A decent argument for getting rid of the death penalty

[LSN80]

Not that I'm suggesting the states who have it do, as I have mixed feelings on it. Further, I'd like to try and avoid turning this into a case of arguing for and against. However, it would be foolish of me to say that those still unsure but closer to the line of saying "Let's abolish it", the case of former death row inmate Glenn Ford would likely push them over that proverbial stick.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/us/louisiana-glenn-ford-freed/index.html?hpt=ju_c1

Glenn Ford walked onto Death Row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana when he was 34 years old in 1984, and after spending the longest time on Death Row in the history of the state of Lousiana, he walks off 30 years later at the age of 64. Ford was convicted in the 1983 slaying of Isadore Rozeman, a shop-owner who was closing up. It seemed to be a robbery gone wrong, which usually wouldn't afford someone the death penalty, but the brutal nature of the killing put Glenn Ford there.

It's a shame that Glenn Ford lost 30 years of his life when newly discovered-and irrefutable- evidence proved what Ford had been saying all along. He had never been at the scene. Due to that, I've been trying my best to find court documents showing how he was proved beyond a reasonable doubt to have been there. Was he a colleague/enemy of Rozeman? Did he have a previous record? What was the conclusive evidence that put him away. None of these answers seem readily available, and for me, that's not good enough. If they want the public to accept the Death Penalty in their state and why these certain people are put there, I want to know why. I recently read a book about a former baseball prospect for the Oakland A's and New York Yankees named Ron Washington who was considered "can't miss", but never made it to the big leagues. He had been in the same bar as a woman who had been raped and murdered that evening. There was no physical evidence, and Washington only had a few disorderly conduct/public intoxication arrests on his record, but he was charged, convicted, sentenced to death. 25 years later, on death row in Texas, he was exonerated, but he was never the same. He had developed a severe mental illness, and never recovered.

Glenn Ford seems to have fared better, fortunately, but he commented on his family after being released:

"My sons -- when I left -- was babies. Now they grown men with babies."

It's hard enough, I imagine, to miss out on the childhoods and growth of your family after being incarcerated for something you did do, but it's almost unfathomable to miss out on it due to something you didn't do. Ford was also asked if he was bitter or harbored any resentment towards the state or prosecution. Ford answered:

"Yeah, because I was locked up almost 30 years for something I didn't do. Thirty years of my life, if not all of it. I can't go back."

Ford went to jail in the prime of his life, to death row, where the conditions are worst. He lost his best years, and is leaving a jail essentially a senior citizen. I'm three years younger than Ford was when he went to prison, and despite some minor health issues, I consider myself to be in the prime of my life. I can't imagine losing my freedom at this age, the best times of my life, to go to one of the worst places on earth, only to emerge essentially an old man. I imagine I would be more then resentful, I would likely want payback.

The only thing that would stop me would be likely be going back.

I want to talk about the personal nature of this, rather then discussing the death row aspect of it. You're free to discuss it as you see fit, but I'd like to focus on this aspect.

Many death row inmates who were later released spoke about wanting to commit suicide, and the suicides they saw committed by people while on death row. If you were on death row for something you didn't do, with what appeared to be no way to be released, would suicide be a viable option for you? Why or why not?

Personally, I couldn't commit suicide, no matter how badly things got for me. My wife could visit me only to announce her divorce and then get married by the prison chaplain to my best friend, and I still couldn't do it. I have conflicts about what I believe, but I was raised in a deeply Christian home, where suicide was considered a one-way ticket to hell. I still believe in most aspects of my childhood faith, and fear of not only living in hell on earth but hell in the afterlife would be too much to bear.

Ron Washington, the man from Texas who was released after 25 years on Death Row, spoke about religion on Death Row. He said the trend he saw was those who came in religious lost their religion, while those who came in as a non-believer more then not became one.

If you're a religious person, do you imagine bitterness and almost inhumane conditions would cause you to lose your faith? If you weren't religious and you're only chance for a better life was in the afterlife, do you think you would become religious?

Washington sued the state and won over $200,000 for his troubles, but he never truly recovered from his ordeals, took no care of himself, and died of painful throat cancer.

If you spent 25-30 years on death row for something you didn't do, would money be enough? Would anything be enough? What would you try to do with your remaining years upon release?

Any other thoughts or discussion, even on the death penalty itself, are welcomed. The questions are just there for possible discussion, they're not issues you have to discuss.

