The morally emasculated: Death for Death Penalty Opponents

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GULaw:
That is, at least, a fair disagreement between us.
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I think so.
 
Lisa N:
Working toward abolishing the death penalty is better done in the light of day and NOT associated with perceived sympathy to a heinous crime. When someone stands around singing Kum Bay Ya it appears they sympathize with the killer not the victim.

…if Florida’s courts think an innocent disabled woman deserves to die, why not a child rapist/murder? There is something wrong with the whole picture.

Lisa N
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Lisa, I agree with you on both points. While I am against the death penalty I can see how these candle light vigils definitely send the wrong message. The intentions may be good- they want to pray for the soul of the person who is having his life taken away from him and show that they do not think capital punishment is right- but the appearance is that they are not sympathetic to the victim’s family. I do not think they are unaware of the atrocities faced by the victim’s family, in fact in some cases the victims family have been the loudest protestors against execution of the criminals. But there have to be better ways of handling it rather than holding hands and singing kum ba ya. 🙂

You are also right about the situation in FL, talk about hypocrisy. This is one of the reasons why I am pro-life across the board, regardless of who the person is (innocent baby, handicapped adult, or criminal).
 
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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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Quite honestly I’d like some confirmation of those figures. There are some states that don’t even have the death penalty. There are others like our state that has it but never uses it. I think the same can be said for Washington. More and more we see the really heinous crimes resulting in life without parole such as the recently convicted Green River Killer. I think he admitted to killing over FIFTY women. No death penalty for Gary Ridgeway though. Now if anyone deserved it, it was Gary Ridgeway. Not only did he often kill children, but he degraded the women, violated their corpses, and even killed a woman while his son slept in the back of his pickup truck. He has absolutely no regard for human life. But we’ll be supporting him for the rest of his sorry days.

I have a hard time believing that an execution is a common occurrance but again, maybe I’ve been living under a rock. Do you know how to find the statistics?

Lisa N
 
OK I love GOOGLE. I just found the figures:

ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/exe.htm

2004 a TOTAL of 59
2003 a TOTAL of 65

This is from the US Dept of Justice. There are currently 3374 prisoners on death row. Executions seemed to spike in the 30s and 40s with about 200 per year. Once it was legal again, the numbers grew to what looks like about 1999 then dropped gradually. The most look to be in the 30s-40s about 200 per year.

Sorry but that dog don’t hunt.

Lisa N
 
Lisa N:
Quite honestly I’d like some confirmation of those figures. There are some states that don’t even have the death penalty. There are others like our state that has it but never uses it. I think the same can be said for Washington. More and more we see the really heinous crimes resulting in life without parole such as the recently convicted Green River Killer. I think he admitted to killing over FIFTY women. No death penalty for Gary Ridgeway though. Now if anyone deserved it, it was Gary Ridgeway. Not only did he often kill children, but he degraded the women, violated their corpses, and even killed a woman while his son slept in the back of his pickup truck. He has absolutely no regard for human life. But we’ll be supporting him for the rest of his sorry days.

I have a hard time believing that an execution is a common occurrance but again, maybe I’ve been living under a rock. Do you know how to find the statistics?

Lisa N
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Executions in the United States:
**
**Number executed since **

State 1930 1977

Texas 633 336

Georgia 402 36

New York 329 0

California 302 10

North Carolina 297 34

Florida 229 59

South Carolina 194 32

Virginia 186 04

Ohio 187 16

Alabama 165 30

Louisiana 160 27

Mississippi 160 6

Pennsylvania 155 3

Arkansas 144 26

Missouri 123 61

Oklahoma 135 75

Kentucky 105 2

Illinois 102 12

Tennessee 94 1

New Jersey 74 0

Maryland 72 4

Arizona 60 22

Washington 51 4

Indiana 52 11

Colorado 48 1

District of Columbia 40 0

West Virginia 40 0

Nevada 41 11

Federal system 36 3

Massachusetts 27 0

Delaware 25 13

Oregon 21 2

Connecticut 21 0

Utah 19 6

Iowa 18 0

Kansas 15 0

New Mexico 9 1

Montana 8 2

Wyoming 8 1

Nebraska 7 3

Idaho 4 1

Vermont 4 0

New Hampshire 1 0

South Dakota 1 0

U.S. total 4,803 944

NOTE: 59 people were executed in 2004.

There were an additional 160 Military executions from 1930 to 1997
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I’m honestly torn about this. Ever time I almost find my way to agreeing with JPII and the bishops on this, some heinous murder is committed and I find myself thinking,“What if it had been my mother or my grandfather or my brothers?” When I lived in New Mexico, a teenage boy was murdered for his car and his Christmas shopping near Taos. Near Taos is the Taos Gorge Bridge, a span over a several hundred foot drop to the Rio Grande River. These men took him out and threw him, living, from the bridge. They themselves testified that he clung to their hands/the bridge, begging for his life. What the hey do you do with that in your mind?

