What should be eligible for the death penalty?

[Lilred]

Well..here goes...
I reckon I aint very good at explainin..so I'll start here:
IMHO, there is 3 kinds of rape.
1. There is rape, where it happens, unprovoked and fer no reason whatsoever but ..well..you know.
2. There is what I like to call..the bait & switch kinda rape. That's where..fer example..there is a very promiscious woman at a party somewheres hangin round with a bad crowd and knowin it..and baits men all night but turnin em down until...eventually..the unfortunate happens.
3. This here is what I call the screamer..who fer whatever reason wound up in bed with some man..and either outta guilt, money, fame er whatever..just hollers rape when there wont no real rape.

So, as you can tell..there are few women I truly feel sorry fer when it comes to that kinda thing. Most, in my opinion, ask fer it...however..I do truly feel sorrow fer women who are unfortunate enough to have somethin like that happen to em...fer no reason at all. it truly is a terrible thing, and I could only imagine how terrible it would make a person feel.
Which in turn, leads me to that there article fabs posted. First off...a man be raped??? That article had nuthin to do with that fool gittin raped, he was screwed maybe, but not raped. It riles me up that somebody writin that piss poor article would even confuse the werds..it aint funny. And wether anybody likes it er not..a man is a man, and is designed to be just that. procreate. that's his job..and a man knows it...and aint no man gonna play baseball without the bat iffin ya git my drift.
A man can be screwed..but not raped.

Now, on to the death penalty..as fer as time travel and clonin..man is his own demise..and a man's only enemy on this earth is his own race..the human bein as we know it. We (and iffin it aint in our lifetime..they) will blow the human race to smithereens some which a way er another.

Death penalties should be w/o question: murder, anything bad done to an innocent child i.e molestin, rape, murder..that sorta thing, and I would like to say rape. But..that's a grey area imho..cause, the burden of proof is just that.
Death penalties should be swift. Hate wastin tax dollars feedin the tater plants fertilizer when you'll never git a tater one out of em...

[fabsroman]

I would gladly pull the trigger on the crime the Val set forth.

Don't know about the one posted by you Andy. I guess I would need more detail as to exactly what happened and how the state defines sodomy. Sometimes, sodomy is merely an inappropriate touching and the victim can be fully clothed. It just depdens on exactly what the details are. He obviously didn't have sex with the girl or they would be charging him with statutory rape.

How about the female teachers in schools that actually have sex with the young boys? Should they receive the death penalty? That is actually statutory rape!!!!!! Remember, we live in a society that believes what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and vice versa, or does society view boys and men being raped as less of a tragedy than girls and men.

Is it harder for society to put a woman to death for a crime she committed than it is to put a man to death?

[Valigator]

I might have failed to mention in my post above that the child Bobbi Jo was only 2 years old........

that case hit the core of me like nothin else ever did...not a night goes by that I dont think of her....and as long as there are people out there who come up from from what ever hell they rise from.....and do these things to kids...I will be an avid death penalty advocate and a sex offenders worst nightmare....

[Andy L]

Well, I dont know if I should define sodomy on a family board, but will say its two different kinds of sexual activity that is not stadard, can be either one. Since statutory hasnt been filed ,yet, this county could do it later, they do that alot, I figger its the other type.

Fabs, you might feel a bit differently if it was your 14yr old (thats what I was told at the jail) daughter that was sodomized by a 25 yr old teacher. A person that we all trust our children to not only teach but to not have to worry about them being with them. I happen to know the folks involved in a roundabout way. I can only imagine how the girls father feels. I do imagine that he would agree that the death penalty isnt too much.

And, I dont care if the girl did have a mutual feeling. Thats just something that a 25 yr old, educator no less, should have enough in him to resist and put a stop to before it starts.

Again, this is just my opinon, but I know if something like that happened to one of my kids, there is a good chance I could end up on death row under my own rules.



Andy

[fabsroman]

"I do imagine that he would agree that the death penalty isn't too much."

