Do you even realize how ****ed up that is?

I hope he screams really good when he dies.

Do you really do?
Do you really care about him and his victims?
If yes, only about them? What about others

I have no sympathy whatsoever towards him. He was convicted in a court of law by a jury of his peers. I believe he commited those crimes. He brought undo suffering onto the Roacha family.

An eye for an eye.

Because we don't rape rapists...

Prison is not all about vengeance; it's also about the protection of society and rehabilitation. Plus, people can always be wrongly convicted, and a life sentence allows the mistake to be (somewhat) rectified.

As long as death row inmates are on death row in California, there isn't much of a difference.

Because we're not a barbaric society that gives in to bloodlust?

Also because we can't get him pregnant?

That might be tasteless... never mind

Personally I'm not a great fan of the death penalty. It's a little bit final in our uncertain world. Some people see it as an easy way out, I'm not sure: I don't pretend to know the answers. Then again, a good sound raping in prison is maybe harsh - I don't know.

/Thinking with my fingers (out loud?)

I take a bit of a strong stand on this.

I'll say this, the punishment should fit the crime...

As soon as someone decides to break laws, and commit murder, they give up their right to be a free citizen. and government has to intervine.

If he DESERVES death, then who are we to say government shouldn't have that right? If he took the initiative to deal death, he should be ready to reap the consequences.

Hmm, skipped a lot of this so forgive me if this has been touched on already:
But I feel the death penalty isn't so much a punishment as a way of saying, this guy is too much, he's not going to learn, get rid of him.
When your going to kill someone theres no need to make it painful, because their not going to learn anything from this ordeal seeing as their going to die at the end of it.
I agree with the death penalty in extreme circumstances.

Because the government is supposed to represent the people, and if the majority of the people are against the death penalty, then so should the government.

Except it's the government that's deciding whether he deserves death or not.

The US legal system simply isn't good enough to warrant capital punishment.

Capital punishment is punishment for those without capital. Defendents unable to afford an attorney receive court-appointed public defenders. Defendents tried with public defenders are far more likely to be sentenced to death than those able to hire attorneys of their choice.

There's a whole host of 'moral' and theological arguments against capital punishment, but they're not particularly interesting. I'm sure someone is going to throw in the Bible quote "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooh" in supporting this, but what about the various stories of Jesus embracing criminals and loving sinners? I think other people can do the biblical arguments better than I can.

No, the most convincing argument against capital punishment is that it simply doesn't work. It doesn't deter people from comitting crimes. In fact, there's significant evidence to suggest that crime rates have in fact increased due to capital punishment, perhaps due to a "brutalisation" effect - the collective psychological effect of people considering human life less valuable and precious because of capital punishment.

....what?

Anyway, I can see someone trying to use this case(He was convicted with the murder of Connor, right?) as a way to ban abortion on the grounds that "killing a baby if it's the woman's choice to kill the baby is okay.....but if it isn't her choice then it's wrong? What's the difference?"

Because the baby is still part of her. Certainly in the first few weeks of development, the baby is nothing more than a few cells multiplying, using the mother's resources to do so. It is exactly the same as a bacteria, of which you kill milliions every day. Killing bacteria, is that murder too?

Mort-hog: Um, the word capital is a homophony and a polysemy. It has a lot more meanings that money. Like a seat of power, top of a pillar, first-rate, extremely serious among others. Capital as it's used in the phrase "Capital offense" or "Capital punishment" is an adjective, not the noun as in "I need some capital to start a business." (Yeah, a bunch of useless information. I jsut got done with my linguistics test, so sue me).

And your "Public Defenders will cause the poor man to get killed" is just analytically false. Only 2% of all arrests go to trial. Of that only 1% are found guilty. Now, assuming that all of that 1% is a felony case and that all of that 1% is a capital felony, and assuming all of that 1% are in states that allow the death penalty and assuming that all of that 1% are cases with judges that used the death penalty instead of the life with no parole, you still have an extreme minority of usages of the death penalty, and I'm not counting that most public defenders have already been discounted because they got their client to accept a plea bargain(which is what usually happens). While it is theoretically possible, there is no way to analytically justify your claim.

