Troy Davis' Clemency Denial: The Failure of a Legal "Safety Valve"
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 16:31
VIEWED: 5136
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If someone is dead she or he can't have a chance of escaping prison and hurting someone else. Some people just don't need to be alive anymore, those who have taken multiple lives in cold blood and we know for sure that it was them who did it. That's how I feel. It isn't so much about revenge for me as it is about preventing it from happening again to another family who has to put a relative in the ground all of a sudden because someone had a hankerin for more killin and they escaped prison or got out for good behavior. As I've said I think it should be used rarely and in uncommon circumstances. For instance the guy who just got executed in Texas (who I think is a disgusting creature indeed) technically doesn't fit my description of someone who should be given death because he only killed one person. I do think though that he should be kept for life, no excuses and should have to pay for his evil murderous crime.
Then there's the side of me that secretly understands the desire for revenge. I know it isn't right and I don't think its something that I'd personally seek since it doesn't acomplish anything really. But there's this savage creature primal part of me that has feelings of recompence and retribution, torture for torture, blood for blood. But that is only a primal part of me which is kept well at bay. Its not something I'd ever act on even though sometimes I have the want for such things to happen to people in return for their heinous deeds to others. But my bark is much worse than my bite and I wouldn't have the warewithall to actually hurt anyone in revenge, at least not for long, because that piece of me isn't all that big. My dad has the same piece in him, maybe that's where I learnt it. But neither of us are cruel in disposition and my revenge lust is brief and fleeting at best. Remember when someone posted a thread about some horrible Eastern European dictator being finally judged for his crimes and I wrote in an immediate flurry of hoping someone tortures him hard etc. And everyone was apalled at my conduct in saying such a thing and I had to back track and explain that its all gut reactions with me and that stuff and then reason takes over soon.
But that's not my reasoning for the death penalty.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Quote:
Originally posted by m52nickerson:
I love how you choose to selectively ignore facts. You know like the witnesses that recanted their testimonies.
Uh huh.. .20 years after the fact, and after they were badgered and coached to 'recant' their testimony, by those with a political agenda.
Those 'facts' ?
" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "
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Nick, it's your right to feel that way. I used to feel that way too, but over time my opinion has changed.
Byte, the only discussion is between the death penalty and life in prison, there is no equating someone who got 25 years and then time off or had their sentence cut short. You have every right to believe as you do, but nobody's suggesting death penalty v. anything but life in prison, I believe. I guess the Bible's "eye for an eye" is what you believe, not the concept that only God can take a life?
Raptor...sigh...The fact that they recanted IS fact; all the rest is speculation. Convenient speculation for your argument, but nonetheless not factually proven.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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Hi Niki, I think that middle comment was supposed to be to me and not Byte? I have a little piece of me that understands the lust for revenge, but that is a small piece and my reasonable side, I'd like to think, has power over it. The reason I believe in the death penalty in rare cases as I've outlined is because that person could theoretically escape and do it again, even if s/he gets life in prison. Plus why should we have to feed and take care of them when they've killed multiple people and taken the right to live from others? That's how I feel. In a modern context I don't believe in the death penalty as revenge, at least most of me doesn't, I mostly believe in it as prevention. That's my primary reason. Might there be a twitch of revengeness in there? A little bit, but I try not to opperate on that level because I do know better and it doesn't really acomplish anything in the end.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Ooops, mea culpa...yes, it was to you...the brain and all, you know...
As to us paying to feed and house them, if it offends you that our taxes are going for that, then it should offend you even MORE that by sentencing them to death, we are paying for legal fees and a whole lot more WHILE feeding and housing them for years--to the point where we pay MORE to execute them than to keep them in prison for life.
It's not prevention, either. That's been proven over and over again, and is one of the arguments against it. It's referred to as not a "deterrent", which is the same thing in a way. Yes, preventing them from escaping and harming again, but how many do, in reality? If you mean prevention as in "I won't kill someone 'cuz I'd get the death penalty", that's "deterrent" and it does not work.
And what about the person who has to execute them? I watched an interview with the ex head of a prison who spoke eloquently about that, and apparently it frequently does a LOT of harm to the people who actually have to do it.
In your case I'd call it more "judgment" than "revenge", as in "that person doesn't deserve to live". I'd still be interested in knowing how you equate that to 'thou shalt not kill', and that only God can take a life, given your feelings on religion. It seems a contradiction to me; yes, I know the argument, but if one is TRULY Christian, it still seems like that thinking goes against Christian ideology.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off
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Niki a chara,
Well technically yes, God is pretty clear in the New Testament that that time is passed, no more revenge killings etc. I don't see this as revenge though. Plus I'm only human and I don't always measure up, you know? Sometimes, as with most people I think, how I feel and how I'm suppose to feel don't link up perfectly. That's a work in progress. I never claimed to be the perfect Christian, I'm human after all. So sometimes where I'm currently at and where I'm going/heading towards aren't always the same
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Really? Gee, not me! 
I'm the perfect buddhist, I can do no wrong... 
And yes, I CERTAINLY get vengeful feelings about people who do horrendous things, I don't think we'd be human if we didn't! Took me a long time to come off the fence, I used to say I thought about it case by case. I think the final straw was learning that it's more expensive to put someone to death than it is to keep them locked up for life. That and the fact that surviving in today's prisons, and HOW one would survive, are probably far worse punishments than death. So I'm not being "holier than thou" by being against it, I guess there's as much vengefulness in why I feel the way I do, in a way.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off
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