Guilty of manslaughter
 

My sister was on a murder trial this week. The location is New York City, borough of Queens.

I post this to allow all the conservatives to get a good, hearty laugh. :D

The individual on trial is a 19 year old male. The facts of the case, as best as I can relay them are as follows.

Alleged perpetrator is known to the individual who was killed (DM). Apparently the perpetrator was going to confront the DM regarding some unknown issue. The perpetrator was carrying a loaded handgun when he went to visit the DM.

The DM was not an "esteemed member society" to put it nicely. There clearly was no outporing of grief over his death.

After shooting the DM three times, he vacated the location and left the state.

When he was located, the police brought him back to NY and extracted a confession from him. However, in the confession, he stated that he shot the DM in self defense.

The police did their usual bogus job in the investigation. No witnesses for the prosecution. No handgun. No physical evidence, whatsoever, to connect this man to the crime. However, there was motive present.

So, the jury is charged with finding him guilty of murder II, or manslaughter II or not guilty.

This is where it gets interesting.

The first vote is 2 in favor of murder, 7 in favor of manslaughter, and 3 who don't understand the process well enough to decide anything.

Some of the logic from these idiots:

-----Carrying a loaded gun, without a license, is typical these days. You can't convict someone of murder if he had no intent to kill the DM. Just because he was carrying a loaded gun does not mean that he was going to use it.

-----The police might have coerced the confession from the perpetrator. You can't necessarily believe a confession extracted by the police.

-----The fact that he shot the DM is not evidence that he meant to kill him. He many have just meant to injure him. But, he died from his injuries.


So, eventually the jury went 10-2 in favor of Man II. It didn't take much to cause the other two to rollover. My sister was one of the last two, but, she has no constitution to holdout against 10 people.

Her logic, and it might make some sense, is that it is better to hang him for Man II rather than hang the jury. The next jury might just acquit him.

The prosecutor was happy with the verdict. Apparently, in some areas of NYC, you can't convict someone of murder under just about any circumstances because the "jury of peers" don't trust the police. :eek:

I'm with the Bonehead on this one. ;)

In all likelihood, I would agree that he probably did murder, but where is the evidence to prove other than the self defense part that he claims?

Based on the lack of hard evidence, and if he had kept his mouth shut, had even a marginal lawyer, he might have got off!

That's why I'm not in favor of the death penalty. It might not be the case for this but too many people fess up for crimes they did not commit and off to the chair they go.

You know, I missed that perspective somehow. I have been sort of undecided about death penalty. I think some folks really, really need it. Like a local serial killer who murdered at least 8 women. Why should that mofo live? Or that wacko in CA who killed his entire family, after having incestuously fathered many of the children. A man like that should not breath my air. Or Bin Laden.

OTOH, there are murderers and there are murderers. And there are mistakes--miscarriages of justice. Why risk executing innocent people? It's bad enough if they serve life in prison when innocent, at least there's some chance that justice will finally be done. But if they're executed...sorry 'bout that, y'all.

The plea-bargain thing is another point. What with cops having the right to lie to suspects anyway, just give them a bit more leverage by threatening them with death.

I don't know. I want Bin Laden to die. It would be nice if death came to him while sealed in a black cave by Hellfire missle, alone in the dark. But it would also be pretty cool to have a Hollywood-style show trial in which everything he finds contemptible about western society, like maybe a really pretty and real smart Jewish defense attorney, was the last thing he saw as the needle slipped into his arm. OTOH, dying of old age in a max security prison might be kind of nice, too.

Oh I second that, I should have said I don't support the DP under existing guidlines.

The interesting thing about the DP is that there are no consistent guidelines. Up here in liberal land, it's nearly impossible to receive the death penalty. If a perp does get it, he's got a very long road before it is carried out. I'd venture to guess that the NY application of the DP would meet the requirements of almost all of us, with the exception of those who are opposed to the DP as a matter of principle. I don't believe that you can get the DP in NY unless you kill a police officer or a prision guard.

