I was stunned to see this from Bobo yesterday:
The most powerful essay I read this year was David Grann’s “Trial by Fire” in The New Yorker. Grann investigated the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for murdering his three children by setting their house on fire.
In the first part of the essay, Grann lays out the evidence that led to Willingham’s conviction: the marks on the floor and walls that suggested that a fire accelerant had been splashed around; the distinct smoke patterns suggesting arson; the fact that Willingham was able to flee the house barefoot without burning his feet.
Then, in the rest of the essay, Grann raises grave doubts about that evidence. He tells the story of a few people who looked into the matter, found a miscarriage of justice and then had their arguments ignored as Willingham was put to death. Grann painstakingly describes how bogus science may have swayed the system to kill an innocent man, but at the core of the piece there are the complex relationships that grew up around a man convicted of burning his children. If you can still support the death penalty after reading this piece, you have stronger convictions than I do.
Maybe I’m setting the bar too low here, but it’s surprising to me — in a good way — to see a conservative columnist write about this.
mai naem
You’re talking about Bobo here who has, oh, about as many convictions as Lanny Davis does. Bobo sees that his meal ticket ain’t going to be coming from being right wing nutter so he’s trying to take steps in the other direction.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Most of the conservatives I’ve talked to about it say that we should keep the death penalty even if an innocent person does get executed occasionally, because to sacrifice it would be sending a message to criminals that we’re not serious about punishing the guilty. And there’s no better way to scare a guilty person than by killing an innocent person.
I bet that makes more sense if you’re the kind of person who tortured small animals as an adolescent.
BR
I hate to bring race into this, but why does it take a likely-innocent white American to be executed for Brooks to write such a column?
It’s odd that the one prominent republican who had sense on this issue was Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who went to jail for corruption.
Cat Lady
Bobo’s not a wingnut, really. He’s called Palin a “joke” and has been somewhat critical of the whackadoodle purity spiral Republicans are in. My take away from that graf is how egregious the miscarriage of justice was, so that even Bobo can’t bring himself to punch a hippie for the team.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
Yes, oddly, that actually is the bottom line rationale for the DP. The idea that innocent people are convicted of crimes does not sway the truly committed law enforcers. Whether it’s a capital crime, or not.
That fact by itself is an irrefutable imperative for elimination of the death penalty. This assertion has been bashed numerous times here, on these pages, but it stands as irrefutable as far as I am concerned. Once you give government the power to kill people even if they kill the wrong people in the process, liberty is off the table on my scorecard. No matter what the chest-thumpers say.
BR
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
So I subscribe to the notion that “if you’ve never missed a flight, you’re spending too much time at the airport”, but I think that sort of reasoning only makes sense in things that are not a matter of life or death.
kid bitzer
@cat lady–
i agree that bobo is not exactly a wing-nut; there is no particular cause (abortion, death-penalty, immigration, etc.) that he cares about that deeply.
however, he *is* very seriously and consistently committed to doing whatever it takes to keep republicans in power, esp. in the white house.
and he will spin and lie for the republican team with all of the fanatical fervor of a tea-partier.
he saw early on that palin would be a net negative for republicans, so he broke with her. but if she were to get on the ticket in 2012, he’d be her biggest supporter.
and speaking of credit where credit is due–did bobo mention that radley balko has been documenting cases like this by the dozens, for years now?
i don’t want to take anything away from grann. but a piece like bobo’s really ought to at least name-check balko.
chrome agnomen
better that 10,000 totally innocent people be executed than that one possibly guilty one go free!!
murka furst!
NobodySpecial
I support the death penalty. I was one of those who was affected during the time Raymond Lee Stewart was butchering gas station clerks and Radio Shack workers in cold blood. Later in life, I would have to walk across the place where he made a man kneel down and shot him in the back of the head multiple times a day.
He did not deserve to live for his crimes.
And yes, there are innocents put to death. I’ve got no problem with raising the death penalty bar higher than it is now and reducing it’s use so as to stop the execution of the innocent. I’d also have few problems with ending the death penalty if you could make life without parole mean just that. Unfortunately, in too many states, you become automatically eligible for parole after a number of years. That simply won’t do.
Comrade PhysioProf
David Fucking Brooks plays this game where he once in a while doesn’t sound completely batshit right-wing loony. It’s only for the purpose of lulling decent people to sleep, so he can sidle up and slip in the motherfucking shiv. DFB is only about apologetics for the right-wing oligarchy, all the time until infinity forever.
kid bitzer
“he made a man kneel down and shot him in the back of the head multiple times a day.”
yeah, that *does* sound harsh. i mean, especially the subsequent days. makes ‘groundhog day’ look benign.
Anoniminous
With my Disdain and Cynicism Meters pegged at eleven¹ whenever a Rightie opens his/her mouth I’m wondering if this isn’t part of the Anti-Science Campaign the corporatists have been waging since the Smoking Causes Cancer findings.
So … a’googlin’ I shal go ….
And – what a sur-prise!
Cameron Todd Willingham case: Expert says fire for which father was executed was not arson
So the problem wasn’t the Science it was the Texas Judicial System.
¹ Reference to “Spinal Tap”
Ash
@NobodySpecial: Oh, you have to walk by where someone got murdered. That’s a totally cool reason to support a system that murders innocent people.
?
NobodySpecial
@Ash:
I was 10. My older brother used to cut school and go hang out, sometimes near that very store. I lived 7 blocks from that store. After he was arrested, he escaped from custody. Yeah, you got no fucking clue what kind of terror was running around that city in 1981, and hopefully never will. So suck my dick.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
I agree. If the government can set up a procedure whereby it can systematically deprive one of its constituent citizens of their life, then it’s very difficult for me to see how that government can be of, by, and for the people. Instead of protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority, such a government does nothing more than the legitimize the lynch mob.
There are some heinous criminals out there, and there are some lynch mobs all of us would be tempted to join. But justice is not about the venting of personal passions, nor is it about retribution. It’s about protecting society while respecting the fact that every criminal, however awful their crimes, is still a human being who deserves the respect we would accord any other human being.
If the government can execute criminals, I really don’t see what’s to stop government from executing other groups that the majority of society find repugnant- we have safeguards in place to restrict the death penalty, of course, but safeguards can always be rolled back the next time a majority mob cries out for it, and a compliant Supreme Court ignores stare decisis.
slag
I have mixed feelings about the death penalty. For one, I don’t feel particularly empathetic toward those who have committed some serious atrocities that warrant the death penalty. I understand that social and psychological factors interplay to create their behaviors, but whatever. Crime and punishment, etc, etc.
However, the flaws in the system–the expense, the inherent inequalities, the proven subjectivity–combined with the permanence of the outcome have led me to the conviction that a complete overhaul of the system would be required to get the costs low enough for the benefits to have a chance of catching up.