 

[klunderbunker]

This is indeed a good example for why the death penalty shouldn't exist. Let's say Ford or Washington had been executed almost immediately (sidebar: I'm not a lawyer, but I refuse to believe that it takes THIRTY YEARS to get someone through the legal system and execute them. It's a waste of time and money and tortures the person waiting. Either kill them or don't kill them, but don't waste that much time thinking about it. It shouldn't take more than three years at most) and then found to be innocent, what do you do? How big of a check do you write to the families to make up for it? How much is an innocent man's life worth?

These men lost their lives in the prison and there's really no way around it. They probably don't have any way to pay for retirement. Employers probably aren't going to hire men in their early 60s who have this many legal issues on their records even if they've been removed. Yeah the state gave Washington $200,000 for his troubles. That's $200,000 for 25 years, or $8000 a year, good for $153 a week. They ruined this man's life with their mistake and the best he can get is pay on the scale of a minimum wage job.

I'm not saying you can't lock him up, but to have someone sit there for 25-30 years wondering if today is the day they're marched down a hall and poisoned to death is inhumane. Lock them up and tell them that they're going to be able to live out the rest of their days. Heck maybe there's even a chance of parole. Don't take away their hope as well as their lives though as it's not right, no matter what they may or may not have done.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Either kill them or don't kill them, but don't waste that much time thinking about it.

I'd agree with that; in fact, I'd even offer the convict the option of either spending "x" years locked up or being given a quick, painless way of dying: one without a group of people who attend your execution and seemingly get off by watching you die. If the convict doesn't want to take that option, he can wait it out and hope.....or not hope; just go on living until they either execute or release him.

Is 30 years in prison a horrible way to exist? No doubt, yes, especially if you're truly innocent of the crime. The problem is that the innocent and guilty all say the same things, don't they? ("I didn't do it.") The system is going to get it wrong some of the time, especially since so much of our legal process involves obscuring the truth instead of trying to find it, and there will always be examples like Ford for anti-death penalty folks to point at.

Until they can come up with a foolproof way of telling if someone is lying.....which they someday will.... I say they keep the death penalty for people who cause the death of others.......but move things along. If you're going to kill the guy, do it......and if you're not, then take him off Death Row.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

I agree that making a person wait 30 years essentially to die is extremely cruel and inhumane, in this case I guess you could argue that it was a good thing it took that long in this case but overall they should just make a decision and get it over with, no reason to cause the convicted that much mental anguish not to mention how much money is wasted for doing such a thing.

Onto Glenn Ford specifically though, there's no nice way to say he got screwed out of his life, it's that simple. He lost 30 years of his life because of a police screw up and all he gets is $200,000 for his troubles, they could at least set the guy up financially for life after putting him away for 30 years in absolute shit living conditions because they fucked up. I get screw up's will happen from time to time, its unfair to expect the law will get it right every time but if they do get it wrong they can do a hell of a lot better to make it up, especially in a case like this.

In regards to the questions I could never commit suicide, I don't think I could ever justify doing so. I'm not religious so it's not a hell thing for me, its just a I could never see myself throwing in the towel like that thing for me, no matter what I may have been going through at the time, I couldn't see myself doing that.

I could certainly see a person becoming religious, or losing their faith through this depending on what side of the fence they are on. Naturally getting thrown in prison for a good chunk of your life is gonna change your perspective on some things. In my case I doubt I would become religious. Although its easier said than done all you could do at that point is make the most of all the time you've lost and try and move forward, even though it may be too much for someone to get over.

Nothing would ever make up for spending 30 years in jail, nothing. At the point of getting released there's only so much the government could do to make it up to you until they invent time travel. I think setting the innocent up financially for life would be a good start since they've essentially taken away the person's ability to provide for himself, even if the person was young when getting arrested they essentially have to start over when they get out and at a great disadvantage as well. They should provide psychiatric help for the person getting arrested in order to help them through a huge change like this. If they only took lets say 3 months from someone then just set the person up to where they were before they got arrested (as much as they can at least) but if they ruin years of a persons life they can at least set up the person to have a good quality of life for the rest of their days.

 

[Akhilleus]

Interestingly enough I'm in the process of preparing to give a persuasive speech on why capital punishment should be abolished in all states, so I'm pretty polished on this specific topic at the moment. I won't talk now about the points regarding cost or moral ethics, but one of the big points in my speech is based around the wrong convictions and the innocent people who were released from death row decades later, or worse executed then found innocent.

