Baby, it's what's for dinner.
A woman in ohio was sentenced to life in prison for microwaving her baby and killing. She was supposed to have done this after getting into a fight with her boyfriend. This makes no sense to me. There are 2 possibilities, either she didn't do it, in which case she should be acquitted, or she did do it in which case i don't understand why she should be allowed to continue living. I am in every way pro the death penalty. But especially in the case of people who are sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and double especially for someone who would commit such a heinous act as putting a baby in a microwave. now the state is going to have to support this woman for the next 60 years give or take at a cost of 20,000 a year. Each state spends different amounts on their prisoners, but i think that's a pretty good guestimate, and if anything, low.
I don't think people realize how many people die every day. People die all the time. Twice as many people were murdered in chicago this summer as american soldiers died in Iraq and Afganastan this summer. I don't remember the number, but hundreds of thousands of people (if not more) die every from drunk driving, not to mention the people who's lives are drastically shortened by smoking. If life was really so all fire holy and important it seems to me like we ought to get rid of quite a few things in society before the death penalty. How many people are executed a year/ a thousand? i don't know, but it can't be that many. Not to mention various studies which suggest that executing prisoners actually lowers the death rate by by saving more lives than it costs.
I could understand the cost of keep someone in prison for a long time if we thought that this person was going to be rehabilitated in 10-15 years, and would re-enter society. But if we are agreed that this person is never to re-enter society, then what is the point of keeping them alive at the public's expense? I don't think there should be any prison terms longer than 10 years. If a person isn't fit to return to society after 10-15 years, then i say there's no point in spending the money to keep them alive in prison. Probably most prison terms should be shortened, and those that aren't should just be given the death penalty. Once again, so many people die all the time over such silly things, not being religious myself, adding a few more to the list wouldn't bother me, especially not a woman who microwaved her own baby.
I don't think people realize how many people die every day. People die all the time. Twice as many people were murdered in chicago this summer as american soldiers died in Iraq and Afganastan this summer. I don't remember the number, but hundreds of thousands of people (if not more) die every from drunk driving, not to mention the people who's lives are drastically shortened by smoking. If life was really so all fire holy and important it seems to me like we ought to get rid of quite a few things in society before the death penalty. How many people are executed a year/ a thousand? i don't know, but it can't be that many. Not to mention various studies which suggest that executing prisoners actually lowers the death rate by by saving more lives than it costs.
I could understand the cost of keep someone in prison for a long time if we thought that this person was going to be rehabilitated in 10-15 years, and would re-enter society. But if we are agreed that this person is never to re-enter society, then what is the point of keeping them alive at the public's expense? I don't think there should be any prison terms longer than 10 years. If a person isn't fit to return to society after 10-15 years, then i say there's no point in spending the money to keep them alive in prison. Probably most prison terms should be shortened, and those that aren't should just be given the death penalty. Once again, so many people die all the time over such silly things, not being religious myself, adding a few more to the list wouldn't bother me, especially not a woman who microwaved her own baby.
posted by Trashcan at 9/10/2008 05:32:00 PM
5 Comments:
I just watched an X-Files last night where a woman was microwaved by having a voodoo doll of her microwaved. Yuck.
To the point: I've heard that the cost of executing somebody exceeds the cost of supporting a prisoner for life. Here's a link with information on that, I don't have time at work right now to peruse it: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
This simply means that court systems need to be redone to make all trials cheaper. The idea of cases that go on for weeks and months is just silly. There ought to be some sort of time limit for both the defense, and the prosecution to present their cases and convince a jury. A day each seems like a good amount to me, obviously less for most cases, but no case should take more than a day each.
It also was not made clear why so much more is spent on death penalty cases. Whether it's the length of the case, the fact that they want their top (more expensive) people on the case, want to investigate more to make sure they got it right, or something else. But if death penalty cases were far more frequent i believe the cost would come down as they become more ordinary, and more like other cases.
I think the reason is that they are allowed many more appeals to make sure no mistakes were made: it's not necessarily the length of the case but its frequency.
But why should a person who is going to spend a lifetime in prison be alloted fewer appeals than a person being put to death. In my mind the punishments both warrant equal amount of protections for the accused.
Many people argue that you can't have the death penalty because sometimes people are later found to be innocent. Someone was just exonorated in Dallas after like 20 years for rape. And i guess i could possibly be persuaded by that argument, but the whole point of the legal system is to avoid having innocent people in prison in the first place. I don't think you should set the crimes based on concern of punishing the innocent, you should reset the system to avoid punishing the innocent.
Yeah, but when's the point when you can say "alright, the system's foolproof, fire up the chair?" I think the answer is never. Maybe centuries after mind probes are invented and they are finally perfected the system will be foolproof, but not until then.
the only reasonable argument i see for executing people in a system with a reasonable chance of killing innocent people is that, if they're innocent, they'll just go to heaven, and that's not bad at all.
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