Beyond which, the very existence of the US death penalty has a tangible cost for us on the world stage.
Which all adds up to my conclusion that I don’t know why anyone would need to read an article about someone whose conviction was likely erroneous in order to falter in his support of the death penalty. Although the article was very moving.
Mr Furious
I’m willing to give Brooks some credit here. The right-wing is doubling down on this case and in support of Perry, so challenging that makes BoBo a useful tool.
On a personal level, I am NOT opposed to a death penalty, but I am absolutely in favor a moratorium on the death penalty in the U.S. since the system is so completely fucked up.
I’m not going to pretend there is any higher motive for my support of the death penalty other than extreme punishment/vengeance/doesn’t deserve to live, but that is not even close to justifcation for even the miniscule chance of executing an innocent person.
The people involved in mishandling Willingham’s case are more thn negligent, they were malicious, and deserve to be in prison for a long-ass time.
I’d very much like to see Rick Perry serve his time on death row, to gain a fuller appreciation for his actions.
slag
@NobodySpecial: We employ the death penalty in this country and you are still bitter and angry. Perhaps the death penalty does not solve the problems you think it solves?
SpotWeld
I’m not sure how much credit is due here.
When the idiot actually turns the boot over to read the instructions on the heel, do you applaud him for pouring the water out?
NobodySpecial
@Mr Furious:
This is why even those of us who support the death penalty supported Ryan when he made his decision on the moratorium in Illinois, because way too many cops were doing shady shit to get convictions. Hell, you could even replace ‘death penalty’ with ‘natural life’ and get the support of most thinking death penalty supporters if you could just get rid of that automatic parole bullshit some of these states keep on the books.
NobodySpecial
@slag:
I am quite certain that Raymond Lee Stewart will never shoot another person again.
Oh, and my ‘bitter and angry’ only came about because someone on here decided that I was being superficial and ‘cool’ by supporting it, even though I agreed with the argument that too many innocent people are executed, agreed the bar should be set higher, and said I’d be fine with it eliminated if you had actual life without parole. Maybe when people stop kneejerking that I’m a lynch mob member with a noose, I’ll stop kneejerking that they’re a shallow bunch of tools.
scudbucket
@NobodySpecial: Later in life, I would have to walk across the place where he made a man kneel down and shot him in the back of the head multiple times a day.
You still seem affected by this. Perhaps an additional killing will ease your pain.
Mr Furious
@NobodySpecial: WTF? He escaped from custody and you wet your pants walking to school? So kill him?
And how, specifically, does the death penalty factor in there? The cops should have executed him in the squad room?
A city in terror is Exhibit A why the death penalty needs to be taken off the table. The pressure on police to make an arrest becomes immense. And the pressure on the D.A. even worse. And the jury even more so.
Those stakes raise the odds in my mind that the wrong man is going to get convicted.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@NobodySpecial:
Which states have automatic parole?
Gravenstone
@Mr Furious:
Perhaps people would gain a greater appreciation of the stakes if there were a provision where by everyone involved in a botched DP case that resulted in an innocent being put to death were themselves subjected to it as well. Everyone from the prosecutor and presiding judge all the way down to the beat cop that had a hand in railroading the deceased. Maybe, just maybe that would force the entire system to pause and be certain of the facts and motives.
/end exercise in hyperbole
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
I support the death penalty for people who key my car. Every day, as I observe the spot where my car was keyed, it’s like it happened to me the first time. You will never know the anguish. The only way I can experience any personal closure on this is if teenage vandals are executed by firing squad.
I know the rest of you believe in laws and the Constitution and all that crap, but please understand that my feelings, and my car, are far more important than you and your liberal bullshit.
Ash
@NobodySpecial: Plenty of people in the world have felt that kind of terror. It’s still a really fucking stupid reason for supporting a system that is extremely fallible.
jcricket
Blind squirrel, meet nut.
Bobo and Sully are the same, basically. Totally “reasonable and moderate” but
never when it counts. It takes each of them 1000 words to get to the point where they explain why they’re still voting for Bush (or whomever) b/c Democrats aren’t serious enough about torturing people, or are elitists.
Fuck Bobo.
Mr Furious
@NobodySpecial: Exactly.
That Perry could be aware of the shit that goes down ALL THE TIME on capital cases, and that his state in particular has a horrendous record, and that there were very good reasons to stay this execution—if not all of them—for the purely political benefit he would personally reap is beyond contemptible.
He quite literally killed a man to enhance his political fortunes.
RedKitten
That’s a good point. It can be very frustrating, between the plea bargains and the paroles, to see remorseless scum walking the streets freely.
If there was a 100% guarantee that the death penalty would only ever be used for the most extreme criminals, and that there was irrefutable proof of their guilt, then that’d be one thing. Karla Holmolka, for example. That bitch is the strongest argument I can think of in favour of the death penalty.
But that’s not how it’s working, sadly. And innocent people have been executed, which is disgusting. And it is also terrifying, because if it happened to them, what guarantee do we have that it’ll never happen to us? That we won’t be in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the odds stacked against us?
No, I am against the death penalty, but I am also of firm belief that paroles and plea bargains are given out much too easily, and that there are some people out walking the streets who should have rotted in prison for the rest of their miserable lives.
kid bitzer
#21–
“I am quite certain that Raymond Lee Stewart will never shoot another person again.”
trouble is, you can replace r.l.s.’s name with the name of any other dead person, and the same will be true. whether they are innocent or guilty.
so, we could replace it with your name, have the government kill you, and then we can all be quite certain that you won’t shoot another person again.
or we could use your mom, your pet dog, or any other innocent person.
you have given us a great, great, argument that killing people makes them less likely to kill others afterwards. but you really have said nothing relevant to issues of justice, fairness, or proportionality.
and you have said nothing about whether we want the government doing this sort of thing. after all, if the government were to execute all of the lithuanians in america, then i am quite certain those lithuanians would never shoot another person again. but genocide seems like kind of a high price to pay for reducing the murder rate, y’know?
(and my apologies to lithuanians–i drew your ethnicity out of a hat.)
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Mr Furious:
In fairness, though, that’s the oldest political trick in the book. There’s nothing that shows political courage like standing up to the whiny Hippies and having prison officials execute someone. Even Clinton executed a mentally retarded man in 1992 so that he wouldn’t appear soft on crime.
