July 06, 2005
This is good...
NEW YORK TIMES (Reuters) - Republicans in Congress have launched a new effort to speed up executions in the United States by limiting the ability of those sentenced to death to appeal to federal courts.
The ``Streamlined Procedures Act of 2005,'' introduced into the House of Representatives by California Rep. Dan Lungren and in the Senate by Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, would limit the ability of defendants facing the death sentence to have their cases reviewed by federal courts in what are known as habeas corpus appeals.
"You see delays in death penalty cases where they are allowed to drag on for 15 or even 25 years. Defense attorneys have come to believe the longer they delay, the better it is for their clients,'' Lungren said in an interview.
"We're trying to ensure that habeas corpus is not used as a reason for interminable delays and that defendants get one bite of the apple and not multiple bites,'' he said.
Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee considering the bill, conceded there was little chance of blocking it in the House. "The House has been very supportive of anything that would strip the innocent of a fair hearing. This bill will ensure that more innocent people will be put to death,'' he said in a telephone interview.. (Thanks to Orrin).
Not to mention a whole bunch of guilty ones. The idea that 15 year's delay is a "fair hearing" is insanity. Liberal insanity. And the idea that convicted criminals should receive vast quantities of our sympathy and public money, while the poor victims should be forgotten and despised, is liberal moral sickness. As is the idea that convicted criminals should be referred to as "the innocent."
This is the same lefty sickness that fawns over Yasser Arafat and other terrorist murderers, but cares nothing for the poor Israeli children that get shredded. Or sobbed about the shacks of poor blacks in apartheid South Africa, but now says nothing when Mugabe bulldozes the houses of a million or so people. Or snivel about some cop-killer being executed, while caring nothing for those who live lives constricted by fear of crime.
When liberals talk about justice, they mean an excuse for nauseating moral preening and posturing, combined with cold-hearted indifference to the sufferings of the victims.
Posted by John Weidner at July 6, 2005 06:22 PM | TrackBackLet us imagine that X percent of all those who are executed are innocent. How big does X have to get before you believe that the death penalty is applied too unjustly to be worthwhile? I presume the number is somewhere under 100%; perhaps it is at 50%? 25%? Keep in mind that for every innocent person put to death, we are letting a guilty person stay on the streets. I don’t know where X actually is, mind, but anything that moves us closer to 100% is bad. And quite frankly, I am not all that concerned with the guilty merely being behind bars, if it means we are not killing the innocent...
Posted by: Andrew Cory at July 7, 2005 11:29 AMKeep in mind that most of the people who end up on death row are violent felons with long criminal records. Even if they didn't commit the crime they were convicted for, they've most of them committed lots of other crimes. Calling them "innocent," is a bit of fuzzy talk favored by those whose first priority is to excuse crime.
As for " letting a guilty person stay on the streets," that's what happens in most crimes, since most crimes are not solved. Catching criminals is not binary; it's a matter of the odds catching up with someone. Somebody mugs a 99 people, then gets caught on the hundredth time. (And then we have to be easy on him, because it's a 'first offense.")
Posted by: John Weidner at July 7, 2005 12:18 PMAnd hold on a moment, your syntax confused me. Are you suggesting that % of innocent people executed could be 25% or 50% ?? That's crazy. That's something out of a leftish fever-dream.
At least 95%, probably more, are going to be clearly guilty of their crime, if for no other reason then that usually prosecutors don't ask for Murder One unless they have good evidence. Otherwise they let you plead out to a lesser crime.
Posted by: John Weidner at July 7, 2005 02:47 PMI'd say that the maximum acceptable number of innocent people executed should be below 1%. But by innocent I mean both of the specific crime charged and other serious felonies.
I'd guess the real number is lower. The cops and the prosecutors know pretty damn well who the real hoods are.
Posted by: John Weidner at July 7, 2005 04:39 PMOTOH, there's a price, too, right?
So, there is no death penalty, and the worst psychotics are now in the prison population. Where they kill fellow inmates (this is hardly uncommon).
Is the felon (but not murderer) who dies w/ a shiv in his chest after 3 years into his 10 year sentence somehow MORE worthy of dying than the murderer sentenced to life w/o parole who killed him?
If same said murderer is kept in solitary confinement forever, is the resources devoted to that prisoner worth more than the library, gym equipment, better food, better cells that might have been available to the larger population?
Posted by: Lurking Observer at July 8, 2005 11:53 AMI just love you wingers!!!
"Even if they didn't commit the crime they were convicted for,..."
Yeah! Fry somebody, anybody! That'll make us all safer! Of course, the likelihood some of them are actually innocent of the crime, and in some cases OF ANY CRIME, will increase dramatically if you accelerate the execution process, but who cares...Just so long as someone frys!
How about "Two men who spent 12 years in prison for rape and murder were freed..."? Under GOP proposals, a lot of the 20-25 death row inmates who've been found totally innocent would have been killed...Of course, we'd never know they were innocent, because thus far DA's have been very successful at preventing DNA testing, when available, post-execution. I suspect if anyone can finally prove, decisively, that an innocent person has been executed, a great many Americans will have serious doubts and hesitations about the death penalty.
Note, FYI - I have no problem executing guilty people. I'm not, per se, opposed to the death penalty. But I do have a serious problem with the possibility of executing an innocent person. And given the racial bias in our justice system, given the tremendous advantage prosecutors have in most capital cases (unless you're OJ or Jacko), and given the corruption that has occurred in the past (lab personnel who "fixed" results, DAs who withheld evidence, etc.), well, I'd prefer to err on the side of life (being a believer in the "culture of life")!
