One VERY indecent proposal--this is nasty, but I really feel this way

I have read about the impending execution of Troy Davis
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Supporters_seek_11th_hour_reprieve__07162007.html

and am just sickened. I don't know if he is guilty or not, but there sure
seems to me to be reasonable doubt, and they're just going to kill him
anyway--easier than not doing it, right? When he's dead, what's left to
argue about?

Here is my indecent proposal:

I hereby propose to enact into law the following:

Should it ever come to light that an innocent person, or a person where
reasonable doubt still persists of their guilt, has been executed by
the state (or any state), that the prosecuting attorney (if evidence to
exonerate was suppressed, or not allowed into evidence), the judge passing
sentence, the Governor of the State at the time (if in a position to grant
clemency and did not), prison officials carrying out the execution, and any
Supreme Court Judges who voted for death--that ALL of the above suffer the same
fate as the executed person. Execution in the same manner, no appeal, no
clemency, just death, swift and sure, China style. You made a mistake?
Sorry, Charlie. The guy you had killed isn't in a position to accept your
apology. So we're sending you to a place where maybe you can offer it.

Harsh, huh? It might even get some innocent honest officials with their heads
in the guillotine. But maybe not. Maybe it would put one swift and immediate
end to the execution of innocent (or even possibly innocent) people in our
country, and as this is the real goal of my rather drastic proposal, that
is why I am for the shock treatment. Putting an innocent person, even one,
to death in a state-sponsored institutional ritual killing is so abhorrent
to me that I want it to be a phenomenon that is never again associated with
my country. I don't care HOW many guilty monsters get life because of it.
If we can spend a trillion dollars on a useless invasion, we can spend a few
hundred million on updating our law enforcement and corrections system.

Preferably no more executions, period, but NO MORE executions where there
is a doubt of the condemned's innocence. NONE. This must stop. If it means
threatening accomplices who don't realize they are accomplices, well so be it.

I have HAD it with rationalizations. Pass a death sentence, uphold it, or
carry it out, and it turns out to have been wrong, then die, yourself, or
else refuse to be a part of the circus.

Would the DNA researcher, private investigator, court handler, metal-detector operator, and UPS guy also be executed for handling falsely exonerating evidence?

I'm against the DP in all case, but those people you mention should have all their assets given to the condemned's family, and jailed for life.

If there's any question at all of innocence, stay the execution!

But if the death penalty is a deterent, then
all those who supported executing the criminal
should implicitly understand the great deterent
value in the challange they face by executing
the criminal.

Tesha

is cheaper than the death penalty, because of the cost of all the appeals.

> I read that life in prison without parole is cheaper
> than the death penalty, because of the cost of all
> the appeals.

Yes, the ACLU death-penalty lawyers routinely tout
this statistic and they certainly seem to have the
data to back it up.

Tesha

That sounds a little too much like the rationalization for the death penalty: killing is wrong, therefore, we'll kill people who kill.

Why do we kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong? I saw that on a bumper sticker and it would work this way too.

Two fatal wrongs don't make a right.

Lee

along with universal health care it does seem to be one of the hallmarks of a civilised nation.

First off, I don't support the death penalty, either. I feel that
if those who hand it out so casually would feel its imminence hanging
over their own heads as well as over those over whom they stand in
judgment, that it would come close to be being abolished, if not altogether.

I didn't include the UPS guy etc., only those whose actions and judgments
had a direct bearing in determining if the accused really gets killed or not.
The UPS guy can't commute a death sentence. The sitting governor (of most States,
anyway) most definitely can. Have you seen some of Scalia's opinions on death
penalty cases? Scalia and Thomas never met a corporation or a death penalty they
didn't like. They are like the Sergeant in Alice's Restaurant: I wanna
kill, kill KILL!!!! I cannot see a posthumous exoneration being even undertaken
unless family and/or friends of the accused had evidence they knew of, but had
been ignored or deliberately supressed. Yes, I suppose it could be theoretically
argued that a vengeful friend/relative of the accused could somehow mount an
elaborate scheme to make it look like someone rightfully executed (if there can
be such a thing) was innocent, but this is getting into screenplay writing for
some Michael Douglas movie. I don't see it.

My indecent proposal was not meant to really have a mass execution of prison
wardens, Supreme Court Judges and sitting Governors. It was meant to deter
death penalties from ever being pronounced. As with invasions of countries such
as Grenada, Panama, or even Iraq, most death penalties are meted out by
persons who will never have to face any consequences of having acted in error.
If George W. Bush or Dick Cheney were forced to lead the charge into Iraq
themselves, and be on the front lines as long as anyone else they commanded
to be there, do you think we'd still be there? I say the same goes for the
death penalty. If those responsible for pronouncing it and carrying it out
were to suffer the same penalty as a wrongly accused, and KNEW IT FROM THE
START, I submit that such sentences would never be pronounced in the first
place. I suppose one cannot discount the existence within the judicial system
of deranged individuals who would rather die themselves than forego a chance to
get someone else killed, but man, we are in bad shape if they are plentiful
in number.

I woke up this morning to see that Troy Davis's execution was stayed
for 90 days to further examine evidence of his possible innocence.

Georgia is not Illinois, and I know that back home in Texas, he would
have been dead by now.

An exception to the rule, or a sign of hope? I don't care, I'll take
encouraging news like this any time, anywhere.

So much for the V adn VI Amendment to the United States Consitution. Thought only the Bush regime was anti Constitution

Suspend the constitutional rights of those who would suspend the
constitutional rights of others to the point of killing them wrongly.
(I said the proposal was indecent)

Better yet, eliminate the death penalty altogether. If not, make it
a VERY risky sentence to impose, to the point where no one thinks
it's worth the risk to impose it. My idea, again, was not mass executions
of members of the judiciary or law enforcement, but to put them in a
position where they, too, can feel what it's like to face execution for
a crime they did not commit. I feel that if they were completely aware
of what that is like, that no further death sentences would be imposed.
I also feel that the current blood lust of some now involved in meting
out death sentences, from the Texas appeals board to Scalia and Thomas,
needs to be looked at in the same light as any other planned killing:
first degree murder with malice of forethought.

By the way, Thothemes I, II, or III?

IMO suspending the constitutional rights of anyone is wrong. Whether its Abe Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, or George Bush. I fully agree with you that the death penalty should be eliminated. III, he was the most interesting of the family, besides his step mother, that is.

That's the state we've come to in this country. A populace and a state intoxicated by killing. Of course, your proposal would go nowhere, even if it included requirements for proof and allowed appeals.

And maybe even Darth Cheney. :)

I would rather see the incarceration and handover of assets to families before another life gets taken, but your point is well taken!

:hi:

But I am just SO disgusted by how many executions take place in our country,
especially when there is doubt about the guilt of the condemned. The right
wing of the Supreme Court seems more concerned with what side of bed the guy
got out of than whether he will ever sleep in it again.

I just want those who are directly involved in these barbaric ritual killings
to be held responsible for their actions when they get it wrong, leaving aside my
personal opinion that EVERY time an execution is performed by the State, they get
it wrong. I just don't see it stopping until those who casually hand out death
sentences are given reason to fear the consequences of an error on their part.
As things stand now, if it turns out that they made a mistake, they go home, put
a steak on the grill, shrug and say, "oh, well."

That MUST change.