Cat Lady
@ kid bitzer
I don’t disagree with you at all, but Bobo prefers his kind of Republicans to be in power, the kind that will appreciate his particular type of Burkean Villager- style fellating, not those horrible teabagger types that would have no problem with marching him and anyone else outside of their Jeebus Loves Real Americans (TM) prayer groups onto death row, or the ovens, at the first opportunity they get, which would be the day after Sarah Palin is elected. Which isn’t to say you’re wrong that he wouldn’t support her regardless, because we can agree he’s just that big of a shameless whore.
slag
@NobodySpecial:
If it makes you feel any better, I believe they were more kneejerking that you’re a shallow tool than kneejerking that you’re a lynch mob member with a noose. But 6 of one, half dozen of another, I suppose.
kay
@slag:
I think it lessens the probability (always narrow) of the state or the jury admitting they made a mistake.
They have to dig in. They sentenced someone to death. To revisit and admit error is too difficult. It becomes a question of their judgment in imposing that sentence.
Admitting to an error on matters as grave as a murder trial is a huge admission in any set of circumstances. Making it life or death ups the ante to a place where all the worst characteristics of fallible human beings operating on imperfect information are on full display.
They’ll justify that particular sentence past all reason, and fight revisiting it every step of the way, because of its finality, and because an error makes them complicit in killing someone, or sending someone to death.
We have to give them an out, a chance to revisit, on new information, one that protects their sense of themselves as humane and moral actors. We can’t let them go all in with the sentence.
kid bitzer
@32–
“Even Clinton executed a mentally retarded man”
hey, he was the master triangulator, and republicans want blood. it’s the only way to satisfy them.
ideally, the blood of people who don’t look white.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@RedKitten:
As a criminal defense attorney, I can tell you that the #1 reason plea bargains are given out is to help the State. If the State were forced to take every case to trial, there’d be a lot more guilty people winning acquittals and walking the streets. The backlog for prosecutors is unbelievable; they need plea bargains so they can settle 95%+ of the cases, and focus on preparing the remainder for trials.
If the State stopped offering plea bargains, and had to prepare every single case for trial, then they’d either be forced to dismiss tons of cases for lack of time to prepare for them (which would let guilty people off scot-free); or, they’d have to walk into hundreds of trials with minimal preparation (which would result in lots of very guilty defendants getting acquittals). Or, they could raise taxes about $5000 apiece, to pay for the extra prosecutors that the extra workload would necessitate. (I imagine the public defenders would still be on the same budget, though. No one cares about that side of the equation.)
MattR
To tie this into today’s earlier threads, here is a quote used to describe one of the scientists/fire investigators who first raised doubts about the case.
Nobody tell the TSA.
NobodySpecial
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
Not ‘automatic parole’. Only six states and Federal prisons disallow parole for those sentenced to life. The others offer a mix between a set number of years behind bars or, for lesser offenses, a set percentage of the sentence served.
Washington is one example.
kid bitzer
38–
hell, no one tell robert downey jr.’s fans. to judge from the movie thread, they will do anything to get the shirt off him.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@NobodySpecial:
So, what’s to stop, say, a sentence of 3,000 years?
Mr Furious
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: Yup. and reading that Rector saved the pecan pie from his last meal “for later” certainly makes it a disgrace in certain respects. I don’t say this to defend or excuse Clinton, but I’m not sure there were the doubts raised about that case that there were with Perry/Willingham.
But the implication that Clinton ordered the execution of Karl Childers from Sling Blade is extremely misleading.
Rector shot multiple people in a nightclub, shot a police officer in the back of the head during his arrest and was “retarded” only as a result of self-lobotomizing when he shot himself in the temple to avoid capture.
Apples and cactus-fruit to compare these cases…
NobodySpecial
@kid bitzer:
Well, yes. That’s where the part about the trial before the jury of your peers, and evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, etc. come in.
Let’s face it: If under your scenario, the government could just pick you up and kill you for no reason at all, you’d probably have a hell of a lot to worry about before you got to that point anyways. I mean, they’d have to get rid of that whole ‘trial’ thing, and I’m assuming most people wouldn’t like that.
MattR
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: Any thoughts on how the war on drugs ties into all of this? I would assume that a ton of resources are wasted to prosecute and then imprison non-violent drug offenders that would be better used elsewhere. I’d also guess that mandatory minimums for drug sentences skew what type of criminals end up getting paroled if there is a need to clear out prison space.
Mr Furious
@NobodySpecial: Um, hate to burst your bubble, but they had one of those “trial things” in Willingham’s case.
scudbucket
@jcricket:
OT – but speaking of nuts and Sully, here’s one: This is Sully a couple days ago talking about some things Levi said. It had me on the floor laughing.
Emphasis added. The ridiculousness of this is obvious, but for those that don’t read him (I do, sigh) he was the sole source of those ‘half-baked internet rumors’. He then engages in some revisionism by claiming that they were ‘soon debunked’, when in fact he promulgated them for over a year.
This guy is slippery.
MattR
I have not made it all the way through the New Yorker article so I am not sure if things have gotten better, but it is just scary how little actual science was used by arson investigators during the 1980’s and early 90’s.
RedKitten
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: Oh, I know that plea bargains are necessary and helpful. I’m not against them, but I do think that in certain types of cases, like mass murders, they should pretty much be off the table.
Lyle4
@MattR: Yeah, up until 10 years ago, everything about arson “science” was just completely wrong. Terrifying. Who knows how many people have been put away because some loon thought he could see burn patterns.
NobodySpecial
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
Well, nothing, except there’s no judge out there who’s going to sentence anyone to 3,000 years. Plus, in many states, as I’ve noted, it’s a set number of years before you become automatically eligible. 15 to 25 in most cases.
As it is right now, The Sentencing Project says that only 2 out of 7 criminals serving life sentences are ineligible for parole. They’ve moved the study, though, so I can’t tell you how many are first degree murders.
kay
@MattR:
Look at the day care child abuse cases in the eighties. They’re the single best example of how out of control it can get, and how no one will admit a mistake.
The whole country went completely insane for 5 years and sentenced hundreds of people to hundreds of years based on interviewing 6 year olds over and over until they told the right story.
We apparently had a wide spread epidemic of satanic ritual child sexual abuse at day care centers that sprang up out of nowhere and ended just as suddenly.
It should scare the shit out of death penalty supporters. People served decades, based on mass hysteria that was completely media-fed. The state just sort of moved on, no apology or explanation, to the next prosecutorial fad.
Mayken
@NobodySpecial: Jeebus! A neighbor of mine was gunned down in cold blood right in front of my fu(kin’ house. My husband drove up seconds after the murderer sped away. He made the 911 call and stayed while the young man died! My brother and I pulled up bare minutes after the police. I thought something had happened to my husband. So I know from fu(kin’ terror and having to walk by the spot of a horror every freakin’ day, multiple times a day. And, no, that is NOT a good reason to support the fu(kin’ death penalty. Emotional responses are exactly the reason why we have a freakin’ judiciary instead of lynch mobs. The state should not be putting people to death. End of story.