Andy,

The problem with the death penalty is that it is the ultimate penalty, and there is no correcting it once you find out that it was the wrong penalty. I think we have had this discussion before on this forum about how over 40 inmates were on death row in Illinois and through DNA testing the state was able to figure out that they weren't guilty. As I stated back then, I believe that the death penalty is warranted in some situations, but not all, and whether or not the sexual conduct warrants it depends on the degree. Maryland has 4 degrees of sexual crimes, with the 4th degree being a sexual touching. The word sodomy is used very loosely in many different circumstances, so I tend to not go by it. To elaborate more about this would go a little too far on this board.

If my 14 year old daughter were the victim, I would definitely want to kill the person. Heck, if my daughter were killed in a car ACCIDENT, I would want to kill the other driver, or in the alternative, if she were a passenger, I would want to kill all drivers involved. If my 14 year old daughter were punched in the face by some punk, I would want him dead.

That is the good thing about our society, they don't allow the victim to make that decision. Otherwise, people would be dying for a lot less than anything we've talked about on this board.

[Andy L]

Fabs,
So, lets say this freaks found guilty. I dont think its gonna be a problem. Hes pretty much already admitted it in the letter to the school and lets say that all the other evidence from his computers and letter and ect... all pan out and hes absolutely guilty of this crime against that girl. You think he is fit to continue to live in our society?

Im sorry, were gonna differ on this one. No place out there for sexual predators against children, IMO.

Andy

[Valigator]

Nothin for nothin Fabs, but in this day and age and all the variables involved with sex offenders and the loopholes we all are obviously experiencing........sometimes, just sometimes Law Enforcement are the last people you call......

[fabsroman]

Andy,

You and I will continue to disagree about a lot of things forever. What about the guys from Enron, should they get the death penalty. They essentially ruined hundreds of people's retirement, essentially ruining their lifes. Should they die? There is a lot of white collar crime that ruins people's lives.

At the end of everything, I would need to see/her exactly what this guy did before I could say yay or nay on the death penalty. If it was merely inappropriate fondling/inappropriate touching and all the girl's clothes were on, I don't think I could give him the death penalty.

I had a prospective client come to me a couple of months ago because his ex-wife was petitioning the Court for full custody. Turns out that this man was sleeping in the same bed as his 8 year old daughter and that he was still helping her toilet. I declined the case, can somewhat understand the sleeping problem because he lives in a mobile home. I cannot quite understand the toileting thing, unless the girl truly still needs help toileting, but I would presume that she doesn't because the mother was pretty appauled to find out about this.

Anyway, as I preach in all my threads, unless we know the facts it is pretty hard to judge and figure out what to do. What if this guy has a couple of young children of his own and the facts are as stated above (i.e., inappropriate touching with all clothes in place)? Would you pull the trigger on this guy with his young children in the courtroom?

We always try to over simplify things on this board into a black and white argument, but they aren't. We always like to say what we will do, but one never knows what they will do until the situation presents itself.

For instance, everybody likes to think they will jump in front of a bullet to save their buddy. Most people like to think they wouldn't be scared to get off the troop transports on D-Day. At the end of the day, our decisions can only be made when they are presented to us, and even though we rehearse them it usually doesn't work out the same.

[Andy L]

Fabs,
You got a PM.

As for the white collar crimes, I have to think more about it. I dont know. I was thinkin about that when this thread started. The bad thing about that is, its usually not so black and white, so to speak. There are usually ALOT of guilty parties, with some more guilty and more roles than others. Yeah, alot of folks lost everything with Enron. Someone needs to swing, probably, but finding the right ones may be a trick.

And for the other, maybe the PM may clear up a few things that I cant say on here.

I dont mind disagreeing wtih you. At least we can normally keep it civil. I think alot of our disagreement sometimes stems from being brought up in completely different cultures and completely different geographic areas, which relates back to the cultures.

Andy

[Blktail]

Drugs are a huge problem in our society. Even pot. I figure anybody caught selling drugs should be shot immediately after their trial.

Street racing should also be punishable by death. Even if they are just racing the clock on a back road. Risk my life or that of my family and die.

Poaching for profit!

