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Crime and Punishment

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:14 pm
by rushlight
I thought I would start something new. Get your different opinions and such. I have seen many things on the news concerning criminals and what crime they have committed. After they go to trial, the jury decides their fate. Some people get a few years in prison like abusers, child molesters, or guys that steal. Others who do way worse like murder, get serious punishment mostly death penalty. But there are some criminals that commit serious crime and get slaps on the wrist. Ted Bundy was a vicious freak that killed young women and he got sentenced to the electric chair years ago yet other guys like Charles Manson who are truly twisted are still in jail and he even had a cult who follow his path. Do certain punishments fit the crime?

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:32 pm
by Walkinghairball
Nope!!!!!

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:17 am
by awip2062
Unfortunately many times the punishment does not fit the crime. I wish it did, but justice is often not served.

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 8:41 am
by Soup4Rush
I say child molesters, rapists and murderers should be executed if there is 100% proof they did it. and no appeals and no bs how injection is cruel and unusual. sexual predators of children are the worst kind of scum. They should suffer before they die.

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 8:46 am
by awip2062
So, Soup, you seem to be waffling about on this one. Kinda having a hard time deciding what to do with that type of criminal eh?

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 9:27 am
by Walkinghairball
The family of the victim should be allowed to "Deal" with the scumbag, I think.

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:34 am
by awip2062
That's very old testament of you, Bro.

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:37 am
by Walkinghairball
I'm just saying if some shitbag did something to me or mine, his ass would be sucking buttermilk thru a straw.

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:33 am
by Soup4Rush
exactly

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 2:28 pm
by rushlight
Soup4Rush wrote:I say child molesters, rapists and murderers should be executed if there is 100% proof they did it. and no appeals and no bs how injection is cruel and unusual. sexual predators of children are the worst kind of scum. They should suffer before they die.

Look at this....

PITTSBURGH (Aug. 2) - During his nearly two decades in prison on a rape conviction, Thomas A. Doswell was denied parole four times because he refused to accept responsibility for the crime. But DNA evidence has finally proved what he's been saying all along: He didn't do it.

"I'm thankful to be home," he told The Associated Press from his mother's house Monday, after walking out of the county jail a free man. "I'm thankful justice has been served. The court system is not perfect, but it works."

Doswell, 46, was convicted in the 1986 rape of a 48-year-old woman at a hospital in Pittsburgh. He was sentenced to 13 to 26 years in prison. At the time, he was the father of two young children.

A judge Monday dismissed the charges as friends and family broke into applause.

Prosecutors originally opposed DNA testing for Doswell, but a judge ordered it. When the tests came back last month showing that semen taken from the victim was not from Doswell, prosecutors filed motions to vacate his sentence and release him.

"These tests confirmed what Mr. Doswell has been saying from the moment he was charged, that he was innocent and that this was a misidentification brought about by police officers who may have engaged in misconduct," said Colin Starger of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York. The project helped push for Doswell's release.

The victim and another witness had picked out Doswell's photo from a group of eight shown to them by police.

At the time, Pittsburgh police identified mug shots of people charged with rape with the letter "R." Doswell insisted witnesses identified him as the rapist only because "R" appeared under his mug shot.

According to the Innocence Project, his photo was the only one with an "R."

His photo was marked because an ex-girlfriend had accused him of rape, but he was acquitted of that charge. Police officials say they no longer mark photos of rape suspects with an "R."

Authorities plan to compare the DNA sample taken from the victim with national databanks, but so far do not have any suspects.

Although Doswell spent nearly two decades in prison, neither he nor his family said they were angry.

"I couldn't walk around with anger and bitterness," said Doswell, speaking on a cell phone for what he said was the first time. "It would have done me more harm than good."

Doswell spent his years in prison getting an associate's degree, learning to speak Spanish and mastering seven musical instruments, including the guitar, saxophone, flute, drums and trumpet.

"I am so happy to be actually seeing him at home instead of in jail," said Crystal Glover, Doswell's girlfriend. "Now we can get on with our lives."

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 2:35 pm
by Soup4Rush
does not sound like they had 100% proof.

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 2:42 pm
by rushlight
No. It was a mistake by the police because they marked his picture with an R for rape. The victim and witness picked the picture because it was one of those who police put in the rapists pile. You got to really look for proof otherwise you're either sending an innocent man to jail or to their death.

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 3:09 pm
by Devil's Advocate
Soup4Rush wrote:does not sound like they had 100% proof.
In the real world, there is no such thing as 100% proof.

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 3:13 pm
by Soup4Rush
what about Manson, Dahlmer... There are also guys in prison because they have admitted freely to doing it... BTK and the latest sleazeball that killed that little girl in California. what about them? those guys are 100% guilty.

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 4:06 pm
by Devil's Advocate
No, 100%-certain proof is a myth. That's why "death row" prisoners get unlimited appeals.

Even confessions are not entirely reliable, as evidenced by several infamous cases in this country, where men imprisoned for many years on the basis on confessions were released. In at least one of those cases, the prosecution evidence included signed confessions, forensic evidence in the form of explosives-residue on the accuseds' hands and circumstantial evidence of association with known IRA members. Would that count at 100%, in your book? Because a passing acquaintance with an IRA member does not make you a terrorist. And the residue was actually of soap. And the cofessions were produced through torture, by the police.

Fortunately, we do not have the death penalty here (it was abolished as a direct result of the Derek Bentley case), so the seventeen men in the above three cases were all released - except for at least one, who died while in jail.

Of course, the arguments against the use of the death penalty are not limited to the very real fact that it inevitably results in the deaths of innocent people.

The motive for carrying out such a barbaric act is also highly questionable: as you and hairball have demonstrated in this thread, revenge is high on the list. Eye for an eye, et cetera. But do you really want to live in a society based so much on violence? What if you get the wrong person? Would their friends and family be intitled to mete out the same "justice" against you? Or what if you get the right person, but their friends decide your actions were disproportionate. Would they be allowed to redress the balance? Where would such a spiral end?


And, even if you do get the right person, complete with the mythical 100%-reliable proof. If that person acted for some ideological motive (ie, they're a religiously-driven terrorist), are you willing to make a martyr of them? And to thereby help them to recruit more like-minded terrorists?