Of course thankfully that happens slightly less often now due to the improvement on DNA research, but it still happens. Freddie Lee Pitts, a former death row inmate who was then released after being found innocent, once said "You can release a man from prison, but you can't release him from the grave". This is more true than you could imagine, and what he's saying is you can't make those mistakes. That's an innocent man's life, and in my opinion I would rather have a hundred guilty man get off free than have one innocent man lose his right to live or even his right to freedom. Someone once told me that the average time someone spends on death row is 19 years, and how that is more than enough time to find if someone is innocent or not. But like this thread states is whether it's 30 years, 19 years, or even 1 year. That innocent man's life will never be the same, and the longer he's kept in prison the longer his life shatters into pieces.

Answering the questions. I first of all would never commit suicide. I believe that suicide is for the absolute weak. It's an easy way out, and I frown upon it more than anything. There is always a better alternative to taking your own life, and in those situations you just have to have hope...hope for something. I was raised in a Catholic family, but I did actually go through a situation, actually somewhat related to the topic itself, and I will admit I did lose my faith. I was at a very young age, and so half of it had to do with me simply becoming more open minded and logical, but none the less it was a leading factor in myself becoming agnostic. I still feel that way today, and I doubt I'll ever fully believe in religion. However while I don't commit to all the ideas, I do hope at least for an afterlife, because if there isn't I can't imagine what it would be like. It still makes me wonder how we're here, and how it all started, because I don't specifically believe there wasn't anything before the big bang either. If I spent that long on death row, nothing would ever be enough. My entire life, my entire career goals will have vanished in an instant. Even if I was eighteen years old at the time, I would be nearly fifty by the time I got out. Fifty! The average life expectancy of a man is 76 years old. That leaves me only sixteen more years. I couldn't have a career, I couldn't have a life. I wouldn't have much of a family as I only live with my Grandma, and she'd have been gone long before I got out. Not to mention I wouldn't have been able to attend the funeral. Still going by if I was 18 it isn't like I would have a wife or a family to return to either. Not to many friends would have remember me either. I would be all alone, no family, no career, no house. Nothing. So no I can't think of anything that would make up for my entire life being taken away from me. I won't even go into how hard it would be to adjust to civillian life. Some innocent people who were released had actually turned to crime, just to get back in jail because they couldn't adjust.

Everyone knows the justice system is flawed, but if you can fix it why not? Like I said is the life of one innocent man worth more than punishing the guilty? Most guilty inmates on death row actually want to die. Making them rot away for life in prison would be much more sufferable. While I don't think most guilty inmates on death row could be rehabilitated at that point, I still think there are better solutions. The resources they use to support capital punishment divert from much better alternatives such as prevent crime in the first place, or providing support for the families.

Glen Ford is one of the best examples of why the death penalty needs to be abolished, and I actually might work his story into my speech next Tuesday. The thing that people need to realize is, this could happen to everyone. It could happen to your friend, your professor, or even you. All it takes is being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. That is the scary thing.

 

[enviousdominous]

I think that sometimes we look at crime and punishment as a modernized machine that rarely makes a mistake because of how logically advanced we assume our methods are.

In this particular case, I'm of the opinion that the investigators became personally involved with the idea of getting a monster off the streets. Sometimes when we look for evil, we see it everywhere except in our own hearts. Human intuition is a delusion and I think that the case of Glenn Ford is indicative of that.

I would argue that while the process to determine who is worthy of capital punishment is obviously flawed, it shouldn't be abolished for being flawed.

I don't indulge in rage or revenge, I just think that I can recognize when a mind has gone so far into the realm of the unthinkable that life in prison is hardly an effective alternative to life in society. When you have an individual like Josh Komisarjevsky or Linwood Briley, you have someone who is the type of evil that Hell doesn't have room for. Believe it or not, there is a line that dictates whether or not someone deserves to die. For all of us, its positioning varies. Society may not be able to be consistent with it's expectations of the populace, but if presented with the examples of the two men I mentioned I doubt that there's a single person who would think that they're worthy of forgiveness in any form. Sometimes death is the most humane way to deal with an individual.

