Believe me, there's nothing more I'd love to see than hard, hard labour being brought into prisons. But in the current climate, I just don't see it happening in the near future.
You forfeit your rights when you take someone else's. And if they do labour, they're at least contributing to footing the taxpayer's bill, the very same taxpayer's who's social liberties they threaten.
Believe me, there's nothing more I'd love to see than hard, hard labour being brought into prisons. But in the current climate, I just don't see it happening in the near future.
It's not breaking human rights to work reasonable hours. They're in essence being paid (the taxpayer pays for their shelter, food etc.), so it's hardly slave labour or anything.
Well i've not really read much on this case so I don't have any strong views on it. Though from reading the OP it does seem pretty suspect and is probably another glowing example of the corruption and prejudice that most people (should) know exists in the american government.
However as far as the death sentence, i'm all for it in cases that are set in stone. For example, people who confess & gloat about their crime(s) and/or people who can 100% be convicted with substantial evidence. People such as Anders Behring Breivik.
Forget all the moral ****, putting criminals in prison for the rest of their life (and well in the UK a life sentence is only 20 years anyway) costs the tax payers more money. Not to mention they get access to xboxes, pool tables, sky tv etc (again i'm talking about UK prisons, not US, as that's where I live). I for one shouldn't have to pay for a criminal who took a life.
However using lethal injection in cases such as this with no real evidence can never be justified.
However as far as the death sentence, i'm all for it in cases that are set in stone. For example, people who confess & gloat about their crime(s) and/or people who can 100% be convicted with substantial evidence. People such as Anders Behring Breivik.
Forget all the moral ****, putting criminals in prison for the rest of their life (and well in the UK a life sentence is only 20 years anyway) costs the tax payers more money. Not to mention they get access to xboxes, pool tables, sky tv etc (again i'm talking about UK prisons, not US, as that's where I live). I for one shouldn't have to pay for a criminal who took a life.
However using lethal injection in cases such as this with no real evidence can never be justified.
Here are 10 reasons why the board – which decided on Tuesday to allow the execution to go ahead – has failed to deliver on its promise and why a man who is very possibly innocent will be killed in the name of American justice.
1. Of the nine witnesses who appeared at Davis's 1991 trial who said they had seen Davis beating up a homeless man in a dispute over a bottle of beer and then shooting to death a police officer, Mark MacPhail, who was acting as a good samaritan, seven have since recanted their evidence.
2. One of those who recanted, Antoine Williams, subsequently revealed they had no idea who shot the officer and that they were illiterate – meaning they could not read the police statements that they had signed at the time of the murder in 1989. Others said they had falsely testified that they had overheard Davis confess to the murder.
3. Many of those who retracted their evidence said that they had been cajoled by police into testifying against Davis. Some said they had been threatened with being put on trial themselves if they did not co-operate.
4. Of the two of the nine key witnesses who have not changed their story publicly, one has kept silent for the past 20 years and refuses to talk, and the other is Sylvester Coles. Coles was the man who first came forward to police and implicated Davis as the killer. But over the past 20 years evidence has grown that Coles himself may be the gunman and that he was fingering Davis to save his own skin.
5. In total, nine people have come forward with evidence that implicates Coles. Most recently, on Monday the George Board of Pardons and Paroles heard from Quiana Glover who told the panel that in June 2009 she had heard Coles, who had been drinking heavily, confess to the murder of MacPhail.
6. Apart from the witness evidence, most of which has since been cast into doubt, there was no forensic evidence gathered that links Davis to the killing.
7. In particular, there is no DNA evidence of any sort. The human rightsgroup the Constitution Project points out that three-quarters of those prisoners who have been exonerated and declared innocent in the US were convicted at least in part on the basis of faulty eyewitness testimony.
8. No gun was ever found connected to the murder. Coles later admitted that he owned the same type of .38-calibre gun that had delivered the fatal bullets, but that he had given it away to another man earlier on the night of the shooting.
9. Higher courts in the US have repeatedly refused to grant Davis a retrial on the grounds that he had failed to "prove his innocence". His supporters counter that where the ultimate penalty is at stake, it should be for the courts to be beyond any reasonable doubt of his guilt.
10. Even if you set aside the issue of Davis's innocence or guilt, the manner of his execution tonight is cruel and unnatural. If the execution goes ahead as expected, it would be the fourth scheduled execution date for this prisoner. In 2008 he was given a stay just 90 minutes before he was set to die. Experts in death row say such multiple experiences with imminent death is tantamount to torture.
Troy Davis: 10 reasons why he should not be executed | World news | guardian.co.uk
I am all for the death penalty but it simply wasn't the answer in this case. There is so many holes in the story that it is ridiculous that he was killed.
However as far as the death sentence, i'm all for it in cases that are set in stone. For example, people who confess & gloat about their crime(s) and/or people who can 100% be convicted with substantial evidence. People such as Anders Behring Breivik.
Forget all the moral ****, putting criminals in prison for the rest of their life (and well in the UK a life sentence is only 20 years anyway) costs the tax payers more money.
IMO, the death penalty should be re-instated.
I myself can't seem to justify some-one killing and not suffering the same consequences. You've taken somebody from this planet, you shouldn't remain on this planet.
That being said, there needs to be concrete evidence, and in this case their isn't really any.
How Anders Behring Breivik is still alive is beyond me. The man should be hung at the nearest lamp-post.
Just my thoughts, though.
i'd have done to him what the british wanted to do to hitler: take him out the back and shoot him in the back of the head, no grandstanding final flourish, just put him down like the monster he is.
For me it could only come back for the pinnacle of crimes, like Brevik, mass murder and the like
IMO, the death penalty should be re-instated.
I myself can't seem to justify some-one killing and not suffering the same consequences. You've taken somebody from this planet, you shouldn't remain on this planet.
That being said, there needs to be concrete evidence, and in this case their isn't really any.
How Anders Behring Breivik is still alive is beyond me. The man should be hung at the nearest lamp-post.
Just my thoughts, though.
But why only the pinnacle of crimes. How can you justify the killing of some-one?
Two words: Derek Bentley.
No matter how concrete the evidence, no matter how overwhelming it all looks, eventually there will be a miscarriage of justice. Every so often we will mess up. That much is certain.
I'm in favour of keeping nine murderers one innocent alive over killing all of them. For some reason we assume we'd do this better than the Americans. There is NOTHING to suggest that, and as we've seen in this thread alone the Americans mess it up more than occasionally.
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It has nothing to do with justifying their actions. How can you justify setting a law about killing somebody and then killing someone who doesn't comply with it? Massive hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is irrelevant, there are many laws that involve this. If somebody is murdered, why shouldn't the murderer suffer the same consequence. If you are willing to take a life you should suffer the same.
What about the 9 innocent people that were murdered? I can't see your logic.
So your entire philosophy on life is 'an eye for an eye'? I can't even begin to address the problems with that. That's going back to caveman times in terms of justice systems.