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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: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:18PM
So, unless you are perfect, we should do away with you?
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Monday December 12 2016, @09:42AM
From Emperor Marcus Aurelius:
If he is a stranger to the universe who does not know what is in it, no less is he a stranger who does not know what is going on in it. He is a runaway, who flies from social reason; he is blind, who shuts the eyes of the understanding; he is poor, who has need of another, and has not from himself all things which are useful for life. He is an abscess on the universe who withdraws and separates himself from the reason of our common nature through being displeased with the things which happen, for the same nature produces this, and has produced thee too: he is a piece rent asunder from the state, who tears his own soul from that of reasonable animals, which is one.
Meditations, Bk. 4
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 12 2016, @07:17PM
sophistry - faggotry - it's hard to tell the difference. Which are you spouting here, Aristarchus?
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Monday December 12 2016, @08:50PM
Sorry! Did I touch you, in some inappropriate way?
Was just quoting Marcus Aurelius [wikipedia.org], Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD, and along with the slave Epictetus [wikipedia.org], one of the greatest of the Roman Stoic philosophers. In his Meditations [mit.edu] he mentioned runaways, made me think of you.
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But his point seems to be that we are all part of the same universe, and it is a bad or foolish thing to deny that. Now while the Romans were no slouches when it came to capital punishment, it would seem that to kill some one is the ultimate form of alienation, separating yourself from humanity. If a nation does this, well, more anti-social justice.
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As the prisoner hung on the wall in the Roman prison in Monty Python's Life of Brian puts it:
BEN: Now, take my case. They hung me up here five years ago. Every night, they take me down for twenty minutes, then they hang me up again, which I regard as very fair, in view of what I done, and, if nothing else, it's taught me to respect the Romans, and it's taught me... that you'll never get anywhere in this life, unless you're prepared to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EI7p2p1QJI [youtube.com]