🚀 go-pugleaf

In <C0E7pF.9yv@bcstec.ca.boeing.com> sjm2458@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (The Steve-meister) writes:

>o  The party-like atmosphere with people singing and rejoycing about how
>   *great* it is to put someone to death.

If I were in Walla Walla last night, I think I would have simply felt quiet
satisfaction. Some people literally shot off fireworks, and that seems to be
in quite poor taste. We should treat all people with dignity, even while
executing them. (A strange sentence, that last, isn't it?)

On the other hand, try this analogy. You have a virulent cancer in your body.
At great pain and expense you manage to excise this cancer. Is this not cause
for celebration? Dodd was a cancer on society.

>o  That society demands that the killer be held responsible, yet also
>   shrinks away from the consequences of its collective action. Most
>   of the people I have spoken with and seen on television who support 
>   capital punishment neither want to see the results when their wishes 
>   come true, nor would they "pull the lever" themselves.

I would have no problem doing either of these things. But I think the fact that
most people DO have a problem is both good and bad. Good because it means that
people are very aware of how serious a thing capital punishment is. Bad because
people often assume that others think the same way they do. They don't
understand that monsters like Dodd will happen, because they can't conceive
of doing the same things themselves.

>Though not apparently a problem (yet) in Washington, I recall two
>cases from Texas within the last 5 years: Randall Adams, of "Thin Blue 
>Line" fame, and another man who was featured on 60 Minutes.  These men 
>both appear to be INNOCENT but ended up on death row because prosecutors,
>in their zeal to make someone (anyone?) pay the price for killing of
>police officers, were able to find witnesses to say what needed to be
>said for a death verdict in exchange for having charges dropped or reduced. 

This business of allowing convicts to make up stories in exchange for lighter
sentences is horrible. Often the claim is by a cellmate. He says the suspect
"confessed" to him, for some reason.

It is a jury's obligation in cases like this to examine evidence VERY
carefully.

But then again, how many people reading this post take their jury duty
responsibilites seriously? How many others have weaseled out of jury duty
by having their company write a letter telling the court how important
they are?

>Putting an innocent man in jail is bad, but putting an *innocent* man 
>to death is SO bad, in my mind, that we cannot take the risk even if
>there is the slightest doubt.

Yes. In Oregon the jury must first find the defendent guilty, then in a
separate phase decide whether or not to impose the death penalty. Jurors
need to be very careful. But then again, nothing we have come up with so
far is better than the current jury system.