I would point out, though, that the title of the thread “The Morally Emasculated: Death for Death Penalty Opponents” would also encompass our late Holy Father of happy memory. Surely no one would argue that he was “morally emasculated.”
 
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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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Hardly fair. You make it sound as though Vern’s position is “kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out!” He’s taking a position allowed by the Church, in Scripture, in Tradition, and in the Catechism promulgated by HH John Paul II, eternal light shine upon him. That was ByzCath’s point: Faithful Catholics can take either side on this, as the Holy Father made nothing binding on us. He left a infintissimal gap, but a gap nonetheless.
 
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JKirkLVNV:
I’m honestly torn about this. Ever time I almost find my way to agreeing with JPII and the bishops on this, some heinous murder is committed and I find myself thinking,“What if it had been my mother or my grandfather or my brothers?” When I lived in New Mexico, a teenage boy was murdered for his car and his Christmas shopping near Taos. Near Taos is the Taos Gorge Bridge, a span over a several hundred foot drop to the Rio Grande River. These men took him out and threw him, living, from the bridge. They themselves testified that he clung to their hands/the bridge, begging for his life. What the hey do you do with that in your mind?

I would point out, though, that the title of the thread “The Morally Emasculated: Death for Death Penalty Opponents” would also encompass our late Holy Father of happy memory. Surely no one would argue that he was “morally emasculated.”
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It is difficult because there are some who seem so very deserving of the death penalty. But I think we need to ask what do we want to achieve? Punishment? Justice? Retribution? Repentence? Reform? Protection of society?

I don’t see the retribution thing but that’s just my thought pattern. I do think that actually many murderers are reformable but then they still need to pay for their crime. So some kind of punishment is appropriate.

There was a very good article in First Things that discusssed the various applications and reasons for the death penalty. One of the interesting thoughts was regarding repentence. The author suggested that life imprisonment is far less likely to result in repentence than facing death. IOW no atheists in foxholes! But plenty standing fat, dumb and happy 😉 here in the US where they aren’t threatened…

Lisa N
 
Lisa N:
It is difficult because there are some who seem so very deserving of the death penalty.
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Just thinking aloud: Can a person, by some heinous action or, at the very least, repeated heinous actions, basically renege on any claim to be human? Like the individual that Vern cited? And in that instance, can America say, particularly to our old Holy Father,“Look, Holy Father, we tried. He did this in the midst of our trying. All due love and reverence to you, but he just resigned from the human race and we’re taking him out, so you might want to look the other way.”
 
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JKirkLVNV:
Just thinking aloud: Can a person, by some heinous action or, at the very least, repeated heinous actions, basically renege on any claim to be human? Like the individual that Vern cited? And in that instance, can America say, particularly to our old Holy Father,“Look, Holy Father, we tried. He did this in the midst of our trying. All due love and reverence to you, but he just resigned from the human race and we’re taking him out, so you might want to look the other way.”
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No, I don’t think so. A person is a person, regardless of his acts. No one can resign from the human race.

I think we CAN say “This act is so heinous that we must as a society cast out the person who did it and extract the ultimate penalty.”
 
vern humphrey:
No, I don’t think so. A person is a person, regardless of his acts. No one can resign from the human race.

I think we CAN say “This act is so heinous that we must as a society cast out the person who did it and extract the ultimate penalty.”
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Yes, well, as I said, just thinking aloud. I didn’t think it would get me very far.:o
 
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JKirkLVNV:
Hardly fair. You make it sound as though Vern’s position is “kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out!” He’s taking a position allowed by the Church, in Scripture, in Tradition, and in the Catechism promulgated by HH John Paul II, eternal light shine upon him. That was ByzCath’s point: Faithful Catholics can take either side on this, as the Holy Father made nothing binding on us. He left a infintissimal gap, but a gap nonetheless.
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You are misrepresenting the position Catholics can take. There are TWO options only. Catholics can be completely against the death penalty or we can support the death penalty in exceptional cases. With 3,500 people on death row, the U.S. is hardly sentencing people to death “rarely” as the Catechism requires. As I quoted and documented above, Pope Benedict (as Cardinal Ratzinger) said it would be** practically impossible** to impose the death penalty in the Western world using the objective criteria set out in the Catechism and in Evangelium Vitae. So there isn’t an acceptable diversity of positions - either you oppose it entirely or you oppose it in almost all cases, recognizing the possibility of an almost non-existent case where it can be imposed.

The “kill 'em all” position is contrary to the Church’s teaching and against the Church’s respect for life.
 
I can’t find it now, but I read this week that Texas is suspected of having executed the wrong man.

This is one of the worse things in the world, legal murder!

I pray for that judge and jury and executioner!
 