Now, the opposite end of the spectrum is Texas, of course. I have the suspicion that the rather cavalier application of the DP down there will (has??) result(ed) in a miscarriage of justice where an innocent man (woman) is put to death.

I look at the DP in a different way. While it is terrific to assign death to some of these extreme murderers, the cost to actually get there is extremely large. I don't have the data in hand, but, I recall reading that to put a man to death requires about three times the money that it would otherwise cost to leave in in jail for the rest of his life. Just on this economic basis, alone, I believe the DP should be off the table for all but the most heinous of crimes.

If this is true, and you believe in the DP or not, why should a police officer, or prison guard, have higher human status, or are their human being values higher up, like next to God? If your going to kill, kill someone who isn't a cop, or you'll really get it! BS.............

I'd guess the reason is mostly some sort of psychological thing. We put our trust in law enforcement to keep evil at bay. So when something bad happens to somebody in whom society places greater trust and responsibility than it does the general public, we react more harshly. I don't think it is necessarily that we value law enforcement more than regular folks, it's that we value their responsibility more than we value the repsonsibility of say, a botanist.

In thinking about it a bit more, what does the death penalty actually accomplish, other than the extraction of revenge?

If you wish to rid the individual from society for the rest of his life, you can do this far more economically if you sentence him to life without the possibility of parole.

DP as a deterrent?? Probably not.

This is where many come to loggerheads. What does it cost us the tax payers to imprison a killer for life. Many say the DP, from a humanitarian perspective, is wrong, while many justify an eye for an eye because of their being a burden to the tax payer, others justify the DP because the believe only in an eye for an eye. What quality of life is there to the killer in a cell for the remainder of their life? Why should we pay something on the order of $40,000 a year (I read that somewhere a long time ago) to keep them locked up?

Life in prison didn't deter Kenneth McDuff. They let his ass out. He proceeded to kill a half-dozen more people. Death penalty finally deterred him.

The cost to apply the death penalty is something close to 1 million.

It's way more costly than incarceration for life.

Eliminates recidivism.

Life, no parole, accomplishes the same thing.

Except....life without parole may not actually be so. Also escapes happen. And of course the easily overlooked and ignored murder of other prisoners, guards, etc.

If they daid, they can't do nuttin, to nobody.

To incarcerate a prisoner for 50 years X $40,000 = $2,000,000 if the figure per year is close.

How in the world can it cost 1 mil, to flip a switch?

I say fry'em!

The legal process including all the efforts on behalf of the convict and all the efforts on behalf of the state, over a 10 year period, costs much more than you realize.

Reminds me of that old joke with the punchline, a bill detailing expenses for an EE consultant:

Flipping the switch.................................$1.00
Knowing which switch to flip............$40,000.00

How many carreer criminals who got the death penalty ever commit another crime?

Zero....how can you top that for stoping future crimes? Great deterant becasue you won't see them in from of another judge for comiting the same crime again.

All it takes is executing one innocent person, and any perceived benefit of the death penalty becomes insignificant.

Does anyone actually believe that 100% of the people on death row are guilty? Do the numerous cases of long-time death row inmates being released due to DNA evidence not raise any concerns? Or is 99% accuracy good enough, and zapping/injecting a couple innocents is the just the price of admission?

One dead innocent man is better than setting free 100 guilty murderers.

Many would disagree with you, myself included. And your tune would quickly change if you were that one innocent man.

Regardless...who said anything about setting murderers free?

Hey, but Bone and you are onto something here. What is a reasonable ratio for guilty:Innocent?

What is the accuracy rate that we have currently do you think?

Not just murder but say, shoplifting or any crime? For example, if there was a method that guaranteed 99% accuracy, is that enough for any crime?

I guess it's too late to see if the innocents that have been wrongfully executed feel the same way.

This might surprise ya'all but I'm a fan of "This American Life" on NPR. A month or so ago, they devoted the whole hour to the story of a guy who had gotten death in a highly questionable murder case in NY. The guy was a member of a group frequently in poor standing in NY -- a caribbean rasta-man.

