Washington state ends ‘racially biased’ death penalty. U mad, Hondo?

You're heart has groan hard @collegedoog

Can you link to some of those "known cases?"

Btw, I love how death penalty opponents who do everything in their power to to gum up the legal process and then complain about the cost of enforcing the death penalty.


How about a compromise, when identity isn't an issue, when we know with 100% certainty that we've got the right guy, would you agree to have that person executed immediately after their conviction?

Why is Polly Klaas' killer still on death row?

RaceBannon said:

ThomasFremont said:

Between the known cases of wrongful executions of innocent people and the fact that the death penalty ends up costing more than a life sentence, I’d say it’s about time.

I'm glad to see you are in favor of credible proof again

Welcome back

I’m more conservative than so called conservatives. Nothing’s changed with me.

HillsboroDuck said:

SFGbob said:

Can you link to some of those "known cases?"

Btw, I love how death penalty opponents who do everything in their power to to gum up the legal process and then complain about the cost of enforcing the death penalty.


How about a compromise, when identity isn't an issue, when we know with 100% certainty that we've got the right guy, would you agree to have that person executed immediately after their conviction?

Why is Polly Klaas' killer still on death row?

There are absolutely known cases where DNA evidence exonerated the executed.

I don't disagree with your point about the costs though. I'm generally more against the death penalty than for, but would support it in cases like you've laid out.

I'm not denying it, I'd just like to know which of these "known cases" you're referring to.

I was a law clerk on a death penalty case. So LISTEN! (Hi @BearsWiin )

The background here is the state's proportionality statute, which mandates that the court review each capital case, compare it to prior cases and consider factors such as aggravating circumstances, and conclude, one way or the other, whether the state is disproportionately leveling the death penalty on some groups over others. These statutes exist entirely because of the south, where the death penalty really has been disproportionately leveled against blacks. The statistics are there, and the problem has been that in some parts of the country, a black guy doing what Mitchell Rupe did would get the chair and a white guy doing what Wesley Allen Dodd did would get life w/o parole. That's literally how that statute is applied: "what the white guy did was way worse than what the black guy did, and the black guy death and the white guy didn't."

A lot of people thought the Rupe case (remember the guy who said he was too fat to be hanged in violation of the 8th amendment) was the end of proportionality review in WA. 'All Rupe did' was shoot some bank tellers in @RaceBannon 's hometown. Compare/contrast with Dodd, who raped and tortured (including vivisection) Lee Isley over two days before hanging him in a closet. The idea behind Rupe being, if a white guy got death for a run-of-the-mill capital crime, there's no problem.

In Washington, there really has been no problem with disproportionality, at least insofar as the prosecutors decision to seek it is implicated. The jury thing is another matter I suppose.

Essentially we have a statute modeled after a Georgia statute forcing the WSC to do something here it hasn't really needed to do. In GA, they need to keep doing it.

I'll have to read the case to find out how they cooked that answer up here. It really was a no brainer in the souf. I remember seeing those statistics and comparisons of aggravating circumstances and penalty imposed, and it was pretty clear.

PS: it was this experience that kept me from wanting to prosecute. Combing through the details of the case and the prior cases haunted me for years. Especially the Dodd case. The details of what he did was excruciating to wade through.

Alexis said:

I love the Seattle Times article that points out the death penalty is rayciss, and then shows a picture of the 8 guys currently on #deathrow. 5 of them are white.

I guess my issue is how sexist it is. All of them are men.

And men who most men would happily and gladly kill for what they did. But this state is Feminist Utopia, so I hope all its women feel much safer today than yesterday.

ThomasFremont said:

TurdBuffer said:

Alexis said:

I love the Seattle Times article that points out the death penalty is rayciss, and then shows a picture of the 8 guys currently on #deathrow. 5 of them are white.

I guess my issue is how sexist it is. All of them are men.

And men who most men would happily and gladly kill for what they did. But this state is Feminist Utopia, so I hope all its women feel much safer today than yesterday.

Or we could just lock them up forever and accomplish the same thing for cheaper. Nobody is saying to let these psychos loose in the streets.

And on the off chance that one was mistakenly convicted, we can avoid murdering another innocent man.

A bullet to the back of the head immediately after sentencing is pretty fucking cheap.

Can I please get a link to one of these "innocent" men we've executed recently?