[CrazyL]

Yahoo News

Democrat Barack Obama said Wednesday he disagrees with the Supreme Court's decision outlawing executions of people who rape children, a crime he said states have the right to consider for capital punishment.

"I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes," Obama said at a news conference. "I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution."

I agree with him.

[Willie Bee]

I was actually surprised this vote was as narrow as it was, 5-4. Alito's comments after the decision were meant to stand for the slim majority, and one of the arguments against it makes some sense. I think there are only six or seven states that allowed for the death penalty in these cases, and Alito noted that in the past 35-40 years or so, only four people have been sentenced to die for child rape. According to the majority, their reasoning was with so few states using it and so few actually given the death penalty for the crime, it marked a general consensus that the public thinks capital punishment is too harsh for the crime.

Now I tend to side with what I suspect to be the majority of people that would love to see these sons a'bitches strung up by their tiny little nuts and suffer a very slow, agonizing death. But there were child advocacy groups that argued, and this makes more sense than any argument to me, that the vast majority of child rape is at the hands of a relative or close family friend. It's already tough to get some people to come forward to rat on a family member or close family friend, and if they thought the family member or friend might be sentenced to death, even fewer would come forward and actually testify against them.

[pavyracer]

I'm against death penalty for child rapists. I'm in favor of lifelong raping of the convicted at government supported facilities without the use of prophylactics.

P.S. I'm not running for president of the USA.

[CrazyL]

Originally Posted by Willie Bee

Now I tend to side with what I suspect to be the majority of people that would love to see these sons a'bitches strung up by their tiny little nuts and suffer a very slow, agonizing death. But there were child advocacy groups that argued, and this makes more sense than any argument to me, that the vast majority of child rape is at the hands of a relative or close family friend. It's already tough to get some people to come forward to rat on a family member or close family friend, and if they thought the family member or friend might be sentenced to death, even fewer would come forward and actually testify against them.

That's an interesting point. By the same token maybe some people, if they knew they'd face death if caught, would think twice about their actions. I'm sure a lot of these people are repeat offenders of the law who could care less about being returned to the slammer.

[moneyline]

As a defense attorney, I can tell you there are very few people who could care less about returning to the slammer. Sure, there are some -- not many, though.

[ZXCVBNM123]

So Republicans are in favor of child rapists... hmm.

[moneyline]

Or against killing people. Depends on your point of view, I guess. Democrats don't mind killing them if they are in their 3rd trimester, though ... rather strange!

[Cappy]

Moneyline, I'll take it way farther, I think parents should be in charge of the childs life to the fourth trimester. Bill Hicks says "you're not a person until you're in my phonebook."
-I'm not a democrat
If you don't like death may be you should be a democrat

[Cappy]

The republicans appear to be huge fans of death in a carnage, hateful, hurting, painful, immoral, money is more important than human life kind-of-way.

if you happen to be one of those, good luck with that cognitive dissonance thing you've no doubt been dealing with for the last few years.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by CrazyL

That's an interesting point. By the same token maybe some people, if they knew they'd face death if caught, would think twice about their actions. I'm sure a lot of these people are repeat offenders of the law who could care less about being returned to the slammer.

The death penalty is NOT a deterrent to crime it is a removal system for serious criminals. Serious whackos don't check their states law code before committing whatever crazy crime against humanity they commit. I hope you can agree with that.

[CrazyL]

Originally Posted by Cappy

The death penalty is NOT a deterrent to crime it is a removal system for serious criminals. Serious whackos don't check their states law code before committing whatever crazy crime against humanity they commit. I hope you can agree with that.

Well, I agree it's a something of a "removal system", but I don't think you can accurately say it's not a deterrent to crime ever. I do believe some criminals are conscious of the consequences of their actions beforehand, I do think there are people who would walk out of a situation before they got "in too deep", etc.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by CrazyL

Well, I agree it's a something of a "removal system", but I don't think you can accurately say it's not a deterrent to crime ever. I do believe some criminals are conscious of the consequences of their actions beforehand, I do think there are people who would walk out of a situation before they got "in too deep", etc.

I feel I can say this pretty accurately, it's not a deterrent to crime ever.
I don't believe that serious criminals ever really consider the price they will pay for their crimes. If you look at these two sources as well as the hundreds of reliable studies done I think you'll agree.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/arti...withvw ithout

http://www.nodeathpenaltywi.org/PDF/...020%2006. pdf

[CrazyL]

Originally Posted by Cappy

I feel I can say this pretty accurately, it's not a deterrent to crime ever.
I don't believe that serious criminals ever really consider the price they will pay for their crimes. If you look at these two sources as well as the hundreds of reliable studies done I think you'll agree.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/arti...eswithvwithout

http://www.nodeathpenaltywi.org/PDF/...020%2006. pdf

Ever is a strong word though. I can live with you saying, potentially facing the death penalty rarely deters any criminals from committing an act. But are you suggesting that no criminal has ever "chickened out" from going along with his friends, fellow gangs, etc etc, if he knew it meant taking someones life, and he wasn't willing to go that far, but would gladly "jack a car" or something like that....?

All I'm saying is having the death penalty in verifiable cases of child rape as an option "may" deter a % of people from acting out on their twisted fantasies, maybe it's not a very meaningful % at all, but if it saves some kid from being scarred the rest of the life who is it hurting really?

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by CrazyL

Ever is a strong word though. I can live with you saying, potentially facing the death penalty rarely deters any criminals from committing an act. But are you suggesting that no criminal has ever "chickened out" from going along with his friends, fellow gangs, etc etc, if he knew it meant taking someones life, and he wasn't willing to go that far, but would gladly "jack a car" or something like that....?

All I'm saying is having the death penalty in verifiable cases of child rape as an option "may" deter a % of people from acting out on their twisted fantasies, maybe it's not a very meaningful % at all, but if it saves some kid from being scarred the rest of the life who is it hurting really?

I can't really speak to the semantics of individual cases whose outcome may or may not have been affected by the presence of the death penalty. But what I can speak to is the studies which suggest that there is a 0% correlation between the death penalty and a lowered level of violent crime. This means EVER!

It just is not a deterrent, you can fantasize about situations where some criminal or would be criminal might have a change of heart, but those situations are at the very least "statistically insignificant" and as most studies have suggested the result of the death penalty is counter to what resonable logic would seem. I do believe I understand where you're coming from, while your logic seems reasonable it has been (as far as I'm concerned) proven incorrect. These serious criminals just aren't deterred by that last bit of potential consequences, these people are crazy, maybe that's why conventional logic is so easily defeated.

[CrazyL]

Originally Posted by Cappy

I can't really speak to the semantics of individual cases whose outcome may or may not have been affected by the presence of the death penalty. But what I can speak to is the studies which suggest that there is a 0% correlation between the death penalty and a lowered level of violent crime. This means EVER!

It just is not a deterrent, you can fantasize about situations where some criminal or would be criminal might have a change of heart, but those situations are at the very least "statistically insignificant" and as most studies have suggested the result of the death penalty is counter to what resonable logic would seem. I do believe I understand where you're coming from, while your logic seems reasonable it has been (as far as I'm concerned) proven incorrect. These serious criminals just aren't deterred by that last bit of potential consequences, these people are crazy, maybe that's why conventional logic is so easily defeated.

Ah, so now we're changing definitions?

It's either black or white here. If you say the word "ever", I interpret it to mean "ever", not, long enough or with enough frequency to be considered statistically significant.

If you had instead said, the # of criminals or would be criminals deterred by capital punishment are statistically insignificant, I'd have no issue with that statement at all. However, you said the death penalty isn't EVER a deterrent.