[fabsroman]

Blacktail,

Poaching for profit should be punishable by death? How about shooting an auto mechanic for ripping off grandma and grandpa or the 18 year old college girl that knows nothing about cars? Poaching for profit hurts the environment and other generations to come, kind of like littering, but it doesn't hurt anybody directly. Should we shoot people that litter? Don't get me wrong, I do not condone littering, but there would be a lot of dead people laying around if we gave the death sentence for littering.

Street racing punishable by death. Thank God new criminal laws and sentences cannot be applied retroactively. I did my fair share of drag racing when I was younger, but don't really get into it anymore on the street.

How about road rage, and how do you judge what road rage is? Road rage is probably responsible for more deaths a year on the road than drag racing is. I know it is a big problem around this area.

Andy,

I haven't checked out the PM yet, but I would sum up my view on the death penalty as saying that it should be applied on a case by case basis to any crime that the jury sees fit to apply it in. Of course, there should be mitigating circumstances that are taken into account too, which Maryland has a list of. The death penalty is a tough subject.

[DaMadman]

I just read in our local paper this morning that a guy living 10-15 miles from me only got 18 months for sexually abusing a 4 year old because he cut a deal on that case to avoid other charges against him from going to court.

By pleading guilty on the one charge the dropped his sentence from 8 years to 18 months and gave him 65 days time served because the state/county cut him the deal for other charges that were pending

Lot of people are real upset with the prosecuter on that one.

I know people that have gotten almost that much time for drinking 6 beers and driving home and this pervert gets off with a year and a half after raping a 4 year old.

[Blktail]

Fabs

My post, while only partly facetious, is not intended to exclude any other serious crimes.

The items I listed may not seem too serious, but they are pet peaves of mine. Given the attitudes of people these days I truly believe that the only way to STOP a crime is to have a sentence which acts as a deterent. I realize that a death sentence for pushers would not stop the sale of drugs, I believe it would drastically reduce it, with the added benefit that the prisons would not be full of pushers.

Reducing sentences for various crimes so as not to overpopulate the jails has not worked. Lets up the ante instead. Longer sentences, hard time, no resort-like jails.

What is wrong with killing some guy that has killed one or more people during a street race? Especially if the guy knew that would be the penalty if caught? Excessive? Exactly what would be fair to the rest of a law abiding society?

Same with poaching for profit. Don't do the crime if you don't like the time. They shoot poachers in Africa.

[Andy L]

I never thought about that since this thread started, but I agree with Blacktail.

I dont know that road racing should be death penalty, but if you kill someone in the act of road racing, the penalty is death. Same with killing someone while driving drunk or impared. I dont see a thing wrong with that. You did something you knew for a fact was putting others lives in danger and you killed someone. Why shouldnt you get the death penalty? What makes you better than any other murderer. I guess pre-meditated would be an arguement, but you made the decision to get drunk or race, knowing you could very well kill someone.

As for poaching, I dont know if that should be or not. I agree its as bad of a crime as any stealing. Stealing resources for food, fur and pleasure from the rest of us. I wouldnt be opposed to someone being put to death for repeat offender of poaching for profit.

I know a fella around here that goes on the lake sping and fall, and just absolutely rapes the crappie population. Goes everyday and catches all he can and sells fillets by the pound. Limit is 15 and posession limit is 30 btw. He has been caught and paid some nominal fines, thumbed his nose and keeps on going. Should he die? I know alot of folks that would say yes to that, around here anyway.....

Andy

[Valigator]

I f all of you would search the crimes that are considered Capitol Offenses....you would see there are more than you think.....the one thing about the death penalty is that it has been and continues to be one of the most debated issues in our society...as it should be I guess...but when the people have spoken and decided in each state what constitutes a death penalty and elected siad officials who stand on that platform....then have the system so clogged up the state cannot get justice..we have a huge problem....me I am 100 percent for the death penalty and more so everyday....most of the persons sentenced to death in the last 10 years have alot of evidence to conclude their guilt (DNA) I think the time spent on death row should have a limit...I was hoping the laws passed last year to limit the amount of monies awarded to lawyers appealing would have speeded things up...seems no dice....anyway my point is..if you got laws on the books and cant get them to fruition..why even consider others...PS. those funds lost in the Enron debachle should have been insured...even if it was 50 cents on the dollar...