MattR
@Lyle4: Yeah, I just finished the part where they talk about the Lime Street Fire where prosecution experts did a recreation based on the defense’s story and they were all surprised when the results matched the actual fire (which they were positive had to be arson). It pretty much blew holes in every theory they had about fires/arson. As one of the lead scientists involved said about his opinion before and after the scientific recreation:
NobodySpecial
@Mayken:
That’s your view, and you’re welcome to it. I hope whoever it was who shot that person never shoots another one.
Raenelle
Every sane person has to admit the possibility that capital punishment will catch a few innocents in its maw. There’s only two choices–you’re OK with the state executing innocent persons, or you’re against the death penalty.
Especially conservatives should be aware of this. The very basis of conservatism, as I’ve understood it, is its distrust of the power and range of human reason (Burke). Conservatives more than anyone should be screaming about the impossibility of protecting the innocent from execution.
Given that, the conservative position on the death penalty just boils down to “kill ’em all and let god sort ’em out”–a philosophy attractive only to sociopaths and the small-dicked.
kid bitzer
@43–
agree with all that.
my point was just that you offered us a justification for the death penalty–i.e., “after they are executed they won’t kill anyone”–which is either no justification for the death penalty, or it justifies all sorts of executions, lawless and otherwise.
that was my point: there is no one of whom one cannot say, “after they are executed they won’t kill anyone,” except for assorted zombies and possibly darth cheney.
so it looks to me like this is no sort of justification for the death penalty.
Punchy
OT: TSA just instituted some crazy-ass draconian flite rulez. Figs. Our TSA is run by perpetual bedwetters.
Mayken
@NobodySpecial: He’ll be in prison for the rest of his days, a much finer hell than anything that a death sentence would have gotten. Excuse my vehemency on the matter but the feelings of the victim’s surviving family or a city terrorized etc. are simply not good arguments in favor of the death penalty. Making someone else feel like they are “tough on crime” or “preventing future crime” are also not good reasons for having the death penalty.
Yes, the system across this country needs reforming, not the least of which reform is that we actually catch and prosecute the real offenders rather than the first scape-goat we can find to satisfy the citizenry’s lust for revenge and bump up someone’s win-loss ratio for the next election. It would also help if we stopped incarcerating a huge number of our citizens for drug crimes when we could be focusing on prosecuting and imprisoning people who actually, ya know, harm other people. Then we wouldn’t have over-crowding in prisons and the subsequent argument that keeping senior citizens in prison is too expensive so let’s release some of them so they can cost someone else money.
MikeJ
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
So they’d be as well prepared as the average public defender.
@NobodySpecial:
Obviously the amount that the crime frightened you matters more than guilt or innocence. So how about this: let’s make it illegal to report that a crime has occurred. You wouldn’t have been frightened had you not known about the previous crimes. Kill the media. Or in the words of Morrissey, hang the DJ.
geg6
kay: This. And to anyone who is for the death penalty because their town was terrorized by a murderer, cut me a break. I have two actual friends that were murdered in separate circumstances. And I do not see any justification for another innocent’s death because of it. Perhaps if the murderer is caught red handed by video evidence (because even eye witnesses aren’t reliable), I’d be okay with it. But as long as are standard of guilt is beyond a reasonable doubt, we should hesitate to rush into having the state kill in pursuit of justice. Your reasonable doubts are not mine and, as is clear from many cases including the Willingham case, juries will make their verdicts only based on what is presented and defense attorneys are not always competent. And as the OJ and Rodney King cases showed, sometimes juries will make verdicts completely divorced from even facts presented.
Mayken
@Punchy: Oh, gods, now what? I heard they were enforcing a stick one-carry on rule and adding in pat-downs and extra checks of passengers before boarding…
Mayken
@Mayken: Also, their constant “closing the barn door” method of security enforcement just pisses me the hell off.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
I also wish I could carry RPG-7s to fire at assholes on the road who so dearly need to be taken off the road…permamently.
But other than those two instances, I’m opposed to the death penalty.
Col. Klink
Once Bobo found out there wasn’t a salad bar at Applebee’s he’s never really had much faith in anything. I also think Bobo remains traumatized by the Senator that felt him up at that dinner party. (Lindsey Graham I’m looking at you!)
Mayken
@Mayken: Ugh “strict” one carry-on. Though “stick one carry-on” sounds a little kinky eh?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Yeah, sounds good coming off the keyboard, chatty even.
The problem is, there is no way to do that within the framework of known models of government or criminal justice. No way, period. If it were, it would have been done, or it would be getting done. It is not, and will not.
Therefore the point is moot. The DP is not acceptable.
Mr Furious
@Mayken: As I mentioned in the other thread, I dropped my wife and kids off for a flight to Detroit a few hours ago…
The procedures certainly involve taking a two-year-old out of her goddamn snow suit…
And this little bit of “psy-ops:” While my daughter is—quite literally—crying, “I don’t wanna go on a airplane!” over and over as my wife struggles to pass this screaming 2 y.o., herself, my 7 y.o., their bags and a stroller through the x-ray station by herself, the best the TSA boob standing behind them comes up with is a whimpering reply of “I know, It’s terrible… it’s HORrible…”
—
Clearly, this guy doesn’t have kids, and doesn’t know how to react or what to say, but trust me, THAT wasn’t it. My wife’s lucky she’s not on her way to Gitmo for punching that guy in the neck
The Grand Panjandrum
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Ahem.
MattR
OT: Sarah Thomas became the first female official in a college football bowl game. She is the line judge in the Little Caesars Bowl between Ohio and Marshall now playing.
Mayken
@Mr Furious: Oh, crap! I am so sorry your wife and kids had to go through that. I hope the frenzy has died down by the time they are coming home. Best wishes to them. I hope your daughter especially will bounce back from the trauma. I know that isn’t the most helpful thing to say but I do know young kids and how resilient they are.
In general the TSA are like the worst mall cops evah: under-paid, under-trained, given too much power and not enough accountability only these guys are told they are ever so important. I have friends in security – I know what a professional should act like and the TSA ain’t it! Every TSA agent should be trained to act professionally – but then again that would require us to actually be interested in real security and not the security theater we have today. Which would mean we would have to be willing to spend more money on the actual people and procedures for true security… not gonna happen. The differences between security here in the US and in European countries such as the Netherlands and Switzerland are light-years.
Allienne Goddard
@Nothing Special
Well, 33 states, including Washington, allow sentences of life without parole for first degree murder. A person with that sentence will not get parole, though the governor may commute the sentence or pardon the individual. Another 3 states allow life without parole for recidivists. Kentucky demands that at least half a murderer’s sentence be completed before parole and allows very long sentences. Wisconsin allows judges to set the date on which parole becomes possible, and may set it beyond the convicted person’s life expectancy. The federal government also allows life without parole for certain crimes.
