Ok Arnold, don't wuss out.

[YASNY]

If we remember the original idea for why prisons were made it was...and say it with me...::drum roll:: REHABILITATION.  Clemency is just for the purpose of a person who, if left alive, would not be a clear and present danger to the public.  If he is locked up for life in prison, he is not a clear and present danger.  There is no need to execute him, except for primal and banal bloodlust.  Killing him doesn't bring back those who have died & all it leaves is one more corpse.

 

And why not respond to my other longer post (not just you but anybody here).

 

LMAO.... The original idea for prisons was rehabilitation? No. It was for punishment.

[mr_genius]

c'mon guys, Bett Midler says he's innocent... thats enough for me.

 

FREE TOOKIE!

[Steff]

c'mon guys, Bett Midler says he's innocent... thats enough for me.

 

FREE TOOKIE!

 

Quickly, if possible, is there any doubt of his guilt/innocence?

 

Secondly.. did she say innocent...?

[mr_genius]

LMAO.... The original idea for prisons was rehabilitation?  No.  It was for punishment.

 

 

exactly

 

punishment designed to persuade and prevent people from committing crimes.

[Balta1701]

Or, by some miracle, retests the evidence and finds that the wrong person has been in jail for years and years..

 

The system is not free from errors.

 

I don't know enough on this case to have an opinion from that view.

If there's any state in the union right now where you can have confidence that they've got the right person when they put someone to death, it's California. Why? Because basically every safeguard you can imagine (unlike Illinois a few years ago) is in place in this state.

 

Let me cite for you a powerful statistic to support this fact: There are currently 648 people on death row in California, according to the California dept. of Corrections homepage (could be slightly wrong if they haven't updated lately). Since California re-instated the Death Penalty, 31 inmates have died on Death Row from natural causes. There have been a grand total of 11 executions. 11. In several decades.

 

California is damn careful about these things. These guys get appeals that people in other states could only dream of. They take forever. If there's a test they could do to prove their innocence, they do it. Courts overturn these things when necessary. This is not Texas, where people wind up on Death Row when their lawyers sleep through the trial. This is not Illinois, where people ended up on death row after confessions were beaten out of them. This is California, the "Left coast" if you will. The people of this state have decided they want the death penalty legal, but they want it done correctly, and if there's any state in the union doing it right, its this one.

[Balta1701]

exactly

 

punishment designed to persuade and prevent people from committing crimes.

Is it just me, or does that statement open up the whole additional can of worms of "well, the Death Penalty really hasn't been shown at all to prevent crimes" ?

[mr_genius]

Quickly, if possible, is there any doubt of his guilt/innocence?

 

Secondly.. did she say innocent...?

 

 

she probably did. but i don't know for sure, i just like making fun of her.

 

And yes, there are a lot of people claiming he is innocent and that "Tookie" was the victim of a racist conspiracy.

[Steff]

Let me cite for you a powerful statistic to support this fact: 

 

 

 

No need. Right now I don't give a s*** about this bs. Just stating a fact that the g'ment has effed up in the past.

[Steff]

she probably did.  but i don't know for sure, i just like making fun of her.

 

And yes, there are a lot of people claiming he is innocent and that "Tookie" was the victim of a racist conspiracy.

 

 

For some reason, I doubt she used that word.

 

Anyhoo.. is anyone familiar enough with the case to know if there are questions of his guilt?

[Balta1701]

No need. Right now I don't give a s*** about this bs. Just stating a fact that the g'ment has effed up in the past.

I will fully agree with you on that point. But here's the question...does the fact that the government has screwed up in places before (Illinois and Texas obviously come to mind) mean that it is enevitable that the government will screw up no matter what safeguards are in place, or is it possible for the government to actually design a system that actually does "Get it right"?

[Steff]

I will fully agree with you on that point.  But here's the question...does the fact that the government has screwed up in places before (Illinois and Texas obviously come to mind) mean that it is enevitable that the government will screw up no matter what safeguards are in place, or is it possible for the government to actually design a system that actually does "Get it right"?

 

 

No. Did I imply that? If I did, that was not my intent.

[mr_genius]

Is it just me, or does that statement open up the whole additional can of worms of "well, the Death Penalty really hasn't been shown at all to prevent crimes" ?

 

 

I was referring to imprisonment, not execution.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Texas executed 4 people last month. Gang on gang murders are #1 in most cities, these guys already face the death penalty standing on the corners, protecting their turf. Do you think they will suddenly drop the guns and pick up knitting needles if they thought the state might execute them in a year? GMAB

 

Oh I see, just let the bastards wipe each other out huh? Too bad the innocent catch stray bullets in the noodle or you might have something there.