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ansel123:
You are misrepresenting the position Catholics can take. There are TWO options only. Catholics can be completely against the death penalty or they can support the death penalty in exceptional cases. With 3,500 people on death row, the U.S. is hardly sentencing people to death “rarely” as the Catechism requires. As I quoted and documented above, Pope Benedict (as Cardinal Ratzinger) said it would be** practically impossible** to impose the death penalty in the Western world using the objective criteria set out in the Catechism and in Evangelium Vitae. So there isn’t an acceptable diversity of positions - either you oppose it entirely or you oppose it in almost all cases, recognizing the possibility of an almost non-existent case where it can be imposed.

The “kill 'em all” position is contrary to the Church’s teaching and against the Church’s respect for life.
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Um, I’m not misrepresenting anything. I agree with what you said. I think you’re repeating what ByzCath said. My point was that Vern isn’t being quite as bloodthirsty as the poster I quoted seemed to make him out. The gap I spoke of can be seen in your (and our Pope’s) use of the word “practically.” That word qualifies “impossible.” I never advocated “kill 'em all.” My point was that Vern wasn’t advocating it, either.
 
James Cody:
I can’t find it now, but I read this week that Texas is suspected of having executed the wrong man.

This is one of the worse things in the world, legal murder!

I pray for that judge and jury and executioner!
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One thing I notice – we somehow miss a key point here.

Capital cases are the BEST justice we have. By that I mean that capital cases have special safeguards that ordinary criminal cases don’t. So if we are convicting a few innocent people in capital cases, and a few of these make it all the way through the appeals process and are excuted – it means the Emperor has no clothes!!

How many innocent people have been convicted as drug dealers, muggers, rapists?

If innocent people are being convicted and executed in this country, our moral obligaton is to thoroughly revamp the entire justice system – because in that case it does far more injustice at lesser sentences.
 
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JKirkLVNV:
Um, I’m not misrepresenting anything. I agree with what you said. I think you’re repeating what ByzCath said. My point was that Vern isn’t being quite as bloodthirsty as the poster I quoted seemed to make him out. The gap I spoke of can be seen in your (and our Pope’s) use of the word “practically.” That word qualifies “impossible.” I never advocated “kill 'em all.” My point was that Vern wasn’t advocating it, either.
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My apologies to you. I misread your post. Reading law review articles and posting don’t go well together in terms of paying enough attention.

I would say that Vern does seem to advocate the kill 'em all position. He doesn’t agree that the death penalty should be rare and he disagrees with the Church that the Western prison system provides an adequate alternative to the death penalty in the form of life without parole.
 
vern humphrey:
One thing I notice – we somehow miss a key point here.

Capital cases are the BEST justice we have. By that I mean that capital cases have special safeguards that ordinary criminal cases don’t. So if we are convicting a few innocent people in capital cases, and a few of these make it all the way through the appeals process and are excuted – it means the Emperor has no clothes!!
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No. It means the legal system doesn’t work. The American Judicial System is a broken system, and cannot be trusted.
How many innocent people have been convicted as drug dealers, muggers, rapists?
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Let’s see now, Massachusetts has the second highest rate of false conviction and wrongful incarceration in the nation. Way too many people are being found guilty for crimes they did not commit. There are 3 million Americans behind bars, not all of them committed a crime. That is totally unacceptable. The American Judiciary is a danger to all U.S. citizens!
If innocent people are being convicted and executed in this country, our moral obligaton is to thoroughly revamp the entire justice system – because in that case it does far more injustice at lesser sentences.
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Our moral obligation is to remove the justice system, not revamp it. The justice system is a dysfunctional system no matter how much revamping or reforms take place. From the 1692 Salem witch trials to Sacco & Vanzetti the American legal system is a danger to the safety of U.S. citizens and a danger to democracy.
 
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ansel123:
I would say that Vern does seem to advocate the kill 'em all position. He doesn’t agree that the death penalty should be rare and he disagrees with the Church that the Western prison system provides an adequate alternative to the death penalty in the form of life without parole.
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In that case, you slander me.

My position that that dealing with the most violent criminals is not so easy as those sitting at home, sipping brandy before the fire think. We must recognize that we put human lives at risk when we fail to deal with the violent effectively – and simply turning our heads is no solution.
 
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ansel123:
He doesn’t agree that the death penalty should be rare and he disagrees with the Church that the Western prison system provides an adequate alternative to the death penalty in the form of life without parole.
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While I can agree with the criteria laid out in the CCC and EV that the death penalty should be rare, I do believe that those in the Church who would state that the Western prison systems are an adequate alternative are correct. The Catechism lays the burden of protecting the citizenry, and thus the responsibility for making proper decisions, on the secular government.

This is the same issue when implementing a just war theory. The Church lays out the moral principles and does so authoritatively. It does not provide police protection or scientific analysis. I was unaware that the Church had a criminology department (however, I would not be surprised if they did).
 
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