Corner Stone
@The Grand Panjandrum: Obviously. WTF else am I going to do on a lonely Sat night?
Corner Stone
@Mayken: You try asking a TSA agent *anything*. See how fast your ass gets slapped into jail with no recourse.
Fucking thuggery and intimidation is all it is.
Corner Stone
@NobodySpecial:
I am laughing at you.
Corner Stone
@Mr Furious:
Agreed. It’s all psy-ops, nothing more.
We’re being conditioned.
bago
@NobodySpecial: If you want to wave your personal murder dick around, know that you won’t measure up. And you’re still wrong.
burnspbesq
@NobodySpecial:
That last sentence adds sooooooooo much to your argument. Why be a schmuck? Why not just say what you have to say, and be done?
Ed Marshall
I was ten in Rockford when Ray Lee Stewart went on his rampage and I guess I got over it. Jesus Christ.
on edit: Raymond is weird. I’ve never heard anyone from here ever refer to Raymond Lee Stewart. It’s the parlance of court TV and crime nonfiction. Oh, and I screwed up the math, I was seven but I remember it.
AhabTRuler
This is Balloon Juice, isn’t it?
Maus
@NobodySpecial: Feeling without thinking is a terrible way to go about life.
bago
@AhabTRuler: Yeah, and some pussy is apoplectic about the fact that he walks by a place where someone he never knew got murdered almost 30 years ago. What a whiny pants-wetting bitch.
burnspbesq
@AhabTRuler:
I suppose that on some level those were rhetorical questions. Unfortunately. Gratuitous incivility is a bug, not a feature.
Chuck Butcher
The idea of raising the bar is a bit silly, whatever system human beings put together will fail – unless you somehow propose divinity. Talking about what states do with parole is beyond stupid in this context, any state can change what they do about parole, no state can change the results of an execution. And that is the point, any acknowledgement of a lack of infallibility means a mistake will happen and need to be undone – which you can’t do with a dead person.
“He’ll never kill again,” is one of those, well no shit moments, and he’ll never do anything again – innocent or guilty. Even that language is slippery, once the verdict is in you are guilty whether you did it or not.
if you are a fallible human, don’t do things you can’t undo or repair.
eemom
well, I live in the deecee area where the snipers terrorized us all back in 2002. John Mohammed was executed about a month ago and I don’t recall any huge collective public sigh of relief.
Also, as I understand it, family members of victims are far from unanimous on this subject. And if anyone has the right to be pro-death penalty, they do.
That said, IF there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that someone is guilty, I don’t have a problem with the death penalty. There is way too much innocent suffering in the world for me to worry about cold-blooded killers.
But the most important thing is to keep them from doing any more harm, so if we want to outlaw the death penalty and fix the fucked up criminal justice system so that these people stay in prison, I’m fine with that too.
Goblue72
People like NobodySpecial are tools and fools. There is no point engaging them as logic is lost on them. The fact is that no system run by human beings will ever be free from error or mistake – who are fallible, emotional, and prone to yielding to their passions, prejudices and personal weaknesses. Thus, our judicial system will always convict some innocent people. And if we have a death penalty, it means we will always be executing some innocents.
And that is just wrong. The State does not have the right to deprive any innocent citizens of one’s inalienale right to their life. To sanction that is to sanction tyranny and murder by the State.
People who support the DP are just morally wrong. Period.
eemom
“no system run by human beings will ever be free from error or mistake”
That proposition is true in the abstract, but AFAIK properly analyzed DNA evidence is pretty close.
“People who support the DP are just morally wrong. Period.”
And people who make arrogant pronouncements like that are just full of shit. Period.
AhabTRuler
This is true in the abstract, but as soon as you apply it to individual cases, it becomes more unclear. DNA evidence only tells you from whom the DNA comes, not what there role was (if any) in the crime. At that point, it just becomes any other piece of evidence (cf. the Foxy Knoxy case so recently discussed around here).
jeffreyw
@Corner Stone:
Fry up some wontons?
Corner Stone
@eemom:
You’re always good for a laugh or three. Thanks.
Corner Stone
@jeffreyw: Not a big fan of wontons but hey, willing to try anything you cook at least once.
ETA – but you gotsta stop teasing me dog.
jeffreyw
@Corner Stone:
I made enough for everyone.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
Got any substantive response, little giggling twit?
eemom
@AhabTRuler:
that’s true. It depends on the case and the other evidence.
In the Yale graduate student case, for example, the DNA was pretty dispositive.
AhabTRuler
And the police, and the prosecutor, and the competence of the crime lab, and the competence of the defence, and…
…because no one would ever manipulate or falsify evidence, right?
Corner Stone
@eemom:
What would you do if it were your son or daughter the State was trying to kill based on “properly analyzed DNA” (analyzed by who?)
Actually, given your propensities, you’d probably tell them, “Baby, I love you but the State says you’re guilty. Peace out and see you on the other side.”
Murdering someone, even State sanctioned (especially) isn’t cause for giggles. But we get where you’re coming from.
Corner Stone
@AhabTRuler:
Nope. And a lab lead tech sure as hell would never say what the prosecutor wanted him to say so he could keep his $80K job.
Because humans doing proper analysis are infallible. Didnchayouknow?
But I’m glad we see the standard of care needed for some to accept the State taking some “other” citizens’ life. Proper.
Good to know.
AhabTRuler
Plus, the best part of the DC sniper case was the jurisdiction shopping to see which one would kill him the quickest.
Dannie22
A man , whose name escapes me right now , was just recently released from prison, after serving 35 years for a crime he didn’t commit. The first person he wanted to speak to was his mother. 35 years. DNA freed him. Thank god for the Innocence Project
Corner Stone
@jeffreyw: No, you made enough for “me”. I am one tubby little bitch.
The Republic of Stupidity
AhabTRuler
I’d chalk it up to the anonymity and lack of consequence for posting rude comments on the intertubes…
Corner Stone
@eemom:
This fucking kills me (pardon).
You’re talking about killing a citizen based on “pretty close” and you have the absolute balls to call me a giggling twit. Well hell, it’s pretty close amirite? Throw that fuckin switch and let’s do this thing! I got fried shrimp cooling back at my place! Pretty close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and the State ordered death penalty! Fuck it! I’m good!
AhabTRuler
@The Republic of Stupidity:
Obviously you have never driven a car on a road or highway in America.
AhabTRuler
@Corner Stone:
You live in
ritualized state murder-landTexas, right? No pardon for you!Corner Stone
@AhabTRuler: Oh snap!
I am done for! Guv Goodhair please! I’m a white male! Surely I am deserving of a “pretty close” analysis of my DNA evidence, amirite?
No? FUCK!
eemom
@Corner Stone:
you need a life, dude. And some medication.
eemom
@AhabTRuler:
I said, “properly analyzed.” I was just talking about the science. As Dannie22 notes above, it sure works for exonerating the innocent.
