Annie
Not So Junior Member
What about DNA? If there, then what?
N.J. lawmakers vote to ban death penalty
- Thread starter Socrtease
- Start date
What about DNA? If there, then what?
And there you have it. The end all to this debate.
Socrtease
Verified User
How do you KNOW this. I would suggest you go here http://www.mvfr.org/home that is the website for Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation. They say in part "We oppose the death penalty for a variety of reasons — endless trials re-open emotional wounds and put off the time when real healing can begin, the vast resources and attention spent on the death penalty is better spent supporting victims and preventing crime in the first place."
You have got to be one of the MOST dishonest debaters on this board. Your statement makes it appear that if Bundy had been tried for murder and sentenced to death he would not have escaped to kill again. In TRUTH (if you can get your mind around that concept) Ted Bundy had ONLY been convicted of Kidnapping in Utah and sentenced to 15 years.(Something I am almost certain you knew when you made this deceptive statement.) Capital Punishment was not an option for Kidnapping. Ted Bundy was on trial for the first time in Colorado on actual murder charges when he escaped twice. First time they took him to an adjacent room in the court house and he jumped out a window and was on the loose of 6 days during which he killed no one. He was then placed in the Glenwood Springs jail where he somehow got a hacksaw and cut his way out of the jail. He did NOT escape from a maximum security prison EVER and get out to kill ANYONE. He escaped from a jail and went on his last killing spree. Ted Bundy NEVER escaped from an actual Prison Facility.( as I said you either knew this or were just talking out your ass. As either option is not very flattering I will let you decide which it was)
That is why you push your legislature for a statute that applies life without parole. Several states already have it. Look it up and learn yerself a little some'n. That being said, most states have hard 30 or hard 40 laws. Murders sentenced to that don't get out, except when they get so old the prison system does not want to pay for their medical care then they put them out.
Murderers convicted of Capital Murder are not allowed into general population. I have never heard of a single state where Capital Felons are not on 23 hour lock down with 1 hour for exersize and hygene. They have little to no contact with less violent felons, which in gen pop includes Rapists, and men convicted of Aggravated battery/attempted murder. Sometimes a capital felon does get a shot in at a prison guard. But prison guards are also killed by prisoners in Gen Pop and though I am not positive I am willing to bet that of the guards killed the bulk of the murders come from Non-murder felons in Gen Pop.
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FUCK THE POLICE
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This is fearmongering. It is so rare that in centuries you can only find one signifigant case to think of. We've murdered far more innocent men in the past 200 years than Ted Bundy has. And look at Soc's explanation above anyway.
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Dano, you are such a sack of lying shit. Life with no chance of parole is just as it sounds. There is no chance the person will ever get out. In every state except for Alaska this is the only option to sentence a person to for first degree murder if they are convicted - besides, of course, the states that also have the death penalty as an option.
And, of course, in Alaska murderers are usually sentenced to 100 year sentences. SO the point is pretty moot.
And, of course, in Alaska murderers are usually sentenced to 100 year sentences. SO the point is pretty moot.
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There have been dozens of cases of DNA being misidentified.
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The death penalty isn't any real deterrent. To me, it would be just as bad to be locked up for life as to get the death penalty. The difference is that with life in prison we have more time to determine guilt or innocence, and also society doesn't have to be burdened with the responsibility and barbarity of actually killing another human being.
Socrtease
Verified User
Actually when asked most convicts think being locked up for life with no chance of ever comming out is a far worse punishment than anything else, including death.
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You could always kill yourself in jail.
Annie
Not So Junior Member
Where? I took a quick look, one expert testified though he never checked results, that's not a fault of testing, but crime for the expert.
All I find are cases overturned because of the evidence.
Diuretic
New member
It's just another form of circumstantial evidence of identification, like fingerprints. I'll keep reading and see if I need to add more.
Diuretic
New member
You can lift a fingerprint and plonk it down wherever you like. You can get a DNA sample and put it wherever you like.
Another issue with DNA is analysis. I can't speak for anywhere in the US but if the labs aren't up to scratch then DNA isn't worth pissing on.
