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Tegan
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With the execution of tookie today, i just wondered what people thought about the death penalty?

Couple of thoughts below from various news columns:

Stanley Tookie Williams, who shotgunned four people to death a quarter of a century ago and couldn't sell the story of his redemption to anyone who mattered, took a lethal shot in the arm and closed his eyes for good.

 

I watched him die from 12 feet away. The execution team struggled to tap a vein, and Williams raised his head as if to question their competence. He also looked at supporters and exchanged final words with them before the drugs kicked in and he was gone.

Nothing I saw made me feel any differently about Williams, the Crip co-founder whose legacy is terrorized neighborhoods and a chorus of weeping mothers.

His anti-violence books and speeches were too little, too late, and the mythologizing of him was as unconvincing as the Nobel nominations.

But his execution was a macabre spectacle in a nation that preaches godly virtue to the world while resisting a global march away from the Medieval practice of capital punishment.

I would have had no problem leaving Williams locked up with his regrets and haunted by his deeds for the rest of his natural life.

I watched a man die today, killed by the state of California with institutional resolve, and wondered what we gained

Stanley tookie Williams was convicted of the 1979 murders of four people in two separate robberies -- convenience store worker Albert Owens, 26; and motel owners Yen-I Yang, 76; Tsai-Shai Yang, 63; and their daughter Yee-Chen Lin, 43. Williams has been on death row since 1981; that he has consistently maintained his innocence of all four killings hardly makes him unique. There's no dramatic new DNA evidence or anything like that to cast doubt on his guilt.

What does make him special, according to his supporters, is that he has been so lavishly repentant about the culture of violence he helped create.

Since about 10 years ago, Williams has been apologizing for his role in founding the Crips -- in recorded messages meant to be heard by youth groups, and in a series of children's books. A longtime supporter maintains a Web site where Williams, using the overly flowery language of a jailhouse autodidact, urges young people to stay away from gangs. True believers have even suggested him for the Nobel Peace Prize

Me personally i believe in an eye for an eye but i am also naive in thinking that people can change and that good will win in the end

any other thoughts/ opinions?

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Hard labour for life ..

Get them on a tread mill to generate electricity ..

If they want a break, they can sit on the chair that's hooked up to the other inmates treadmills ..

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Im against it.

How can murder be justified? i mean, your killing someone for killing someone, isnt that hypocritical?

I agree with Ben, hard labour till the day they keel over and die, never be free but in a proper prison, none of this holiday camp nonesense, imprisonment, but taking someones life, well, how is that better than the person strapped to the chair?

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Hard labour for life ..

Get them on a tread mill to generate electricity ..

If they want a break, they can sit on the chair that's hooked up to the other inmates treadmills ..

Thats a right idea that

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I dont believe in the death penalty, mainly because I dont believe we should lower ourselves to the level of a murderer by taking a life......

He took 4 lives, he deserves to rot in prison but who are we to deem him unfit to live on this earth? And who is Arnold Schwartzenegger for that matter - does he see fit to be judge, jury and executioner as Governer of California?

He didnt deserve to be released, but in the same light, he didn't deserve to die for his crimes.

Just my opinion though, but as for him changing, maybe he's seen the error of his ways, but I doubt he's changed and I would bet money on if he was released, he'd be back in the gangland ways sooner than anticipated.... maybe I'm just a cynic, but I dont believe a leopard can change its spots.

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Arnie didnt give him the death setence he simply refused to spare him at the last minute

I think its justice done for the familes of the people he murdered and a deterrent for others like him

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I don't agree with paying for them .. make them "earn" their way .. get them doing stuff ..

Hour on the tredmill, hour breaking rocks .. slice of bread.

2 hours .. glass of water ..

And let the prisons rot, I want to see rats, lice, roaches .. it's not "humaine" but they opted out of humanity when they did stuff like that ..

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Arnie didnt give him the death setence he simply refused to spare him at the last minute

I think its justice done for the familes of the people he murdered and a deterrent for others like him

Same difference Tegan.... he didnt spare him, he condemned him to death!

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yeah but if it was any other politician then nobody would have said anything, its part of his job as governor to have to deal with difficult decisions like that unfortunately - i wouldnt have liked to be in that position

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yeah but if it was any other politician then nobody would have said anything, its part of his job as governor to have to deal with difficult decisions like that unfortunately - i wouldnt have liked to be in that position

I don't agree with the death penalty but I agree with this-

Arnie got an extra hard time because of who he is...

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I don't agree with paying for them .. make them "earn" their way .. get them doing stuff ..

Hour on the tredmill, hour breaking rocks .. slice of bread.

2 hours .. glass of water ..

And let the prisons rot, I want to see rats, lice, roaches .. it's not "humaine" but they opted out of humanity when they did stuff like that ..

Agree totally. A person should forfeit their rights when they abuse the rights of others.

Against the death penalty though. That's one step too far IMO.

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Can't help thinking of the phrase ' If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.'