It was an incredible story. The judge was bound to pronounce the sentence the jury came up with (death) but he said that he was deeply troubled by it -- unusual to make such a pronouncement. The guy's best friend made it his life's work to get his friend a retrial -- managed to become a para-legal and eventually got enough evidence to prove that the guy was 99.9999% chance innocent.

When the guy was exonerated, his joy at having been released, after some 17 years on death row, was amazing to hear. He had the "yayy -monn, gohn to be irreee, monn..." rasta voice, and he sounded cool and genuine.

Major problems with the death penalty: it costs way more than just giving life w/o parole -- it precludes the opportunity to clear an innocent man, lot of people have been proven innocent with the advent of DNA testing, makes you wonder how many were killed before they could be cleared -- and, I'd rather see the guy stew in a tiny cell for life anyway, let him wallow in regret over his stupidity, it's worse IMO.

If you can guarantee 99% accuracy, doesn't that imply you can identify the 1% of innacuracies with 100% accuracy? If so, problem solved - good work!

:D

Great idea, but then that 1% is only 99% accurate, so you get that 1% and apply the same methodology but wait, it's only 99% accurate...and to solve this, call my friend Zeno at BR-549.

Thats why I don't object to the ten appeals a death row inmate has....it gives them a chance to prove innocence if it was a mistake.

Besides...a lot of these death row guys were caught in the act.

what I dont get is...
 

So if a death penalty is so expensive because of the legal fees involved - If a man with a life prison term runs the public defender through 10 appeals to get out of his life sentance, doesnt he now cost **us** more than the guy who got chaired after his 10 appeals ? or is this not the norm...

Money has nothing to do with the death penalty other than being a good political spin.

The DP Provides:

Vengance, right or wrong people want it and they deserve it if that's what they wish.

To insure that the SOB never has a moment of pleasure again.

There is an economic factor that has to be considered.

A lethal injection costs how much? 100.00 bucks being a high figure? Compared to 25k or more per year to house an inmate.........I heard somewhere it was like 80k but I used 25 as a a starting point.

I believe where proof is irrefutable, that the death penalty shoul dbe carried out as swiftly as possible.

Some of the murdering, raping scum that still walk this earth in the friendly confines of a prison are wasting their time and ours. Plus, they have it better off inside a prison than out.

I'm all in favor of public beheadings if it means my kids will be safer.

Don't kill or rape others and you will be just fine.

F*ck em!

Maybe that one can be you! I know it's a stretch for you but those 100 murderers will be in jail not free think about it.

THats what the 10 appeals are for.........time to prove it was a mistake before you get the chair.. Thats why I don't fight against those appeals rights...becasue the system isn't perfect.

All those appeals cost approximately double the cost of keeping the SOB in prison for the rest of his life. Whether you believe it or not, giving them life without the possibility of parole costs significantly less money, over the long haul, and it also eliminates the risk of killing a man who has been wrongly convicted.

If you think that there are no wrongful convictions of minorites in certain southern states, you had better think again.

Appeals are rarely for reintroduction of evidence. They are primarily to ensure all appropriate rules were followed at trial. Unlike the original trial, there is ZERO presumption of innocence. Deciding guilt or innocence is not the function of the appeals process.

Also, people always point out the cost of the appeals process - trouble is, they forget it cuts both ways. The public pays a big bill, but the cost of bringing the appeals can also be huge for the convicted. If wrongly convicted and poor, you better hope somebody takes up your cause, otherwise you'll certainly fry.

F. Lee Bailey was quoted as saying the following - if he thinks you've got an uphill battle in the appeals process, it's pretty safe to say the vast majority of folks wrongly convicted are screwed.

“Appellate courts have only one function, and that is to correct legal mistakes of a serious nature made by a judge at a lower level. Should a jury have erred by believing a lying witness, or by drawing an attractive but misleading inference, there is nothing to appeal.”

