02-18-2015, 12:14 PM
Yeah, Holder has put forth two reasons to lobby against the death penalty, MS.
1. Cruel and unusual punishment resulting from the death-drug secrecy and the "botched" longer-than-expected execution of Lockett.
2. No human system/process is error-free and it's inevitable that innocent people will be put to death.
The first one doesn't move me. I understand why some people consider being put to death as punishment to be cruel. But, it defies logic, in my opinion, to insist that being injected with drugs as a means to facilitate that death is cruel (even if it takes 45 minutes for the prisoner to die). I see it as a comparatively merciful form of homicide.
As for the second reason for opposing the death penalty, there's no arguing Holder's point. Human judgment is sometimes flawed and too many errors have been made in handing down (and sometimes carrying out) the death penalty against people who were later exonerated. I agree with you MS in that the death penalty should only be in play when there is a validated confession to a capital crime, irrefutable physical evidence exists (like surveillance video of the crime, definitive DNA evidence against the suspect...), or the suspect is accused of committing multiple violent crimes and the combination of all physical, circumstantial, and witness testimony is overwhelming. But even then, the question of the criminal's mindset and motives can mitigate the punishment.
I don't oppose the death penalty for proven especially-cruel killers. But, the process of prosecution, endless appeals, decades on death row....is so burdensome and costly that I wouldn't be disappointed if it was used much more sparingly, abolished altogether, or put on moratorium until the entire process could be overhauled in states that still use it. I don't believe that the death penalty is a highly effective deterrent to violent crime, as it stands now.
1. Cruel and unusual punishment resulting from the death-drug secrecy and the "botched" longer-than-expected execution of Lockett.
2. No human system/process is error-free and it's inevitable that innocent people will be put to death.
The first one doesn't move me. I understand why some people consider being put to death as punishment to be cruel. But, it defies logic, in my opinion, to insist that being injected with drugs as a means to facilitate that death is cruel (even if it takes 45 minutes for the prisoner to die). I see it as a comparatively merciful form of homicide.
As for the second reason for opposing the death penalty, there's no arguing Holder's point. Human judgment is sometimes flawed and too many errors have been made in handing down (and sometimes carrying out) the death penalty against people who were later exonerated. I agree with you MS in that the death penalty should only be in play when there is a validated confession to a capital crime, irrefutable physical evidence exists (like surveillance video of the crime, definitive DNA evidence against the suspect...), or the suspect is accused of committing multiple violent crimes and the combination of all physical, circumstantial, and witness testimony is overwhelming. But even then, the question of the criminal's mindset and motives can mitigate the punishment.
I don't oppose the death penalty for proven especially-cruel killers. But, the process of prosecution, endless appeals, decades on death row....is so burdensome and costly that I wouldn't be disappointed if it was used much more sparingly, abolished altogether, or put on moratorium until the entire process could be overhauled in states that still use it. I don't believe that the death penalty is a highly effective deterrent to violent crime, as it stands now.