Terri
@Dannnie 22
James Bain
Corner Stone
@eemom: Except when it’s a little late. But that doesn’t bother you, right? Bygones bitchez!
The Republic of Stupidity
@:AhabTRuler
Actually, you have only confirmed my hypothesis for me… rude behavior in traffic on the intertubes or on the interstates… what’s the difference? No one can pull out a gun and start shooting on the intertubes…
Corner Stone
@eemom:
Holy shit! I just realized you are a comedic genius! “need a life” on a thread for the *death penalty*!
You are sublime.
Ed Drone
@AhabTRuler:
And the “I was terrorized by the crime, so I’m for the death penalty” should hold for me — we knew the second DC victim personally, my son was in a school which shared a block with the car-dealer victim, the shooting on Georgia Ave. is within a stone’s throw of the Fried Chicken place we buy from about once in 10 days, etc.
The area was terrorized, and, believe it or not, it didn’t take Patriot-Act measures to catch ’em, either. And the pair of nuts involved were tried and sentenced.
But I still don’t think the death penalty works. Think about it — most killers don’t even think they’ll get caught, or don’t think if they get caught, that they will beat the rap, or, if they don’t beat the rap, don’t think the sentence will be applied to them. None of that kind of thinking goes through their damaged synapses, so the effect of the penalty is very low. Law-abiding people think it’s a deterrent, but those who readily break laws just put it into the “just another law” category.
I think it should be removed as a weapon of the law. It doesn’t work, is double-edged, is often misused, and it too fucking final!
Ed
John O
I believe I’m representative of majority view on the death penalty; I support it, but only if I get to be the judge and jury.
Which would be a full time job.
And which we’ll never give to one person.
Ergo, I’m against the death penalty. My worst nightmare of all of them is being convicted while innocent.
The Republic of Stupidity
Siiiiiiiigh…
I’ll probably get dinged for this… but… I could have sworn I once read that the death penalty has no apparent effect on the murder rate. It really doesn’t go down just because one might get the chair…
Anyone care to deny or confirm that?
John O
@The Republic of Stupidity:
That is my understanding too.
There are, of course, conflicting views of the data, just like climate change.
The Republic of Stupidity
@John O:
In what way/s?
As to: whether they’re dead enough? Died in enough pain? Or not enough? Or died the wrong way?
I know John Douglas, the FBI agent who helped ‘invent’ profiling back in the late 70’s/early 80’s, and is the basis for Scott Glenn’s character, Jack Crawford, in Silence of the Lambs, is pro-death penalty. I am not defending or disputing Douglas’ opinion here, only offering it for the sake of perspective. Doulgas said, in one of his books, something to the effect that “once you’ve listened to the self-made tapes of a serial killer torturing a victim to death, and listen to the victim begging for her life…”
For what it’s worth (and by-and-large, I’m against the death penalty). It’s kind of like abortion, no? A very sticky wicket.
John O
@The Republic of Stupidity:
For me, abortion is a no-brainer unlike the death penalty but in different ways. With abortion, there is only one person that has all the details to make the call justly, and with the death penalty, sometime more than one of us can make the call. (Repeating that I’m the only one who can make the right call 100% of the time.)
When dozens of decomposed remains are found in your foundation, it’s a different thing.
Too final, as someone said earlier. As I always say to my anti-choice peeps, “What? Are miscarriages God’s abortions? What makes you think He doesn’t have a good plan for all these lost souls, and besides, won’t God take care of it when these sinful women die?”
“Or are you not REALLY a believer?”
Oh, as to your first question, obviously there ARE individuals deterred by the death penalty, so a case can obviously be made…
Cassidy
Hell, we don’t use the DP enough. Start putting the human filth on a conveyor.
AhabTRuler
I’m gonna call that an abuse of the word of ‘obviously,’ as it is not at all clear that the deterrent model of CJ is at all valid.
John O
@Cassidy:
Aww, c’mon, Cassidy, haven’t you ever seen The Fugitive? :-)
Not to imagine being in the spot of being convicted of something you didn’t do?
Why do so many people at this point in the Information Age think “it could never happen to me?”
AhabTRuler
@John O: Don’t even bother. DP discussions are what earned Cassidy the rank of PFC (Pieman First Class).
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
You, and a statement like that, are two big reasons why the DP cannot be supported on any sustainable moral grounds.
“Reasonable doubt” is about as squishy a standard as one could imagine. People are sent to prison on the basis of reasonable doubt convictions, who are not guilty. To pass the reasonable doubt test, it is only necessary that I convince you of someone’s guilt, not that the thing I convinced you of be true.
And your DNA blurb is also absurd. I am not sure that even a simple majority of capital cases can be settled by a DNA test, even if the tests themselves produced perfectly unambiguous results. But I think most crimes would fail the DNA standard simply because there is no DNA evidence on which to base the question of guilt.
I have to believe you are not commenting seriously on this subject. Spoofing,or maybe just fucking with the topic for fun. But you haven’t actually thought it through.
The determination of guilt is always a matter of judgment, and judgment is not perfect. That’s the way it has always been and will always be.
John O
@AhabTRuler:
Fair enough, ATR. I should have said there are individuals deterred by the death penalty. Most of the data I’ve seen has nothing to do with them, true, in terms of how we should be making policy.
Oh, and thanks for tip. Was not familiar.
Corner Stone
@Cassidy: I agree. Let’s start with the blacks, then the browns, then the beiges, then the yellows.
When we get down to whites I suggest we pull back and re-examine the evidence, etc.
KG
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: sounds like Riverside and San Bernardino Counties here in California. In Riverside, the A.D.A.’s are given a file with a piece of paper in it, it’s a take it or leave it plea bargain, and it’s usually pretty harsh. Defendants have gotten to the point where they are rejecting the plea and refusing to waive time. The system is so overrun with criminal trials that it’s taking 4-5 years to have civil trials heard (often times resulting in cases getting moved to adjoining counties). Nor does it help that DA’s are judged by conviction rate rather than something sane like “getting a fair/just result”.
Cassidy
@Corner Stone: I’d say make it more of a 2:2:1 kinda thing….go with 2 black inmates, then 2 hispanic, then a white one…all on death row of course. I mean hell, a good piece of rope and we can knock out what? 10-20 a day?
The Republic of Stupidity
John O:
I’m not sure you can quantify that. Some murders are committed by true psychopaths. Some are committed in the heat of the moment. Some are committed by professionals who know how not to get caught.
Is there really any difference between the death penalty and life in prison as a deterrent? What is the DP really all about – retribution by the state?