Add to the above, if you oppose the death penalty, you can NOT be on the original jury in a case where the DP is on the line. Depending on what polls you believe, 30-50% of all people are therefore ineligible to serve on these juries. How's that for skewing the pool? Doesn't matter how fair minded you are or how well you can judge guilt or innocence, you get the boot based on actions you would take in the penalty phase, IF THERE IS ONE.

So much for a jury of one's peers...

I'll walk with you
 

The word "deterrence" hasnt been beaten to death yet. If you knew that (for example) you were gonna rob a bank and the penalty for armed robbery is (was?) the dealth penalty, wont that make it less likely that you'll carry a gun with you ?

I've read anecdotal evidence that agrees with this (college ethics course...) but its only anecdotal ---Some people will not carry a gun because they might get the DP...some people---.
Since money should not be a consideration of whether we kill someone ((another good reason to put a dollar value on human life =) )) one needs another reason if we are to defend it Deterrence is the only reason left. How do you prove that the DP deters crime ?

-John

Thats a fallacy.

If you want to work numbers, then how about the guys who broke out a few years ago and killed a security guard. The death penalty would have saved him, why is his life less valuable than the person who got inoccently convicted?

The arguement that it costs to much to go through the process of the death penalty, your arguement is for streamlining the system. Radical anti death penalty advocates abuse that system and THAT should be stopped.

Justice is also another reason for the death penalty, NOT REVENGE, they are different.

A society makes a statement on what it values by how it punishes people for various acts. Lets say we only give two years for ANY murder, then we are saying we dont really value life that much, and we value it less than a car if stealing a car gets you five years.

Regarding the killing a cop thing, it is also pretty much recognized that a guy who is willing to kill a cop has really gone over the line and is extremely violent and more likely to kill anyone anytime, more of a danger to society.

Bots also hit it, when you have life w/o parole, then he can murder anyone in prison he wants to without any punishment, since he has already hit his punishment limit.

One that really cracks me up is those who say the death penalty is cruel and unusual, then they will also say, besides, life in prison is probably worse than the death penalty, hmmmm, so, life in prison is worse, but you wont give the death penalty cuz its soo bad?

Lastly, one thing very few people think about. Those who are guards in the prisons that house the "worst of the worst" , it winds up taking a toll on their lifes. Emotionally it ruins many of them, after some time, it wears them down having to deal with these people, they go home with images running through their heads of all the crap that constantly goes on inside. I saw a program of an institution that houses such criminals, and when interviewed, the guards there all wind up becoming depressed.

Im wondering, the guy in San Diego, a few years ago they caught him, and had so much evidence there is no way he wasnt guilty, he kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered a seven year old girl, does he deserve to live?

me cast my vote, NOT

I'd hate to be a prison guard, especially in units where certifiable scum of the earth are housed.

I have a wild idea, and I'm not alone, to bring back prison islands. Apparently, there is a fair number of islands around the world that can support life that are uninhabited.

How about you drop a bunch of these guy on one, give 'em hoes and shovels and seeds, and let 'em go. It's almost cerainly never going to happen -- having an inpenetrable patrol around the island 24/7 might be impossible and if a family of yachting tourists happened on the island like happened in one of the Jurassic Park movies - where the little girl almost got eaten by small dinosaurs - oh man, it would be ugly.

Still, it's an appealing thought -- no guards would ever have to have their minds soiled by those miscreants and the a**holes could have a chance at some sort of rehab, if they didn't kill each other first.

Well then.............all you need to do is move to Texas. You will have your streamlined system for killing the perpetrators. No radical "anti death penalty advocates" to abuse the system down there.

You can get sufficient "justice" whatever that means, by incarcerating them for life.

Of course, in your scenario, it's a perfect system, and every person put to death in Texas committed the crime for which they were convicted, right. :rolleyes:

The fact is that is costs significantly more to put a person to death. And all the bull$hit in the world is not going to change this fact. So, as a conservative person, you should prefer to incarcerate them for life because it costs you less out of your pocket.

