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An Alabama inmate was put to death by lethal injection on Thursday after a deadlocked Supreme Court refused to stay his execution, The Associated Press reported. The inmate, Ronald B. Smith, had been sentenced to death by a judge despite a jury's recommendation of life without parole.
Mr. Smith was convicted in 1995 of murdering Casey Wilson, a convenience store clerk, the previous year. By a vote of 7 to 5, the jury rejected the death penalty and recommended a sentence of life without parole. The judge overrode that recommendation, sentencing Mr. Smith to death.
[...] In January, the Supreme Court struck down Florida's capital sentencing system, which also allowed judicial overrides of jury recommendations of life sentences. "The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death,"
Should judges be allowed to overrule a jury's decision for sentencing?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday December 11 2016, @09:20PM
I'm not arguing that there aren't people who deserve the death penalty. But there are just too many cases in which they got the wrong person. So long as justice is not perfect-- which may be forever-- punishments for which reparation can't be made are unfair.
Often it's not even an honest mistake. Officials want to look like they are competent, good at catching criminals, and tough on crime, and sometimes have put on a show with anyone they could frame, for appearances. Of course they pick someone else they don't want around, maybe just roll with public opinion no matter how wrong, and can't be bothered to do real work on the case. Sometimes the real perpetrator is an official, who is all the more anxious to see someone else take the blame, and be permanently silenced.
Or it's a political issue, and those on the weaker side are being persecuted unfairly. We've arrested, imprisoned, and even executed people for the damnedest things. Like, helping a slave escape the South before the Civil War, or being a Jew in Nazi Germany during WWII, and today helping others infringe copyright. Worst is being a slave, with so very many ways the master can have you summarily executed, no need to bother with niceties like a good reason and a trial. Some in the entertainment biz would like to impose the Death Penalty on media pirates, just watch the Star Trek episode I, Mudd. Yes, Star Trek, one of the most liberal, progressive shows of the 1960's, that made such groundbreaking moves as the first interracial kiss on TV, throws that Death to Pirates zinger at the audience. Now we can see that copying is not the heinous crime that Big Media propaganda makes it out to be, not equivalent to theft, and maybe shouldn't be a crime at all.
Then there's using the threat of death as a bully club in plea bargaining, to coerce false confessions to other crimes. Not that they don't have all kinds of other ways to screw up someone's life that they can use against suspects, but perhaps that punishment is the most powerfully persuasive in their arsenal.
I don't want to see the power of the Death Penalty in the hands of bumbling, corrupt officialdom.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday December 12 2016, @02:33AM
Is it not worse than death to be encaged for life? For should an innocent man be freed after so long, he cannot functionally rejion society.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday December 12 2016, @04:12AM
I remember back in my early 20s making a similar argument about the death penalty. I know the stories about ruined lives after exoneration and prison time. But now I think much differently -- the death penalty is irrevocable, so the person has no choice to continue living and hope for exoneration.
If we're not going to abolish the death penalty completely, if you want to make that argument, at least we should let prisoners have the choice rather than simply killing them... Only to find out later that they were innocent. In no way should we view sentencing someone to death as a "humanitarian" measure.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @11:04AM
How about this? Whenever a person who has been executed is later found to be falsely accused, the judge and/or jury (depending on who decided the death penalty) is automatically convicted of the murder of an innocent person. After all, court transcripts will show plenty of evidence that they actually did sentence the person to death, so no need for lengthy trials.
That should cut down the use of the death penalty to cases where there is absolutely no doubt. At least if you believe the death penalty to be a deterrent.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:31AM
What do you do then when the prosecution, police, or others fail to report exculpatory evidence?
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