There was that horrific police shooting Washington last month, and when the perp got gunned down, I have to say, I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for the man, and was glad the state was spared the cost and additional aggravation of putting him on trial and then either incarcerating or killing him. Call me callous…
The point I was trying to make about abortion was that the morality is ambiguous, at least to me. I understand the distinction you make between abortion and the DP. I was trying to say something about the ethical issue for society as a whole. Do we, as a people, sanction the DP, or condemn it, and do we sanction or condemn abortion?
By and large, I think abortion is the business of the woman involved. I have never, to my knowledge, had a girlfriend abort a pregnancy. I always thought the Clinton approach – making abortion safe, legal, and exceedingly rare – was the way to go.
And… I can… empathize w/ SOME (not all…) on the right who don’t like it, period. But then you get into pregnancies that are the result of incest, or rapes, or threaten the life of the mother, or the fetus won’t survive, period… what do you do?
And then, some fundies want to declare ALL forms of birth control ‘abortion’…
RobW
Recently, after hearing for the umpteen-thousandth time that it’s better to kill 10 innocents than to let a guilty man go free, it occurred to me that every time an innocent person is convicted, nevermind executed, the guilty party goes free.
So, the logic boils down to: it’s better for 10 guilty men to go free than for 1 guilty man to go free.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@AhabTRuler:
Amen. I was never entirely sure of his piemanship until we had the definitive DP debate.
His bottom line argument, if I remember correctly, was that the fact that he had been in combat and put his life on the line, while I had not, made his judgment in this matter superior to mine.
So apparently the DNA gods, who gave me the genetic material to make me physically unfit for military service when I was of age, voted me unqualified to decide the merits of the death penalty. Little did I know when I got that 4F notification that I was being removed from the list of people who would be allowed to decide Very Important Things from that day forward.
Heh. Well, I am still on that list, and my decision stands. The DP is not morally defensible. Even if someone is foolish enough to volunteer to be on the panel of people who are willing to “die even though innocent so that we can have a death penalty”, I have to judge such a person to be crazy and incompetent to make that decision even for himself. Luckily there were enough self destructive people in my family that I learned to recognize the condition at an early age. And since nobody can be allowed to put anyone on the panel other than himself, the case is closed.
As for justice, there are plenty of people I’d love to shoot for being detestable criminal assholes. But luckily, my desire to shoot them does not make it a legal or proper thing to do. Otherwise we’d all just be Dick Cheney hunting partners who were one bad day at the duck blind away from being blasted.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Heh. Now that I think of it, if you would be willing to be one of the 10-20, you might talk me into it.
John O
Weird twist, which I seldom see discussed: I am completely fine with instantly executing any criminal on Death Row who says bring it on, I deserve it.
I guess that makes me a budget hawk!
eemom
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Based on these arguments, no conviction on the basis of “beyond a reasonable doubt” can ever be considered valid. So fairness requires that we not only abolish the death penalty, but dismantle the whole criminal justice system too while we’re at it. Right, Mr. Serious Commenter?
And again, I didn’t say that DNA evidence solves all problems, that it’s always relevant, or that it is always rightly used. I just said the science behind it, when it is done right, produces evidence that appears to be about as reliable as evidence can possibly get.
Fucking learn to read, O Serious One.
Cassidy
The percentage of those found innocent after the fact is well within statistical norms. No system is perfect.
AhabTRuler
Totally OT, but since that fateful day I have been less and less concerned that Scalia is a well-known hunting partner of the black-hearted one.
Corner Stone
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
“Himself” or “Herself”. eemom is a female I believe. And just fucking bugnutz crazy.
John O
@Cassidy:
Still displaying a remarkable ability to pretend you’d never be one of those statistical aberrations, I see. OK, Ahab was right. Different paradigms.
In your defense, you’re probably right. I love stats!
It simply isn’t one of those oddball risks I’d be willing to take. It’s just too wrong to even imprison someone for something they didn’t do. Especially me.
Cassidy
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: I’m not on death row.
Corner Stone
@Cassidy: Agreed. But maybe 3:2:1 ?
Cassidy
@John O: It’s a low enough abberration that I don’t get puckered up about it. And secondly, I don’t engage in risky behavior or hang around with people who do. I generally don’t find myself being mistaken for someone else at a scene of the crime.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@eemom:
Another absurd blurb from you, you are full of them today.
Reasonable doubt is a reasonable standard in reasonable examples of reasonable uses of it. That’s all.
It’s flawed, and therefore not supportable as the basis for condemning someone to death. That’s what I said, and meant.
Learn to think, and then to write. Take all the time you need.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Well sure. I picture you as a guy who dresses up as a Four Star General to go down to Circle K and buy a pack of cigarettes.
You just have to hope that some other nut case who thinks his military service excuses every manner of idiothood doesn’t wear his dress blues and shoot somebody while you are at the store.
John O
@Cassidy:
Never once been at the wrong place at the wrong time, even when you were a youngster?
Children’s mistakes are just adult mistakes writ small.
Adding that you have tremendous confidence in your ability to control your fate.
scudbucket
@Cassidy:
The percentage of those found innocent after the fact is well within statistical norms. No system is perfect.
Indeed. Murderous psychopathology is within statistical norms, too. I mean, why do we even put these guys on trial? Ya know?
Cassidy
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: I’m an NCO not an officer. And maybe it’s the other way around. Why does your typical American laziness entitle you to anything? The mroe and more I hear people like you, I think Heinlen was right: you should have to get off your lazy ass, go out in the real world, and earn the right to open your mouth. This world would be a much better place if you and your kind actually had to put your money where your mouth is and do something othe rthan bitch about it and write comments on a blog.
@John O: No, actually I haven’t. I don’t put myself in those positions. I don’t hang around with people who do.
Cassidy
@scudbucket: The death penalty isn’t murder. I know it’s fun to try and pretend it is for sake of hyperbole, but the fact is you are wrong.
AhabTRuler
I *warned* you, but did you listen to me? Oh, no, you *knew*, didn’t you? Oh, it’s just a harmless little *bunny*, isn’t it?
John O
@Cassidy:
You’re NCO? LOL.
So, it never occurred to you, in battle or in the your imagination of battle, that you could be Pat Tillman?
Or, it wouldn’t bother you if you got Tillman’d and the truth never came out?
John O
@AhabTRuler:
All right, I’m done. LOL. I couldn’t help it, and thought I was gentle about it. :-)
No more engaging with the paradigm-other, I promise.
scudbucket
@Cassidy:
No, man, I’m with you. I thought you had a good thing there with statistical norms and all, but you’re right, DP isn’t murder. But just so I know, what do we (folks like us I mean) call it when an innocent guy is put to death by the state?
Cassidy
Actually, confession time. The Willingham case did change my mind on the death penalty. I still have no ethical quandry about executing the worst our society has to offer, but I do think a moratorium should be in place until we can fix the system. And if said system can’t be fixed, and the DP must go away, then that is that.