Evidently to some people it is. *shrug* But it's the legal issue of having a double standard that is that is going to be seen as a problem.

And yes, Connor dieing through abortion or murder was illegal either way at that point of his growth, but someone will bring up the issue of people charged with double homicide from killing a pregnant woman who was still in her first or beginning of her second trimester, which is still within the realms of getting an abortion.

'asploding head.

(I edited the endings of both of my last two posts so as to be more concise.)

Except these muliplying cells are not the mother's at all. Sure there are some elements of the mother as there are the father in the fetus' DNA. I interpret "part of her" as meaning the fetus is akin to limbs--an extension.

Bacteria are simple non-nucleic forms of life. All they do is just grow and grow and consume resources. The cells of a fetus are much more complex than bacteria. These cells come together to form tissue which forms organs, which forms...a human being.

Compairing bacteria to human cells doesn't work.

if you're refferring to mesoderm/ectoderm/endoderm, it's really no more complex than the dead skin under your feet.

He was cleverly using the word capital to improve the style of his writing. I'm not sure why you devote a whole paragraph towards explaining the meaning of the word when he was simply making a play on words.




What the...?!

1) Don't cite statistics without a source. It's obvious to me that you pulled the 2% and 1% statistic out of your *** and that severely undercuts the credibility of your post.

2) His argument isn't that death penalty is widepread, but that death penalty is unfair to those who don't have money. The true rare example IS Scott Peterson who does have a good attorney. Most people put to death are those with public defendants, an argument you concede. Therefore, it's hard to argue that death penalty is just since "justice" should never favor someone with money.

Heh, yes, I'm sorry, I just threw in the "capital punishment is punishment for those without capital" as it was a nice opening statement making use of the synonymity. I probably shouldn't have. But it isn't a homophone, the spelling is the same.

But anyway, court-appointed lawyers are shockingly incompetent. A recent survey conducted by the National Law Journal found that over half of the death row inmates in six southern states had been represented by lawyers who had never before handled a capital case. The study concluded that capital trials are "more like a random flip of a coin than a delicate balancing of the scales" because the defense lawyer is too often "ill trained, unprepared and grossly underpaid". Most states pay their court-appointed lawyers only $20 to $40 per hour.

The thing about 2% of arrests going to trial... that is simply irrelevant. Capital cases always go to trial. The rest of it..well, it didn't make any sense. You compare a capital case where the defendant has a court-appointed lawyer with a case where the defendant has a chosen attorney. Not only can it be done, it has been done. The good lawyers end up in private firms, the bad ones end up as public lawyers. And the bad ones are really really bad.
So the defendants that cannot afford the private lawyers get stuck with the really really bad court-appointed lawyers, and they are far more likely to recieve a guilty verdict because of that.

Not only is there this, there is also the well-documented connection between race and the death penalty - Georgia prosecutors seek the death penalty in 70% of cases commited by blacks against whites and less than 35% of cases involving other racial combinations.

And indeed it is highly dependant upon which state you are in as to whether you get the death penalty. Kansas has two people on death row. California has 513. These state-to-state disparities exist not because people commit more heinous murders in California than they do in Kansas. Rather, it is because state death penalty statutes are a patchwork of disparate standards, rules and practices that lead to different results. It is also because some prosecutors are far more zealous in seeking the death penalty than others, particularly if they are running for election.

It isn't as simple as "an eye for an eye" exactly.



I didn't realise that having a nucleus to store DNA was a significant factor. Okay then, they're like protists then (which are microscopic algae, just like bacteria except with a nucleus). But in the early weeks of pregnancy, they are simply cells dividing, and they simply grow and consume resources until they have enough to actually start developing into a complex organism. It is many weeks before the collection of cells is anything resembling complex life, many weeks after that before it is anything resembling human. Aborting a pregnancy in the early weeks is just killing off a collection of cells, it is nothing resembling human life, it is nothing resembling complex life. It is just like taking antibiotics to cure a stomach upset. In fact, that's pretty much what it is.