 

[Remix]

This is indeed a good example for why the death penalty shouldn't exist. Let's say Ford or Washington had been executed almost immediately (sidebar: I'm not a lawyer, but I refuse to believe that it takes THIRTY YEARS to get someone through the legal system and execute them. It's a waste of time and money and tortures the person waiting. Either kill them or don't kill them, but don't waste that much time thinking about it. It shouldn't take more than three years at most) and then found to be innocent, what do you do? How big of a check do you write to the families to make up for it? How much is an innocent man's life worth?

Then you are refusing to believe the truth. In 2010, the average time between sentencing and execution was 178 months, or close to 15 years. That figure has been trending upwards since the early 80s at a rate of roughly 4 more months per year, so it's probably more like 17 years now. Someone sitting on death row for 30 years is rare, but it's not that rare, especially in a state like Louisiana which does not execute many people per year. For the record, Glen was on death row for 13 years fewer than Gary Alvord, who died in 2013... of a brain tumour.

These men lost their lives in the prison and there's really no way around it. They probably don't have any way to pay for retirement. Employers probably aren't going to hire men in their early 60s who have this many legal issues on their records even if they've been removed. Yeah the state gave Washington $200,000 for his troubles. That's $200,000 for 25 years, or $8000 a year, good for $153 a week. They ruined this man's life with their mistake and the best he can get is pay on the scale of a minimum wage job.

Losing your life on Death Row is its only point. It's not a punishment (you don't learn anything in a grave), it's not a deterrent (homicide rates don't significantly change when capital punishment is enacted or removed), it's not cheaper than housing and feeding a prisoner who has been given a life sentence (it's three times more expensive).

However, it's not the execution that'll do it. In fact, executions are only the third most common cause of death on Death Row. First place is natural causes, and second is suicide. Neither are surprising, given that locking someone up for 17 years in shit conditions never knowing if their next meal will be their last meal will not do wonders for their health: mental or physical.

 

[klunderbunker]

Then you are refusing to believe the truth. In 2010, the average time between sentencing and execution was 178 months, or close to 15 years. That figure has been trending upwards since the early 80s at a rate of roughly 4 more months per year, so it's probably more like 17 years now. Someone sitting on death row for 30 years is rare, but it's not that rare, especially in a state like Louisiana which does not execute many people per year. For the record, Glen was on death row for 13 years fewer than Gary Alvord, who died in 2013... of a brain tumour.

There's absolutely no reason this should be the case. I'm positive that could be sped up. Like I said, either execute them or not, but don't make them wait that long. Either execute more people a year, or find faster ways to do it. Like a guillotine or a bullet to the back of the head perhaps.

Losing your life on Death Row is its only point. It's not a punishment (you don't learn anything in a grave), it's not a deterrent (homicide rates don't significantly change when capital punishment is enacted or removed), it's not cheaper than housing and feeding a prisoner who has been given a life sentence (it's three times more expensive).

However, it's not the execution that'll do it. In fact, executions are only the third most common cause of death on Death Row. First place is natural causes, and second is suicide. Neither are surprising, given that locking someone up for 17 years in shit conditions never knowing if their next meal will be their last meal will not do wonders for their health: mental or physical.

Like I said, it's undue torture. Either kill them or tell them that they're living the rest of their lives in this cell. Don't put them through something like that and save the taxpayers some cash at the same time.

 

[Remix]

There's absolutely no reason this should be the case. I'm positive that could be sped up. Like I said, either execute them or not, but don't make them wait that long. Either execute more people a year, or find faster ways to do it. Like a guillotine or a bullet to the back of the head perhaps.

The method of execution isn't the problem. Well, it's a problem (due to issues sourcing the chemicals used last year), but in the grand scheme of things, it's not a major issue. The thing that causes delays is the appeals process, which unless you think people should lose their right to appeal when sentenced to death, or after X years (bad idea) that is not really possible.

 

[klunderbunker]

The method of execution isn't the problem. Well, it's a problem (due to issues sourcing the chemicals used last year), but in the grand scheme of things, it's not a major issue. The thing that causes delays is the appeals process, which unless you think people should lose their right to appeal when sentenced to death, or after X years (bad idea) that is not really possible.

That's what I was getting at. To clarify, I'm not saying there should be fewer appeals because someone should have every chance possible to get out of death row.