I just enjoy fucking with the self-righteous, emotionally hysterical shitheads who don’t know what they’re talking about. “OMG….THE DEATH PENALTY IS MURDER!!!!!!@!!!”. Seriously, you guys really do get more like the teabagged everyday.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Beats me. I held down four jobs at one time when I had a kid and the bills were piling up. I guess if I weren’t so lazy it would have been five.
Weekday, weekday night, weekend day, and weekend night.
Interesting times. Not much time for a social life though.
But anyway, it’s not for you to decide what does or does not entitle me to anything. That’s for me to decide. Capisce?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Buy a mirror.
It’s cheaper than a computer.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
It took that case to convince you?
I suppose it took 911 to convince you of gravity.
Cassidy
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Oooh…threw the tough guy capisce on at the end! Hehehe, the anti-DP Joe Pesci.
Typical American dumbass….had a kid before you could afford it. It’s easier to get your dick wet/ beaver stuffed, than it is to think responsibly.
Corner Stone
@scudbucket:
Friday? Or maybe Tuesday? I don’t know anymore.
eemom
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
“Reasonable doubt is a reasonable standard in reasonable examples of reasonable uses of it. That’s all.”
k, I’ll take this stunning model of pithy prose as lesson 1.
You’re an idiot.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
People like me? I’m a persona. For all you know my parts are written by The Brotherhood of Reformed Executioners working together with six nuns and Andre the Giant. You don’t know a fucking thing about me, you big spoof.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Heh, well the contest here is between you and me, and I’ll let others be the judge.
Good luck.
Cassidy
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Maybe you should have done the abortion thing. I’m not entirely sure you should have been passing on your genetic material.
Mayken
@Corner Stone: Yeah, I once nearly got tossed out of LAX for questioning a TSA “official” about the policy of emptying every one of my electronic devices out of my back pack, despite the sign in front of both out faces that ONLY mention laptops and my rather extensive research beforehand that I would NOT have to take the external hard drive I was carrying out of the bag for checking. I was really grumpy having flown in from Germany and only trying to make a puddle jumper back home so I nearly left and rented a car to get home I was so mad! Why the airlines do not DEMAND professionalism from these clowns is really baffling. Then again, many of the airlines’ “officials” are not big on anything resembling professional behavior so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Cassidy:
You’ve blown your cover now.
Lecturing me on when to have a kid 40 years after the fact?
You need some new material, man. Really. Give it up.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Cassidy:
Well as luck would have it, not your decision to make.
But thanks for the advice.
eemom
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
I’m cool with that, professor.
Cassidy
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio: Well I only have so much time to play, so I couldn’t drag it out forever.
Would you like to borrow a coat hanger?
The Raven
We’ve already tried–we’ve been trying for centuries. Former Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun had this to say about the matter:
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Cassidy:
Sure, and send me your mother’s address.
John O
@AhabTRuler:
I hope you all find it as satisfying as I do that he/she disengaged and didn’t answer my questions, though. ;-)
A couple of them were really easy.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
That rings even truer today than when he wrote it.
If we figure these things on the basis of actual implementations, we are at 16,000 murders per year, and 37 executions.
That was in 2008 according my recent lookup.
It’s such an odd pair of numbers, one has to look at it and ask, what is the point of the 37 executions? Half of them (19) were in Texas.
I just came across an interesting blurb that says that Michigan has never had a criminal execution in its history as a state in the Union although one Federal execution was held there.
AhabTRuler
@John O: Seriously, it’s all pie to me; the list of piemen is short, but distinguished.
Corner Stone
@Mayken:
Ha! I was delayed for 45 minutes one time while they checked, scanned, checked, scanned and hand inspected a Leapster!
A fucking Leapster in a backpack!
And I will not even get into one of the many times I was flying with an accompanying firearm. You want to talk about befuddled? Sheeeitt.
I had an airport exec ask the sherriff to have me arrested and cuffed before they opened my padlocked gun case.
Padlocked after their employees had inspected and slipped in their signed card!
And after I missed my flight guess who’s responsibility it was?
Three Stooges pointing fingers in a 360 degree circle.
John O
@AhabTRuler:
Well, you’ve never warned me of another one, so you’re batting 1.000.
I would default to trusting to you on the next one for that, knowing it was coin-flip stupid. :-)
Mayken
@Corner Stone: Yikes, I’ve never even attempted to fly with a fire arm for that precise reason. Who needs the hassle?
John O
@Corner Stone:
Beware The Man.
Corner Stone
@Mayken: You should see the look of pure disgust on an airline employee when they have to check it. It’s like I’ve got the Lindbergh baby in there. They are literally 100% against the idea of dealing with it. Which I find odd since I fly out of TX most times.
This one guy realized he was in the wrong and tried to back down but I was like, “You want me to get the officer over here? To make sure when I open this case we can all see the orange card your employee signed and placed in there? Cause I’ll wait. I mean, you do know you pulled me off a flight where I was surrounded by TX college cheerleaders going home, right? And we were already talking and shit? Fucker.”
John O
@Corner Stone:
Thanks.
That’s my kind of civil disobedience.
Wish more folks did it.
Keith G
@NobodySpecial:
Which states. AFAIK the vast majority of states now use LWP. That is why so many are turning their back on capitol punishment.
If I am wrong, feel free to correct me.
NobodySpecial
@Keith G:
In most juristictions, even ‘life without parole’ inmates get parole hearings after a set number of years, usually 15 or 25. Only 6 states do not allow parole for ‘life without parole’ inmates – Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota.
Link.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@NobodySpecial:
Bear in mind, too, that a parole hearing does not guarantee parole. Charles Manson gets regular parole hearings. This has not made him a free man yet.
JR
@NobodySpecial: There’s a BIG difference between “disallowing parole for everyone with a life sentence” and “not having a sentence of life without parole.” Every state except Alaska has a way of sentencing people to life without the possibility of parole. You’re wrongly fixating on states where every life sentence precludes the chance of parole, but the fact is offenders in 49 states and D.C. can be sentenced to LWOP.
Please list which states you think automatically grant defendants who are sentenced to “life without parole” the right to a parole hearing capable of ending their sentence. I’d really like to know what statutes you’re (wrongly) interpreting.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
The more I think about it, the crazier it sounds. Essentially, NobodySpecial supports a system that demonstrably kills some innocent people because some states out there allegedly have systems where there’s a slim chance that one or two monsters might get out of prison. Ergo, because some guy in some random other state who’s killed before might get to kill again, this innocent person has to die in this state.
The more I think about those two ideas, the harder it is to wrap my head around them. The two ideas don’t mesh at all, niether in time, nor place, nor manner. It’s like saying that I should worry about traffic jams on the way to work tomorrow because pancakes are no good without maple syrup.