The Death Penalty is not a deterrent. It was never meant to be. That's why it's not called the "Death Deterrent". It was always meant for one thing. A punishment. Hence the name, "Death PENALTY!!!!"
If it never deters one person...it doesn't matter.
But you're right. Let's let all the killers go free! We're too enlightened to execute killers.
Like Hillary Clinton said, "My party has one glaring hypocrisy. We make sure the aborting of innocent lives can continue at any price...yet the same people who want the right to end an unborn child's life will go out and protest the execution of a five-time cop killer. It's fine to end the life of an innocent child...but we must fight to save the lives of cop killers? Where has my party gone?"
YEAAAA!!!! Go Hillary in '08

Hey Rutger...
I saw Hillary say that at a fundraiser.
She didn't get a pleasent reception. She sounds like she's trying to get the "right" to vote for her.
She's two-faced!
Feingold in 2008. e's the only one with a consistent message!

I saw Hillary say that too.
What is she thinking?
I'm sick of the political pundits granting her the Democratic nomination as if she deserves it for being a first lady.
You're right, John...she's two-faced.

Hey, Craig...
Does she think she's going to get the right-wingers to vote for her?
She's loyal only to herself and her quest for power. She doesn't give a rip about us as a Democratic Party.

Isn't the problem here that there are genuine issues in life which call for the most careful "attention," yet, of course, the Gov. seems to be only too interested in having its own way--even if such equates to state sponsored murder...?
In 1993, in Herrena v. Collins, the US Supreme Court ruled that a claim of actual innocence based upon newly discovered evidence was not grounds for overturning a capital conviction.
In his dissent Justice Blackmun stated, "The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder."
Yet it would appear at first glance that there is a valid argument here--"To allow a federal court to grant him typical habeas relief--a conditional order releasing him unless the State elects to retry him--would in effect require a new trial 10 years after the first trial, not because of any constitutional violation at the first trial, but simply because of a belief that, in light of his newfound evidence, a jury might find him not guilty at a second trial."
"Because state legislative judgments are entitled to substantial deference in the criminal procedure area, criminal process will be found lacking only where it offends some principle of justice so rooted in tradition and conscience as to be ranked as fundamental."
"It cannot not be said that the refusal of Texas--which requires a new trial motion based on newly discovered evidence to be made within 30 days of sentence--to entertain Herrera's new evidence eight years after his conviction transgresses a principle of fundamental fairness...
Oh yes sir, fundamental fairness--like how Frances Newton was executed in 2005 because the court ruled that her new "strong" evidence wasn't presented soon enough to be reviewed.
In fact, nine states actually have no time limit for the filing of a motion for a new trial based upon new evidence...!
And here doesn't it behoove us to understand that according to the fed. General Accounting office, "race is a factor at all stages of the criminal justice process, including the prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty."
Justice William Douglas once wrote, "One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata in this society."
And, in 1994, Justice Blackmun stated, "Even under the most sophisticated death penalty statutes, race continues to play a major role in determining who shall live and who shll die."
What?, who's afraid of a what just might be a "teensy weensy" lack of fundamental fairness... Right!!!!!!!!!!!

If the death penalty is meant as “punishment”, how does the punisher (the State) define its stance on murder, since it is also a murderer? President George W. Bush strikes me as a good example of a state sanctioned killer and he is busy improving on his number of sanctioned kills each and every day and yet the US is remarkably quiet. The truth of George Bush and that of which he is guilty makes a mass murderer look rather feeble by comparison. What I mean is in terms of the terror, death and destruction he is personally responsible for initiating. Iraq’s crime against the demands of the American government was it couldn’t produce what it didn’t have.—the grounds for the attack are WMD. UN Resolution 1441 failed to receive the sanction of the world because the evidence the US used to convince the world wasn’t convincing and what Saddam Hussein said continuously in his defense was that his country didn’t have any WMD. Still Americans seem to accept that Bush had and has the right to commit mass murder and have in their silence more or less sanctioned this mass murder.

In my opinion on a more micro level, in order for the death penalty to be doled out a number of people must sanction it and each of these, the Judge, the Jury, the Governor and those who fill the machine with poison and administer the death dose are all participants in a premeditated murder – a play or ritual enacted by the state who fulfill their roles, and perform their roles in accordance with a set script ordained by tradition, and it is by means of this tradition or ritual, that their acts are in fact socially accepted. It is almost as though there was an invisible hand orchestrating the stings of an insane puppet show and all the performers were involved in doing something that if ever it were to dawn them what it was they were in fact involved in would in fact vomit from the shock and horror, but within the spell of the ritual and dreamy walls of diligence and duty it is impossible for them to see it. Still, when you get down to the nitty gritty, all they are involved in is an accepted ritual that allows for the killing of an individual, regardless of what that individual did previously—in fact they are going to kill in most instances a perfect stranger. If murder is the worst crime then apparently this is perceived to be the best punishment. If capital punishment is the best punishment for murder, then the question is why? I can only think that it is because it is perceived as the harshest and cruelest crime. But in performing the ritual of the harshest crime as a means to punish we seem to say that there is a state of mind in all people that is capable of committing this crime because it the worst punishment we can think of and when the state executes an individual it makes every citizen guilty of this crime because it is by the power invested in the concept of we “the people” who have given our consent to murder this person in accordance with some ancient and primal form of ritual. In a nutshell it is simply our form of stoning. That some people feel that they are more justified in their roles as citizens to kill than others is perhaps suggestive of why someone like George Bush ought to be excluded from the role of the presidency—because it is what he represents in the bigger picture (especially in how we are perceived as a nation out in the world, since he is a form of the American persona)—the record setting executioner and now he perceives himself as “the unwavering War President”. Perhaps that attitude is in itself suggestive of what stands behind the present government in general and for reasoning along these lines makes me anti-capital punishment because it carries with it a sort of sickness that can possess. At least in my opinion I see what I consider to be a clear case of this kind of possession in the White House.

"The death of one person is a loss to us all. But if that person has murdered a child, a police officer or pregnant woman...in cold blood...the penalty of death is, and should always remain, a just punishment for the crime."
Hillary Clinton, April 14, 2005
HilPac Fundraiser

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