'Merkan justice system=get out of jail cards, and they're expensive

If you can't afford a get out of jail card, too bad.
Don't do the crime if you can't...afford to buy your way out.

Hell, not only can I not name a millionaire who has been
executed, I can't name one that's been convicted.
No matter how overwhelming the evidence.

[DFLforever]

10. That would be enough for me to leave the state and move to one of the

other non-death penalty states...better yet, maybe, move to a non-death penalty country...I'm near retirement so it's quite possible for me.

[NightTrain]

14. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!!!

Did I mention no?

But seriously, I oppose the death penalty for any number of reasons. Here are some of them:

1. America is the only industrialized nation that still has the death penalty. If abolishing it was good enough for the rest of the world, why not us, too?

2. The inmates on death row are disproportionately poor and therefore unable to afford good attorneys. Instead, they must rely on state-appointed lawyers, most of whom are worked to death and don't have the time (not to mention the experience) to give a death-penalty case the attention it requires.

3. What if a person is executed, and evidence later turns up that he or she was innocent of the crime for which they were put to death? What's the justice system going to tell the inmate's family? "Oops! I guess we made a boo-boo. Sorry 'bout that."

You get the idea.

[Myra]

16. Bingo. What NightTrain said.

Particularly #s 2 & 3.

[Djinn]

19. as above

I'm not opposed to the death penalty per se - if the system was flawless and blind instead of blindly racist/classist I would be personally willing to flip the switch on a few truly horrendous murderers.

But would NEVER EVER support it for the crimes of rape/child molestation and the reason is simple - if your victim is the only person who can ID you and you'll get the death penalty for rape anyway why wouldn't you just kill the victim and greatly lessen your chances of getting caught you have nothing to loose

[SiobhanClancy]

20. What century is this again?

I would hope that society is ready to move beyond the barbaric practice of judicial murder. I'm amazed that anyone has such confidence in the government to trust it with the option of knocking off it's own citizens. I can't add much to the points already made...poor representation,minorities unfairly targeted,chance of error etc. Even if none of those things were a factor,I would *still* be against it,though. Some honest person said that it is about revenge,and this is the absolute truth. Revenge is barbaric,though,and it's time to move away from that concept.

[Myra]

23. Not to belabor this (much :)), but here's an example from today's news:

Good thing this wasn't a death penalty case.

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2003/12/03/dna/index.html

"Oklahoma man freed due to DNA testing

Dec. 3, 2003 | LAWTON, Okla. (AP) --

A man who spent 20 years in prison for rape was freed Wednesday after DNA testing proved he was innocent of the crime..."