However, there is no way it should take thirty years to go through all of the appeals. Speed the system up. Open more courts, hire more judges, stop delaying hearings and appeals so often. It defies logic that a person can be going through an appeals process for longer than I've been alive to find out if they can get out of being killed for a crime.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

Too tired to cover all the issues and questions so I'll just give my canned answer about the death penalty. Death may be awesome, prison most likely sucks. I'd hate to condemn someone to something where I have no idea what is like and then find out what a favor I did for the guy that ate a family after I die. Seems counterintuitive.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

The possibility of putting someone to death that's innocent of the crime or crimes they were convicted of has always been a rock solid argument against the death penalty. The system isn't perfect and Glenn Ford is the latest in a long line of examples proving just that.

The sad truth of it is that there's almost certainly been innocent men who've been executed. According to a report I read last month, approximately 1,369 people have been executed in the United States since 1976. More than a third of them, 510, have been in Texas, which is more than the other top 6 states combined. For is one of the few who've had their executions stayed and convictions overturned due to the discovery of new evidence.

The problem is that not everyone is so lucky and it's a fact that over 70% of successful prosecutions are done with almost entirely circumstantial evidence. There's also the fact that the wheels of the system spin very, very slowly and evidence that could determine guilt or innocence may or may not be used at a trial. While criminal attorneys, both prosecutors and defense attorneys, often get blamed for the various hang ups of the system, it's really the judges that are to blame. For instance, ever hear of the Twinkie defense? Look it up on Wikipedia as it's a perfect example of a judge allowing a ridiculous defense to a murder charge. Because of that, a prescadent was set and there's where all these various loopholes and technicalities come from.

At any rate, judges will sometimes not allow evidence to be presented if he/she feels that the evidence is immaterial or wasn't gathered properly. For instance, maybe the search warrant wasn't signed EXACTLY as it should have been. Or the search warrant covered only a specific area and the evidence was discovered to be just outside the range of that specific area. In a case where someone's life is in the balance, literally, there are so many times in which there aren't any certainties or even hard evidence to convict them. They can be squeezed to fit with the parameters and circumstances of the case, which is even more scary because that can happen to anybody.

There's also political motivations to consider. Some District Attorneys and judges run on pro death penalty campaigns; they want to show voters that they're tough on crime and a case like poor Glenn Ford would be a prime example of a DA or judge trying to use a person's life to further their political ambitions.

If I was on death row convicted of a crime I didn't commit, I wouldn't take my own life. Partially it's because of my own religious beliefs and it's partially because that would be the same as admitting I was guilty. I'm not saying that applies to everyone, it's just how I'd see it as it applies to me. I'd maintain my innocence even if nobody in the system believed me, because I'd know the truth as would God.

As it pertains to whether being convicted would shake my religious beliefs, I'm sure there'd be times that I'd have doubts. I'm as human as anybody else, meaning I've got faults. Sometimes, good people suffer in life and we don't understand why. Is it all just a cosmic joke? Is it all just by accident? Is there a plan behind it? I can't say as much greater men & women than me have asked the same question since time immemorial. I'm far from perfect, but if my faith is all that I had left, then I wouldn't throw it away. Whether or not a court of law believed me, I could show the prison personnel that I was innocent based on my own behavior and actions in prison. If I was condemned and executed, I'd go with a satisfied mind if I knew that one person believed me innocent.

If I was convicted and released after decades of imprisonment, I honestly don't know how I might see things. Glenn Ford lost, almost literally, half his life to the system. He's a 64 year old grandfather who sat in prison for 3 decades proclaiming his innocence while waiting to die. I can't imagne the sort of toll that'd take and I hope I never have to try to imagine it. No amount of money, no amount of apologies can return to him the time he's lost. The one consolation is that he's now an innocent man and the world knows it. It's not enough for him and I can't blame him one bit.

In my case, I'm sure there'd be some bitterness on my part. As I said, I'm far from perfect, but I'd try my best to overcome that. As to how I'd spend my remaining years, aside from actually catching up on life, I'd do whatever I could to protest the death penalty. When it comes to the death penalty, I believe the evidence needs to be as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. A person's life shouldn't be decided based on loopholes, technicalities or political motivation; but rather it should be decided by irrefutable evidence. If the DA's office can't find any, then they shouldn't be so arrogant as to try to put someone to death because they can fit someone into a set of circumstances.

Sorry for the sermon. As a corrections officer, I've seen people who, in my opinion, shouldn't have been incarcerated. Sometimes because there wasn't any credible evidence against them and sometimes because their crimes didn't warrant the severity of their punishment. Pisses me off to no end to see people's lives treated with trivial disdain.