Annie
Not So Junior Member
If either of you can find something convincing that DNA isn't reliable, hasn't been reliable in death penalty convictions, I'm all ears. Errr, make that eyes.
Socrtease
Verified User
MOST cases do not turn on DNA evidence. Very rarely is there DNA that can convict or clear a person in a murder case. In the 126 cases where the convicted was ultimately exonerated only 15 were cleared by DNA. DNA is more likely to be a major contributor to evidence in Rape cases where the rapist leaves a part of himself behind. When I worked for the Death Penalty Defense unit in Kansas we ultimately cleared someone whose DNA was in and on the victim. She was murdered by a third party within 15 minutes of him leaving the house after they had consentual sex. Another case we had, two women were killed with our clients semen in them. He swore that they were both alive when he left. There was no evidence of that and he ultimately pleaded to two counts of capital murder with consecutive hard 40 sentences. He did this in the hope that evidence would someday be available to clear him. When the police did DNA tests of the sheets that she was found dead on they found her vaginal wall cells and our clients semen in several different locations on the bed and were determined to be older than the sample that was still fresh when the cops got there. As a side note the forensic scientists also found the victims 13 year old sisters vaginal wall cells in a sample that included the step fathers semen. The victim in this case had told a friend of hers that she would no longer shower in the house because her stepdad took the locks off the bathroom doors. Given all that evidence our guy was still not willing to risk being convicted and sentenced to death. So he pleaded. As far as I know he is still in prison today.
TheDanold
Unimatrix
No lefty wants to touch any of these reasons? Just want to stick to thinking about it being all about vengeance and ignoring the other INNOCENT lives lost. Prison guards have families too.
Socrtease
Verified User
You must have missed this, I did step up.
TheDanold
Unimatrix
Regardless of the details of Ted Bundy, would you really deny that murderers do escape and kill again?
Your prison guard response is a guess, murderers with nothing to lose and who love killing would I think be the most likely to try and kill prison guards, some of them DO DIE.
Another thing I forgot to mention is killings can be ordered from prisoners in jail if they are say a mob boss for example.
And you are being naive if you have not seen that in many countries (and states) where the DP is abolished, the same special interest groups that pushed for that then just move on to pushing for lower sentences and more easy parole because the whole reason they abolished the DP was because they feel sorry for killers and want them to have a second chance at free life.
The DP is the first line of defence that that will not happen.
Lastly, with technology today we can be more certain than ever of who is truly guilty than at any point in the past (do you deny that?), so if we were able to use the DP then, we can certainly use it now.
You are a defence lawyer, I'm sure you know your shit, but as such you are also bias to the stories of your clients because it is your job to believe what they say as fact, regardless of whether it is or isn't. And an effective lawyer would put aside objectivity to demonstrate to the jury/judge that their belief that their client is truthful and innocent is going to taint your objectivity in surveying the issue as a whole. You said your father had a psychology degree, if so then I am sure you are familiar with the Stockholm symdrome and related effects of exposure to criminals point of views under duress.
Diuretic
New member
It's about context. It's a very good tool. It's not a silver bullet. That's all I'm saying. Heck I don't have the knowledge to criticise it, just saying, like much physical evidence, it's circumstantial (not that there's anything wrong with that) but it has to be put in perspective.
Diuretic
New member
One innocent person is executed. One person who didn't murder is taken by the state and put to death. When the law is changed so that everyone connected with the death of that innocent is also executed, it might, just might, justify the death sentence because at least there would an encouragement to everyone, from detective to jury to judge to be absolutely honest, to be absolutely correct, absolutely forthright in everything they did.
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I dunno Kathy I'm just unable to accept the "HAHA! WE have DNA! Now the death penalty is OK!" argument.
Event though most people put on death row had no DNA evidence, and DNA evidence isn't full proof. And the bulk of the argument against the death penalty really doesn't have much to do with whether or not the person is innocent. That's just something people who believe in the death penalty find OK, dead innocent people, and it kind of pisses us off.
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