[Steve Bartman's my idol]

I say, Good Riddance, Tookie!

 

It does society absolutely no good to keep a piece of filth like him alive!

 

Na na na na, na na na na, hey haey...GOODBYE!

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

YAS, don't mean to call you out -- I'm just making a general discussion and happened to quote your post when I wrote.

 

YAS, I think you'll agree that capital punishment is only treating the symptom rather than the root cause of the disease.  We're only decades from the Supreme Court case of Brown vs Board (actually had the opportunity to meet one of the kids from that decision...pretty cool experience)  So we've got a generation of minorities who have first hand experience in legal segregation.  Add on to that that we've got a generation who lived through Jim Crow and the animosity to integration -- getting low quality education because of that...And now -- I don't know if you've heard of Jonathan Kozol's new book (he's an education advocate that wrote "Savage Inequalities") "Shame of the Nation", we've got the return of quasi-apartheid in the nations' schoolrooms.

 

The playing field is by no means level (and let's not even get into a discussion of the extralegal methods used by the FBI via COINTELPRO to murder/destabilize progressive movements that looked to begin to fix these social problems -- and please, don't demonize the BPP because it is quite a well known fact that Panties Wearin' Hoover was quite the racist & reading the FBI memos, that is the purpose for the COINTELPROS against those organizations)

 

As Dr. King said (and I'm paraphrasing here): It is an insult to tell people with no boots to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

 

And from Bulworth (1998)

Sen. Bulworth: Why do you think there are no more black leaders?

 

Nina: (after a pause)

Some people think it's because they all got killed. But I think it's got more to do with the decimation of the manufacturing base in the urban centers. Senator, an optimistic population throws up optimistic, energized leaders. And when you shift manufacturing to the Sun Belt in the Third World, you destroy the blue-collar core of the black activist population.

 

Some people would say that problem is purely cultural. The power of the media that is continually controlled by fewer and fewer people, add to that the monopoly of the media, a consumer culture based on self-gratification, and you're not likely to have a population that wants leadership that calls for self-sacrifice.

 

But the fact is, I'm just a materialist at heart. But if I look at the economic base, higher domestic employment means jobs for African Americans. World War II meant lots of jobs for black folks. That is what energized the community for the civil rights movement of the 50's and the 60's. An energized, hopeful community will not only produce leaders but more importantly it'll produce leaders they'll respond to.

Now what do you think, Senator?

 

--

People have already written off inner city youth and the disproportionately minority class as potential criminals.  Add into that, the white flight and redlining which have decimated property taxes in schools (I'm doing my student teaching in a school in January that used to be part of a big manufacturing town.  The plants went to Mexico and now the town has been pretty much obliterated with unemployment etc.  They don't even have the funds to get every kid in the class a textbook) and you've got a class of people still not receiving quality educations in desegregated classrooms decades after Brown v. Board.  Add in the fact that almost every black leader gets demonized (Sharpton, Jackson, etc. -- and that's not to say that there isn't stuff worth criticizing them about...but at least they're trying to get off their ass and do something) or murdered (Fred Hampton, MLK, Malcolm X, et al.) and a justice system that is disproportionately condemning minorities to death (see McKlesky v. Kemp et al. for more information), it is no wonder why there is no hope & people are more willing to join street gangs.  If they're believing that they're going to die and get treated like s***, they might as well try to make some fast cash while doing so.

 

Stopping violence is a lot more complex and a lot more difficult than putting a needle in peoples' arms.

 

 

So tell me, how does white flight, the loss of manufacturing jobs etc...etc... justify the commission of crime?

 

You make it sound like people pimp hoes, sell drugs, steal cars, beat people up, rape women etc, etc, because they lost their job on the assembly line somewhere and want to buy Christmas gifts for their starving kids. f***ing spare me. The fact is that crime is committed by a bunch of sociopaths who have no regard whatsoever for the well being of themselves or those around them.

Edited December 12, 2005 by NUKE_CLEVELAND

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

If we remember the original idea for why prisons were made it was...and say it with me...::drum roll:: REHABILITATION.  Clemency is just for the purpose of a person who, if left alive, would not be a clear and present danger to the public.  If he is locked up for life in prison, he is not a clear and present danger.  There is no need to execute him, except for primal and banal bloodlust.  Killing him doesn't bring back those who have died & all it leaves is one more corpse.

 

And why not respond to my other longer post (not just you but anybody here).

