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stella41b -> RE: Angola: Tossing away the keys (6/3/2009 7:53:43 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Politesub53
Murderers and rapists deserve no sympathy in my opinion. If you are against the death penalty, then you cant moan if life means what it says.
It's funny you write it like that because up until very recently that's the way it seemed to me and I would have been in full agreement with what you wrote above. As some of you know I'm staunchly against capital punishment and the death penalty so much so I can sum up my arguments in just two words.
Troy Davis.
Who is Troy Davis? Troy Davis is the man who Georgia are seeking to execute right now for murdering a Georgia police officer in 1991. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail at a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia; a murder he maintains he did not commit. There was no physical evidence against him and the weapon used in the crime was never found. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state's non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony. Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.
One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony is Sylvester "Red" Coles – the principle alternative suspect, according to the defense, against whom there is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles.
Beyond reasonable doubt? Hardly, in my opinion.
This is just one example of why I am so against the death penalty. Therefore it can be assumed that I am in favour of 'natural life' sentences, life without parole, where life really does mean life and you come out of prison in a coffin.
I felt that the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe got away with murder - quite literally - not just because he was a compulsive liar but also because the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police force at that time was a lying police force. Sutcliffe murdered thirteen women across the North of England between 1975 and 1980 but the police never really bothered to properly investigate the murders until he murdered his thirteenth victim Jacqueline Hill in Leeds in 1980. Whilst on remand in Armley Prison, Leeds, Sutcliffe claimed that he would 'just get ten years in the nick and have to spend the rest of his life in a nuthouse' but despite the fact that he was sentenced to serve a minimum thirty years by a judge at the Old Bailey sure enough in the 1990's he was moved from Parkhurst Prison to Broadmoor. Both the Byford and Sampson reports were whitewash and an almighty cover up to prevent it getting out that the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police had compromised the safety of women, all women, during the time when they weren't really bothered about investigating the murders, during the same amount of time when they interviewed Sutcliffe nine times.
But then again, has Sutcliffe really got away with murder? I cannot see him ever being let out again back into society and if the possibility ever came up I would be against it. But maybe, just maybe, he is in the right place.
Up until recently I was strongly in favour of natural life sentences. The costs argument of the pro-death penalty camp doesn't make sense to me at all. Law enforcement costs money, the police and courts cost money, the prisons cost money, just as the health care system costs money. I am no more willing to discuss who deserves to receive prison service over who doesn't than I would be to discuss who deserves access to health care over someone who doesn't. Killing someone just because it would cost more to keep them in prison to me is a similar argument to killing people found to have cancer as treating them in hospital and putting them through chemotherapy would cost the taxpayer more. In both cases I don't feel it's right for the state or authorities to decide who lives and who dies, at least not as much as I feel that the state or authorities does have the right to decide whether someone is to be removed from mainstream society or not under certain circumstances.
However I recently read another article In the Face of Death by Alex Kotlowicz and it was reading this article which caused me to realize that yes, I am in favour of life without parole for crimes such as murder and rape, but only on principle. This is just like many of those in the pro-death penalty camp, who are also in favour of the death penalty, on principle.
The only problem with this is, in both cases, what happens when prior to sentencing you know the person who is about to be sentenced or you have intimate knowledge of that person? What then?
What if it is someone you know, or someone who is just like you? They're right there before you in the court room, you are sitting on the jury, a jury which has already established that yes, this person did commit homicide, and you're now trying to work out as a jury whether to send them to prison for a very long time or to Death Row. This is what the Kotlowicz article is about, a death qualified jury deciding over whether someone goes to Death Row or not.
This brings me back to the broadcast in the OP, and listening to the accounts of some of the prisoners serving natural life sentences in Angola. Some of those prisoners have been serving since the late 1960's or early 1970's and are now elderly. Now I understand the loss of freedom and liberty, which to me is part and parcel of being sent to prison and unlike the death penalty, when you commit a crime you should perhaps weigh up the possibilities of you being caught and sent to prison. This is what I don't have any issues with still.
But why do we send people to prison? What is the whole purpose of prison? Is it not just to remove someone from society, but also to reform and rehabilitate? This is where I have discovered that I do in fact have an issue with natural life sentences, because as the prisoners did say, it takes away their hope.
This is not my way of saying that I am now not in favour of life without parole and that I do feel that parole is necessary. As I have stated earlier I would be against granting parole to someone like Peter Sutcliffe, just as many people were against Myra Hindley or Ian Brady,
However I do feel that there is an argument in favour of prison reform.
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