Don't Mess With Texas
One brief opinion I'll mention here is that we can't overturn a death penalty conviction simply because a group of people have decided they are opposed to it. That would set a precedent of overturning whichever convictions we simply don't agree with. It's one thing to oppose it, but demonstrating outside of executions that have been planned for decades just doesn't seem right to me.
If someone emphatically opposes capital punishment, I think their best course of action is to try to change the law now, rather than applying that belief to crimes that have already been tried and decided.
Of course, DNA technology has been able to free a number of innocent folks, which is good, but it could also do SO MUCH good if it could be applied more effectively to tracking current criminals. Law enforcement is underfunded enough that putting everything into a centralized database and truly making the best use of DNA technology is not possible right now.
Another problem is that I think we have to honor the decision made by the legal process and a jury years ago when the verdict was handed down. So many of these death row folks were convicted 15+ years ago, and I don't necessarily think we have the right to take that decision away from the folks who reached it back then. That would change our legal process.
That said, though, the death penalty isn't just about killing a convicted person for a specific crime under specific circumstances. It's much, much cheaper to house someone for life rather than paying state attorneys (both defense and prosecution) to do appeal after appeal after appeal. However, I don't want people to get out on parole 30 years from now when their sentence was commuted from death to life.
I do support the death sentence under particular circumstances, but recognize that it's problematic on several dimensions.
If someone emphatically opposes capital punishment, I think their best course of action is to try to change the law now, rather than applying that belief to crimes that have already been tried and decided.
Of course, DNA technology has been able to free a number of innocent folks, which is good, but it could also do SO MUCH good if it could be applied more effectively to tracking current criminals. Law enforcement is underfunded enough that putting everything into a centralized database and truly making the best use of DNA technology is not possible right now.
Another problem is that I think we have to honor the decision made by the legal process and a jury years ago when the verdict was handed down. So many of these death row folks were convicted 15+ years ago, and I don't necessarily think we have the right to take that decision away from the folks who reached it back then. That would change our legal process.
That said, though, the death penalty isn't just about killing a convicted person for a specific crime under specific circumstances. It's much, much cheaper to house someone for life rather than paying state attorneys (both defense and prosecution) to do appeal after appeal after appeal. However, I don't want people to get out on parole 30 years from now when their sentence was commuted from death to life.
I do support the death sentence under particular circumstances, but recognize that it's problematic on several dimensions.
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