"You can not judge a society by the way it treats its rich. You judge a society on how it treats its prisoners." I tried but couldn't find the author.
You bloodthirsty fools amaze me. "if it was predetermined and there were fourteen witness and an uncoerced confession and premeditation and a lenghty police record and they had adequate legal counsel and were found guilty by a jury of their peers after the death penalty punishment was asked for without consideration of the race of the victim or culprit THEN the death penalty would be the right thing to do."
"If if if if..... then .........."
The problem is there are too many ifs, and there are way too many questions and gray areas in some of the capital punishment cases. Not all, but some.
If the death penalty were dealt out evenly across all races for all crimes, regardless of the race of the criminal or victim, regardless of how much celebrity one or the other enjoys, or how much one has to spend on an attorney, then that would improve the system. If we, as a nation would stop executing people for crimes they committed as a minor, then it would improve the system. If we'd stop executing retarded or otherwise mentally incapacitated prisoners, then the system would be improved. If a reasonableness standard would be applied regardless of the ordained appeal process to account for new evidence or confessions of others, then the system would be improved.
I can not support a system wrought with so many problems that kills on my behalf. It boggles my mind that so many otherwise decent and reasonable people find it acceptable that there have been so many executions carried out where there were unanswered questions and motives, or that it's just fine that some innocent people were put to death.
An aside: Festus, you speak of reasoned and mature answers, and then resort to petty antics. What music my daughter and I listen to has nothing to do with this topic. But did I mention that she also likes Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg? That really irks you, doesn't it? Ever heard of Tupac? That's next. I can play you like a fiddle.