Not all states in the US carry the death penalty. He should have travelled to a safer place to commit murder if he wasn't prepared to be executed !

No sympathy whatsoever, regardless of what his post-conviction outlook was.

Not only did he murder people, he's the co founder of the Crips. His legacy to the world was violence.

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If your guilty without doubt which is possible in todays world with DNA testing etc and there is no shadow of a doubt whats the point in spending a fortune of tax payers money to put someone up for life when people are finding hard enouh to survive when they work every day....

By killing them we are saving money and making more room available in a prison system which is already over populated. If there are no questions over someones guilt kill 'em...

Thats my view anyway.

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They execute people in the UK, rhaines? If so, how long do men usually spend on death row?

Here, executions cost a fortune, thanks to the guy spending decades on death row, appealing his case and whathaveyou. There was a Kansas study where they "counted death penalty case costs through to execution and found that the median death penalty case costs $1.26 million. Non-death penalty cases were counted through to the end of incarceration and were found to have a median cost of $740,000." The investigation costs for death-sentence cases were about 3 times greater than for non-death cases.

The trial costs for death cases were about 16 times greater than for non-death cases ($508,000 for death case; $32,000 for non-death case)."

The death penalty has absolutely no bearing on our prison populations, and in most states with major urban areas, the prisons are bulging regardless of whether the state has the death penalty. Even here in WI our prisons are crowded, despite our rather low population. We have no death penalty here.

To be honest, I'm not against capital punishment for vile crimes, but as its currently applied, I don't think its a very effective policy.

(I'm a criminal justice major at university, so forgive me being a geek on the subject ;) )

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the death penalty is the best form of justice available and should be implemented here in the UK

then we can happily fry murderers, peados, car theives etc to our hearts contents

paradox of the day 'without law and order there is no freedom'

and this country has got poor law and order so hence the reverb on the above quote ;)

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Can't help thinking of the phrase  ' If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.'

Not all states in the US carry the death penalty. He should have travelled to a safer place to commit murder if he wasn't prepared to be executed !

Totally agree, no matter how bad the punishment, you still know what it is.

I know if I drive at over 70 on the M'way it's £60 and 3 points, I think it's OTT, but it's still the punishment for the crime.

If your guilty without doubt which is possible in todays world with DNA testing etc

DNA has reciently been proved to now not be as accurate as people thought, same with finger prints. *Apparently* it's not the 1 in 6 million that they thought, it's down to the one in thousands :(

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Against.

Eye for an eye? I think it's barbaric and very sad that the people who have been wronged want to attend the killing. I'd doubt it made them feel better, and if so they learned something. If it did make them feel better, that's really sad.

People can make mistakes, they can be temporarily insane -- not all lifetaking is so cold-blooded. Depending on the case I do believe in second chances, sometimes through lifetime imprisonment, sometimes after serving time. It's a very American, ultra-right and ultra-pious/religious black and white judgement where a person is declared 100% 'evil' with no redeeming factors. People aren't 'evil' through and through (what an archaic word) but they can do very bad things. It suits the mentally lazy, the non-thinkers, to brand in this way and at the same time take the moral high ground.

Speaking of the US, doesn't it have the world's highest prison poplulation, kill people a plenty including those with mental problems and those who committed crimes before adulthood? And yet strangely enough it obviously isn't a deterrent as crime rates continue rising. 'I'm right and you are evil so I'll destroy you' doesn't work. More nuturing is required and the government takes no responsibilty here. Again, it's one for the non-thinkers.

We all know mistakes have been made and one is enough. In fact, the system can also be abused. Political powers could have you removed and the evidence destroyed along with you.

So, brainless and barbaric in my opinion and measurably not a deterrent. Why do it? Oh yeah. Brainless.

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paradox of the day 'without law and order there is no freedom'

Freedom means nothing unless it is qualified. Without law, people have the freedom to commit acts of anarchy and murder. With law, people have the freedom to live in relative saftey. With or indeed, without law, people have the freedom to run around the bedroom shouting, I am Spartacus wearing nothing but an elephant thong. They shouldn't and there should be a law against it, but there isn't! ;o)

Against the death penalty but for life meaning a lifetime. Death is an easy way out when compared to being in a prison for the rest of your life... depending on the prison obviously, but this is bourne out by those on long terms that commit suicide. Not all prisons are likeable to holiday camps, which is a media fallacy. Try Nottingham prison. A "friend of a friend" was tried for stabbing... after being stabbed by someone in the arm during a pub brawl, he pulled the knife out and stabbed his attacker in the leg... twice, one each! Fair dues says I, don't attack an ex-squadie with substantial close combat training, but the law said otherwise and he ended up in Notty. Two years later he was out and he had been through hell. Even now he can't sit in a room with the door closed or eat his dinner without putting the food into seperate areas on his plate. Luckily for him, he's a big lad so he didn't see much "shower room action" but he did get a few beatings. Oh and his wife, who waited for him to come out left him half a year after he came out because he just "wasn't the same man" anymore. But, that said, he realised that he should have just "broke the ba****ds arms and had done!" as he put it.

edit: meant to add that the lad he stabbed is a known skaghead that regularly ends up in clink!