I don't think the DP is a deterrent, anyone whacked out enough to kill for reasons other than self defense or defense of another innocent person is going to kill anyway.

I wonder how many people that killed in self defense are on death row?

I don't think that's a bad idea.

I like that idea.......post it off limits and any idiots in a yacht that stop there deserve whatever happens to them.

I was talking to a colleague who heard a former warden of Angola State Pen (max security prison in Louisiana. Has a fence and outside of it, the second biggest swamp in North America and then the largest river in North America). The talk was on river mgmt and levee maintenance.

So there was this big flood and they asked how much time they would have if the levee was breached before the whole area was under water. Answer, about a half-day. They decided that they would have to leave the 200 lockdown and death row inmates in their cells if the flood happened and save the other 5,000 inmates by busing them to local and regional prisons. The 200 inmates in lockdown were too dangerous to risk moving them in the prison buses, the only lockable vehicles they have.

The warden said the decision came to this: He knew that the newspapers, governor, legislators, and people would hate him for leaving 200 men to drown. They would also hate him if those men escaped because there was no doubt in his mind that they would do whatever it took to get what they wanted wherever they went. That would take innocent lives. He decided he prefered to have the 200 inmate deaths on his conscience to the loss of a single innocent civilian's life.

It got me wondering whether this state (or any state, hint-hint) has a plan for evacuating their penetientiaries. I don't know, do you? Motel 6? Holiday Inn Express?

I first got wind of the idea in a column by Jon Carroll, he's an SF Chron regular. He had a book that listed many of the inhabitable but uninhabited islands in the world. It would be a lot more humane in many ways than what we're doing now.

I think maybe it's ultimately not doable. Well, maybe for the life with no parole crowd, but even with that limited group, the numbers might be so large that it would be hard to find enough islands that could be used that wouldn't prompt a humongous outpouring of objection by all sorts of concerned parties.

And if a family of yachters did land on it, if they missed the off limits status, oh my ghod, there would be the hostage standoff from hell. The state dept. of whatever country they were from would be under enormous pressure.

It's nice to think about anyway, I mean, not the hostage deal, but a way to get these guys away from civilized society -- including guards.

[QUOTE=narwhal]I guess a lot matters under what terms the people were caught....

was it 20 years after the fact on circumstantial evidence or were they caught at the scene in the act....

The former I would tend to lean more for life sentance..and the latter just shoot them on the spot....

It's unfortunate if 1 innocent man were to suffer beinbg incarcerated unjustly, but has anyone considered that if one guilty man were allowed to go free and he decided to go on a mass killing spree, like hijacking a school bus and hurting a bunch of kids.

That would really suck and someone conscience will really be bothering them afterwards.

****, how many murdering dogs don't get off because a rookie cop made a mistake gathering evidence?

Shoot 'em all, worry about it later.

Now that's a deterent.

The island would still have to be monitored. Whats to stop these bastards from organizing building a sea worthy craft and getting off the island ;) (Can you say Kurt Russell ;))
What made Australia so viable in this regard was its distance from "civilization" way back then. How far are these modern deserted islands he writes about from current civilization?

I'm a bit surprised that you are not aware of the costs.

There is plenty of data to show it is less costly to send a prisoner to jail for life than to execute him. This has nothing to do with actually putting a needle in his arm. The legal process to get him to that point is what consumes all the funds. And, the taxpayer gets to pay for both the prosecution and the defense.

I'm for the death penalty in certain specific cases. However, if I can pay less and lock them up for life, I'm fine with that too.

You might be aware of the costs because it is your profession. ;)

I'm just passing along the info regarding the costs. It's not "my data". It's a free country. You can believe what you want.

In the case you described, whereby the defendant doesn't get the extensive judicial process for 10 years, you would clearly be correct.

Yes, this was my belief as well. :D

You must be the one in 100. ;)