The morally emasculated: Death for Death Penalty Opponents

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vern humphrey:
And now people who think they know better – without ever setting foot inside a prison – want to increase the danger Corrections Officers face…
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So if we execute everyone on death row, how much less dangerous will prison be for corrections officers? Vern, you know that prison is dangerous regardless of the presence of capital offenders. Guards and other prisons get hurt every day.

Violence in prison can be dealt with apart from the death penalty. Are you saying that is really is no other solution than the death penalty? What if we increased funding and resources for prisons, reduced overcrowding, and hired more staff as an alternative to putting people to death?
vern humphrey:
I The problem is that a man who has murdered twice, and received two life sentences without parole has no reason not to murder again, if he can only receive another life sentence.
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I agree that the incentives set up are difficult. But there are other deterrents besides the death penalty.
vern humphrey:
I I agree that you have the right to callously dismiss the dangers Corrections Officers face. I don’t agree that you are right when you do it.
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I haven’t callously dismissed anything. If you want to debate, let’s be fair to each other. I would assume since we are both on this Catholic board that we both have concern for people’s safety. I understand the dangers corrections officers knowingly face when they go into work each day. We should all support giving them the money and resources they need to do their job more safely. Taking life is not the answer in almost all cases.
vern humphrey:
I How do you think I have the facts of the Silverstein case at my fingertips?

Are you suggesting that you, who never heard of Tommy Silverstein until I mentioned him, know more about him and his case than I do?

Have you made an investigation into my expertise in prisons?

(I was part of a team that did work on this case under contract to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.)
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I can be more clear in what I meant. By facts, I meant adjudicative facts that went into the trial or plea - the nitty gritty fact-finding.

If you are very familiar with the case, is there really nothing that could have been done to prevent Silverstein from killing? Were no mistakes made by the prison officials? Could any policy changes have prevented him from killing?
vern humphrey:
I And do away with trials, judges and juries?
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Trials, judges, and juries are exactly what I meant by the word PROCEDURE. Since sentencing is bifurcated from the guilt phase of the trial, I am suggesting that the legislatures require inquiries into alternative penal arrangements to conclude that the death penalty is absolutely necessary during the sentencing phase.

Vern, all I am arguing for is that the state act consistently with our Church’s ethic of life. According to the Church’s teachings, the state has a moral obligation to show that the death penalty really is necessary. This isn’t part of process now. I am also arguing that we have an obligation to give our corrections officers the budget and resources they need to do their job safely so that we do not need in any case to resort to the death penalty. We must avoid taking life at all costs.
 
vern humphrey:
Actually a lot of people are innocent – they are the victims of crimes.

Locking up a murderer is an experiment – when he kills again, you know the experiment failed.
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I admit to a gross overgeneralization. I really should stay away from this particular topic…I get too emotional.

Most of the ‘innocent’ people who are taken off of death row are guilty of a multitude of lesser crimes. Very few are truly innocent.

IF the prison system wasn’t such a freakin joke, I might not be so pro-death penalty. As it is, our prison system helps no one. Not the victims, not the public, and not the criminal. As it stands, our prisons are training grounds for career criminals. Those that go in, come out worse than they started.

Prisons should be like Hell on earth. Not ‘three hots & a cot’ as my dear mother used to say…
 
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ansel123:
So if we execute everyone on death row, how much less dangerous will prison be for corrections officers? Vern, you know that prison is dangerous regardless of the presence of capital offenders. Guards and other prisons get hurt every day.

Violence in prison can be dealt with apart from the death penalty. Are you saying that is really is no other solution than the death penalty? What if we increased funding and resources for prisons, reduced overcrowding, and hired more staff as an alternative to putting people to death?

I agree that the incentives set up are difficult. But there are other deterrents besides the death penalty.

I haven’t callously dismissed anything. If you want to debate, let’s be fair to each other. I understand the dangers corrections officers knowingly face when they go into work each day. We should all support giving them the money and resources they need to do their job more safely. Taking life is not the answer in almost all cases.

I can be more clear in what I meant. By facts, I meant adjudicative facts that went into the trial or plea - the nitty gritty fact-finding.

If you are very familiar with the case, is there really nothing that could have been done to prevent Silverstein from killing? Were no mistakes made by the prison officials? Could any policy changes have prevented him from killing?