My point... not all prisons are like Butlins and in some, reform is far from the point. :blink:

One idea floated in a forum elsewhere was prison ships. All murderers on one ship, solidly moored in a sea and given weekly food and water drops but otherwise left to their own devices... I think someone had been watching too much dark SciFi! ;)

As to this "Tooky" or whatever he was called. He was quite obviously a nasty piece of s**t but he should have been permanantly incarcerated, not killed. Which solves nothing.

Cheers,

Jim

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I'm all for the death penalty.

The only change I would make is to move more to the Chinese model than the US.

No long drawn out appeals, no years on Death Row. You get found guilty, they take you outside and shoot you in the back of the head.

Yes - its barbarous.

Yes - it does mean we "descend to their level" by doing so.

Personally, I would make prisons practically unliveable. Holes in the ground, dead cow thrown in every day kind of unliveable.

No exercise, no working etc.

I mean expending the bare minimum time and money on people who cannot manage to live by the simple standards set by society.

I would also make the death penalty available as an option to the judge for repeated offences. Judges would be able to warn people that they are behaving in an inppropriate manner, and the next time they are found guilty of a serious crime - they will be executed.

Anyone subsequently executed for assault, burgularly, rape (or any other traditionally non death penalty crimes), is really just be executed for being too **** stupid to live.

I dont see why we should spend any time or money on people who find it impossible to stick to the very simple societal contract.

Dont want to get put in a filthy hole in ground? Dont want to be executed?

DONT COMMIT CRIMES.

Its really easy - millions of us manage to do it each and every day.

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Bring back hanging and make it public :thumbsup:

I am all for the death penalty, it’s a shame there is no death penalty here. My idea would be to use prison boats, fill them full of the lifers. Then one night take the boat out of UK waters somewhere out at sea and get the navy to play target practice on it.

Last time I was in texas I was there for 2 weeks I think 3 people where executed and George bush was govenor at the time :lol:

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No long drawn out appeals, no years on Death Row. You get found guilty, they take you outside and shoot you in the back of the head.

Personally, I would make prisons practically unliveable. Holes in the ground, dead cow thrown in every day kind of unliveable.

No exercise, no working etc.

I would also make the death penalty available as an option to the judge for repeated offences. Judges would be able to warn people that they are behaving in an inppropriate manner, and the next time they are found guilty of  a serious crime - they will be executed.

Anyone subsequently executed for assault, burgularly, rape (or any other traditionally non death penalty crimes), is really just be executed for being too **** stupid to live.

I dont see why we should spend any time or money on people who find it impossible to stick to the very simple societal contract.

Dont want to get put in a filthy hole in ground? Dont want to be executed?

DONT COMMIT CRIMES.

Its really easy - millions of us manage to do it each and every day.

What about when the system gets it wrong? And it does get it wrong. Bit late to clear person x of whatever crime when you've shot them. I mean you would have shot that mother who was put in prison for suposedly murdering her child, and they found over a decade later that the 'science' used by the expert witness was b/s and it was infact cot death.

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What about when the system gets it wrong? And it does get it wrong. Bit late to clear person x of whatever crime when you've shot them.

it would be real difficult.

what happens now when people get it wrong?

you name gets cleared?

you get compensation?

does that in ANY way make up for being incarcarated for years?

Its a fact that the judicial system is not infallible

Its also a fact that you cannot make good to someone the time they spent in jail.

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I agree with Bibbs that they should be made to work.

Chain gang idea seems good to me - Get them doing really ****ty back breaking jobs, and crap jobs like cleaning sewers out when they get blocked.

I can see that killing someone as a punishment is hypocritical, but it can serve as a really good deterant to stop others following in the same footsteps. People need fear to stop them doing selfish things

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Bring back hanging and make it public  :thumbsup:

It's in my blood - my Great, great uncle was James Berry, Hangman under Queen Victoria... :eek:

Agree with the above statements on prisons.

Prisoners get the easy life in prisons these days. People can commit a crime, "just" to get a bed and a roof over their heads.

As for the death penalty, it's still in operation in the UK. However, the last one was in summit like 1954, and would only be bought into action today, for high treason, etc.

I wouldn't feel guilty condemning someone like tooky williams to death, knowing he had taken 4 innocent lives....

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Bring back hanging and make it public  :thumbsup:

It's in my blood - my Great, great uncle was James Berry, Hangman under Queen Victoria... :eek:

Agree with the above statements on prisons.

Prisoners get the easy life in prisons these days. People can commit a crime, "just" to get a bed and a roof over their heads.

As for the death penalty, it's still in operation in the UK. However, the last one was in summit like 1954, and would only be bought into action today, for high treason, etc.

I wouldn't feel guilty condemning someone like tooky williams to death, knowing he had taken 4 innocent lives....

Wasn't there something in the news last year about them officially dropping the death penalty for high treason??

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