I don't give a **** what his sentence was as long as he's off the news. Good god, why do they waste our time? Why does anyone care, and what makes this case so different from the hundreds of murders that happen all the time?

would have preferred a 'life without parol would ahve been better, but meh', but alpha still sums it up

Damn Straight!

I agree, the case took up almost all of the front page on my friggen newspaper. i live less than 20 minutes from his house and i could care less.

Becateria do not have the capability to become human, to become conscious, to become a living, breathing, contributing member of society. From the moment of conception the zygote is capable of forming a human being, it needs only rely on the mother for nutrients to grow, all instructions for its growth are within itself. It is a seperate being from its mother. as said in "the great debate":

"Someone else's future
Four days frozen still
Someone else's fate
We are deciding"

that zygote will, if not impeded, some day become a human. do you ahve the right to destroy that potential?

There's a difference between insulting and debating. Some of us have a hard time distinguishing between the two. If you need me to I can elaborate on this.



Why is a zygote not a human? Because some court room declared it not to be? If a court made the same decision about a different group of people, say Jews or Blacks, would you be willing to accept it just the same?

Because a zygote isn't human.
A zygote is simply the result of fertilisation, the combination of two haploid cells. From that point on mitotic or meiotic cell division occurs. Exactly the same occurs in all mammals. In fact, I imagine something similar occurs in all dioecious animals. Destroying a zygote is not in any way "killing" a human being.
Preventing it from becoming human? Yes, possibly, but that isn't a crime. That isn't murder. And really, that is exactly what you're trying to achieve. When aborting a pregnany, you want to prevent it from becoming human. You want to destroy it when it is simply a collection of cells performing cell division. For destroying cells is not a crime, it is antibiotics.

He's on your side for crying out loud

AS avenger said, I'M ON YOUR SIDE! but, to be fair, i did phrase that badly. what i meant was "that zygote will, if not impeded, some day become a completely formed human. do you ahve the right to destroy that potential?" sorry for the confusion.

You know, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Peterson convicted only on circumstantial evidence? How can they execute someone based on circumstantial evidence?

They didn't even establish a crime scene much less anything beyond cirsumstancial evidence.

I see this thread is taking a turn for the bizarre, and I shall contribute to it. I saw they find out when the brain neuron thingies start firing, and that when I call it life. Calling a bundle of cells with the potential to become a person "a life" is fine, but every sperm and egg has the potential to become a person, so every month a girl has failed to become preganant she murdered a potential person, and guys... wow. GENOCIDE.

no, the sperm and eggs alone do not have the potential to become a human in that state, that is the entire purpose of sexual reproduction, that half of the new person comes from two people to insure genetic variation. a Zygote, at conception, ahs everything necessary to become a full human save raw materials which it gets from the mother.

Since this is a computer forum, after all, i'll use this analogy: its like a game disk. everything to make a game go is on the disk, all it needs is the monitor and power from the computer. when just a disk, it is still a game, is it not?

Anyway, back to the real topic: Warlord: yeah, they convicted him on entirely circumstantial evidence, can't get much direct evidence besides witnesses (which there were none) when a body has been in water for an extended period of time. Anoutehr reason life in prison would have been much better.

Not every zygote will become a human, there are miscarriages...

If you didn't kill the egg/sperm they would have a chance to unite with their opposite and become a life. When you break it down it's basically the same thing.

The zygote needs vital substance from the mother, as you've mentioned yourself, thus, is in no way independant. As for the issue of sperm cells not being able to become human on their own, that's completely irrelevant, because these cells have the potential to merge with a female pronuclei and eventually become human. The zygote is simply a mass of cells being prepared for the eventual existance of an independant being, but until electrical activity begins in the cortex, it's simply that, a mass of organized cells, no different than a corpse. Preventing it from becoming human at that stage is no different than preventing male pronuclei from meeting female pronuclei.

And there are also abortions. There are drowning in a flood, and there are people killed with a garotte. see the difference?

I'm just saying there are "natural" causes for a zygote to die abruptly... or something... I dunno. My second point was what really mattered.