Trials, judges, and juries are exactly what I meant by the word PROCEDURE. Since sentencing is bifurcated from the guilt phase of the trial, I am suggesting that the legislatures require inquiries into alternative penal arrangements to conclude that the death penalty is absolutely necessary during the sentencing phase.

Vern, all I am arguing for is that the state act consistently with our Church’s ethic of life. According to the Church’s teachings, the state has a moral obligation to show that the death penalty really is necessary. This isn’t part of process now. I am also arguing that we have an obligation to give our corrections officers the budget and resources they need to do their job safely so that we do not need in any case to resort to the death penalty. We must avoid taking life at all costs.
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How about we give all the guards/workers an early retirement, lock the prison doors…and then burn the place down. Problem solved!
 
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Isidore_AK:
How about we give all the guards/workers an early retirement, lock the prison doors…and then burn the place down. Problem solved!
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Is that meant to be some kind of joke?
 
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animalluvr77:
Hey Vern, maybe you should volunteer to be the one who puts these people to death on a daily basis for about a year or two! And if there aren’t enough scheduled for each day you could always travel to each state that does need you to do it for them and then come back and let us know how you feel about it!!
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I was in the Army for 22 years, with a little over two tours in Viet Nam. I know what it is to kill a man.

But if we have someone like Tommy Silverstein, and no one else will do it, I’ll volunteer.
 
Life is God’s to give and God’s to take.

The death penalty is never warranted, in any case, ever. EVER!
 
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animalluvr77:
Hey Vern, maybe you should volunteer to be the one who puts these people to death on a daily basis for about a year or two! And if there aren’t enough scheduled for each day you could always travel to each state that does need you to do it for them and then come back and let us know how you feel about it!!
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And where pray tell is THIS happening? Daily basis? When people grossly overstate their argument they totally lose credibility.

Lisa N
 
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ansel123:
So if we execute everyone on death row, how much less dangerous will prison be for corrections officers? Vern, you know that prison is dangerous regardless of the presence of capital offenders…
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It would be a lot less dangerous if we consistently executed the stone killers like Tommy Sliverstein, and did it within a year or two of them committing crimes

Now you say this
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ansel123:
Guards and other prisons get hurt every day…
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And then you say this:
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ansel123:
I haven’t callously dismissed anything…
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ansel123:
If you want to debate, let’s be fair to each other. I would assume since we are both on this Catholic board that we both have concern for people’s safety. I understand the dangers corrections officers knowingly face when they go into work each day. We should all support giving them the money and resources they need to do their job more safely. Taking life is not the answer in almost all cases…
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How much money would you take to be Tommy Silverstein’s guard?
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ansel123:
If you are very familiar with the case, is there really nothing that could have been done to prevent Silverstein from killing? …
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He could have been executed after his first or second murder.
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ansel123:
Vern, all I am arguing for is that the state act consistently with our Church’s ethic of life. .
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So do I – but I suggest that we ought to first know what we’re talking about, and not assume in a lace-curtained living room we know what happens in prisons.
 
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ansel123:
The death penalty is not an issue Catholics can be on either side on. The CCC as well as EV and articles written by Cardinal Schoenborn (the director of the CCC) demonstrate that as practiced in the United States, the death penalty is morally wrong.

The CCC leaves open the theoretical possibility of the state carrying out a capital sentence. But the burden is on the state to show that there is no alternative. This analysis is not currently part of individual captial sentencing. Thus, as it stands, Catholics must be against the death penalty in the United States.

Catholics do not have to support a blanket ban on the death penalty, but as the CCC and I think EV state, the circumstances for imposing the death penalty approach non-existent. The right of the state to impose the death penalty is not absolute and as Catholics, we must fight to insure that life is respected and the state follows the severe restrictions set forth in the Church’s teachings.

Pro-life means pro-life across the board.
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This is your opinion and not the teaching of the Catholic Church as shown by the paragraph from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

You can not argue against an actual cite of a Magisteral Document with your personal opinion of what others say. Please provide the cites that say a Catholic may in no case support capital punishment.

As the Catechism says, there are cases were capital punishment could be applied. While those are very rare they still could exist.
 
Better to let a guilty man go free than to have your hands stained with the blood of the innocent.
 
Lisa N:
And where pray tell is THIS happening? Daily basis? When people grossly overstate their argument they totally lose credibility.