 

 

I never understood the reasoning behind life imprisonment. If you want a guy off the streets for keeps then go out and put a bullet in his head. If someone is such a s***bag you want him out of circulation permanentely then he was obviously a burden to society as a free man why let him continue to be one living off the taxpayers in prison.

 

Save rehabilitation for people who commit less serious crimes who actually have a chance to be productive.

[SoCalSouthSider59]

If there's any state in the union right now where you can have confidence that they've got the right person when they put someone to death, it's California.  Why?  Because basically every safeguard you can imagine (unlike Illinois a few years ago) is in place in this state.

 

 

Exactly, and that's why after Tuesday, it will be done and forgotten, just another murderer off to meet his maker.........

 

[Balta1701]

Exactly, and that's why after Tuesday, it will be done and forgotten, just another murderer off to meet his maker.........

 

Well, I think it may very well last a little bit longer than Tuesday, and amongst certain groups it may last much longer, but I doubt you're very far off with that estimate. At least I hope you're not...hopefully if the execution does go forwards, it will not generate much in the way of civil unrest out here.

[Balta1701]

So tell me,  how does white flight, the loss of manufacturing jobs etc...etc... justify the commission of crime?

 

You make it sound like people pimp hoes, sell drugs, steal cars, beat people up, rape women etc, etc, because they lost their job on the assembly line somewhere and want to buy Christmas gifts for their starving kids.  f***ing spare me.  The fact is that crime is committed by a bunch of sociopaths who have no regard whatsoever for the well being of themselves or those around them.

Nuke, I think here you're oversimplifying things by conflating justifying a crime with methods of preventing crime in the future.

 

Studies have shown overwhelmingly that the tendency to commit a crime is linked directly with things like living in underpriveledged homes, not receiving quality educations, having broken families, etc. These things happen in places where people lose their jobs...and while these things in no way justify going out and killing someone, the numbers are out there which show conclusively that if you cut down on the severity of these problems through whatever means, you cut down on the violent crime rate dramatically.

 

There is a big difference between justification of an action and understanding where the action is rooted so as to try to prevent it in the future. Yes, people who go around shooting people are psychopaths, and you'll get no argument from me on that. But that doesn't mean that there aren't ways to work to prevent the creation of more of those sorts of people.

[SoCalSouthSider59]

Well, I think it may very well last a little bit longer than Tuesday, and amongst certain groups it may last much longer, but I doubt you're very far off with that estimate.  At least I hope you're not...hopefully if the execution does go forwards, it will not generate much in the way of civil unrest out here.

 

I hope so too. Civil unrest, we do not need, in SoCal...........

 

[Texsox]

Do y'all seriously believe if we started executing people daily and immediately, the gang member would throw down their weapons and stop committing murder? Would they go get jobs at McDonalds? :headshake

[Steff]

Save rehabilitation for people who commit less serious crimes who actually have a chance to be productive.

 

 

 

Yea.. like child molesting Priests.

[knightni]

First of all, quoting Bulworth?! That's like quoting "Head of State". Ridiculous.

 

Secondly, prisons do NOT facilitate rehabilitation. They promote an environment of criminal organization and cohabitation that causes hardening of the inmates.

 

"Hmm... let's take ALL the bad guys and.. put them...TOGETHER! YEAH! that sounds like a GREAT IDEA! Then, they can compare notes and become better criminals!"

 

The American prison system fails at rehabilitation for a large percentage of the prison population.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Nuke, I think here you're oversimplifying things by conflating justifying a crime with methods of preventing crime in the future.

 

Studies have shown overwhelmingly that the tendency to commit a crime is linked directly with things like living in underpriveledged homes, not receiving quality educations, having broken families, etc.  These things happen in places where people lose their jobs...and while these things in no way justify going out and killing someone, the numbers are out there which show conclusively that if you cut down on the severity of these problems through whatever means, you cut down on the violent crime rate dramatically.

 

There is a big difference between justification of an action and understanding where the action is rooted so as to try to prevent it in the future.  Yes, people who go around shooting people are psychopaths, and you'll get no argument from me on that.  But that doesn't mean that there aren't ways to work to prevent the creation of more of those sorts of people.

 

 

I agree with what you're saying about trying to help out these communities economically. Maybe if the money we wasted on the failure that is the welfare state in this country had been better spent we wouldn't have these problems.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Do y'all seriously believe if we started executing people daily and immediately, the gang member would throw down their weapons and stop committing murder? Would they go get jobs at McDonalds?  :headshake

 

 

No but they damn sure would think twice about their sociopathic lifestyle.