Lisa N
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That is why I said he could travel to where ever he needed to so that he could continue to carry out what he needed too, to get a view of what it would be like to put someone to death. I am not sure how often people are put to death! Once a week! However often they do it! I am sure he got my message though!
 
Eureka, I’ve got it. We isolate an island. Make sure it is absolutely impossible to escape from, and air drop in prisoners and supplies at regular intervals. With high tech technology, this should be a snap. What do you think? :whacky: Heck, we could make it international even. The prisoners would kill each other off faster than any penal system could. 😦
 
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animalluvr77:
That is why I said he could travel to where ever he needed to so that he could continue to carry out what he needed too, to get a view of what it would be like to put someone to death. I am not sure how often people are put to death! Once a week! However often they do it! I am sure he got my message though!
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No frankly, the message was that you aren’t willing to engage in a rational dialogue but would rather toss out ridiculous scenarios that don’t make any sense in the context of this discussion.

There just are not that many executions in the entire country so even suggesting that a person roam from state to state as the Grim Reaper is simply a ridiculous scenario. Our state has had the death penalty for the past TWENTY YEARS and we have executed exactly one person, who basically volunteered rather than appeal his case. We have a number of really horrible criminals in our state prison, including several serial murders, a school shooting perpetrator, a man who killed two women by cutting off their arms and letting them bleed to death. It’s not for lack of worthy contenders but the reality is that the death penalty simply is not a factor in today’s justice system. Anyone with a halfway competent attorney can keep appealing until he dies of old age.

Lisa N
 
Lisa N:
There just are not that many executions in the entire country so even suggesting that a person roam from state to state as the Grim Reaper is simply a ridiculous scenario. Our state has had the death penalty for the past TWENTY YEARS and we have executed exactly one person, who basically volunteered rather than appeal his case. We have a number of really horrible criminals in our state prison, including several serial murders, a school shooting perpetrator, a man who killed two women by cutting off their arms and letting them bleed to death. It’s not for lack of worthy contenders but the reality is that the death penalty simply is not a factor in today’s justice system. Anyone with a halfway competent attorney can keep appealing until he dies of old age.

Lisa N
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The great injustice of the death penalty is that it is used so seldom and after such a long delay.
 
Lisa N:
No frankly, the message was that you aren’t willing to engage in a rational dialogue but would rather toss out ridiculous scenarios that don’t make any sense in the context of this discussion.

There just are not that many executions in the entire country so even suggesting that a person roam from state to state as the Grim Reaper is simply a ridiculous scenario. Our state has had the death penalty for the past TWENTY YEARS and we have executed exactly one person, who basically volunteered rather than appeal his case. We have a number of really horrible criminals in our state prison, including several serial murders, a school shooting perpetrator, a man who killed two women by cutting off their arms and letting them bleed to death. It’s not for lack of worthy contenders but the reality is that the death penalty simply is not a factor in today’s justice system. Anyone with a halfway competent attorney can keep appealing until he dies of old age.

Lisa N
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Hold on, I was just throwing out some scenarios just as rediculous as he was. So maybe I was speaking down to his own level! I never wanted for you to jump down my throat! I am quite capable to have a discussion with anyone on this discussion as anyone else is, so please don’t prejudge me from just one comment.
 
Lisa N:
There just are not that many executions in the entire country so even suggesting that a person roam from state to state as the Grim Reaper is simply a ridiculous scenario. Our state has had the death penalty for the past TWENTY YEARS and we have executed exactly one person, who basically volunteered rather than appeal his case.
Lisa N
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Well, that is not the case everywhere. Just here in Ohio, we had @ 30 or so people executed last year alone. In Texas they had about 70-80. So you’ve already got at least 100 executions lined up for one year in just 2 states. That leaves less than 265 days to fill. After you go through 48 other states, you might have to start doubling up the executions per day. So, while you may think the example is outrageous, it may not be so off base afterall.
 
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legeorge:
Well, that is not the case everywhere. Just here in Ohio, we had @ 30 or so people executed last year alone. In Texas they had about 70-80. So you’ve already got at least 100 executions lined up for one year in just 2 states. That leaves less than 265 days to fill. After you go through 48 other states, you might have to start doubling up the executions per day. So, while you may think the example is outrageous, it may not be so off base afterall.
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Thank you for the back up!!
 
Capital punishment was abolished in Wisconsin 150 years ago.

And Wisconsin doesn’t seem to have the problems that the more backward states that still have capital punishment seem to have.
 
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