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The Case of Richard Glossip

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Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#101

Post by blister »

webXL wrote: post #93
joshuaheard wrote: post #90

Government is too incompetent to have the power to take your life.

I'm sympathetic to that argument, but the logical next step is to say that they're also too incompetent to protect your life, and then it's the wild-west. I believe in extreme circumstances, society should reserve the right to "not turn the other cheek". Nothing is black and white. The government is not completely incompetent, and not all cases have reasonable doubt. But cases like this, no way. Define some clear-cut…

Isn't this already the case? Our police force, the ones with the motto of "protect and serve" are in the news nearly every day with some sort of gun crime against the citizenry [1].

We literally pay these people to put their lives on the line for us, but it seems to have become OK for them to "shoot first and ask questions later". They have lighter restrictions on the use of force than we had in a war zone in the Army.

Perhaps it's time that we DO say that they're too incompetent to protect our lives. Perhaps it's time to vote for an actual change while we still have time.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#102

Post by muglug »

ekianjo wrote: post #97

> That's why we can't have the death penalty in the US. I don't know exactly when it's permissible to kill someone. But I know for sure the Oklahoma judicial system should not be allowed to. If they have that power, all it takes is a half-assed police investigation plus a prosecutor playing hardball with plea bargains, and innocent people die. Mmm? So, because the system is not perfect, we should remove death penalty…

For me, it comes down to this: why should the state have the right to rob an absolutely powerless individual of their life? What possible reason can anyone provide for not keeping them alive?

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#103

Post by philwelch »

tsotha wrote: post #95
philwelch wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems almost pointless to even have a formal death penalty when law enforcement officers are given effective blanket immunity against homicide charges.

That's not true. They officer who shot Walter Scott has been charged with murder.

One officer charged out of hundreds of Americans killed by police every year. Statistically, that's still effective blanket immunity.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#104

Post by joeevans1000 »

Albert Einstein:

"I have reached the conviction that the abolition of the death penalty is desirable. Reasons: 1) Irreparability in the event of an error of justice, 2) Detrimental moral influence of the execution procedure on those who, whether directly or indirectly, have to do with the procedure."

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#105

Post by bratsche »

falsestprophet wrote: post #73

If Richard Glossip wasn't sentenced to death, he would likely have languished in prison as long as he lived. That would also be a horrible injustice. People see more motivated by orders of magnitude to get death penalty cases right relative to life incarceration cases. Counterintuitively, justice may be better served by abolishing life imprisonment and mandating the death penalty for cases where periods of imprisonme…

> If Richard Glossip wasn't sentenced to death, he would likely have languished in prison as long as he lived.

Not necessarily. If Sneed, the guy who actually committed the murder, had not faced the death penalty then would he still have tried to claim that Glossip put him up to it?

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#106

Post by tsotha »

philwelch wrote: post #103
tsotha wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. They officer who shot Walter Scott has been charged with murder.

One officer charged out of hundreds of Americans killed by police every year. Statistically, that's still effective blanket immunity.

You can't know that without knowing how many would have been charged had they not been police officers.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#107

Post by ekianjo »

muglug wrote: post #102
ekianjo wrote: post #97

> That's why we can't have the death penalty in the US. I don't know exactly when it's permissible to kill someone. But I know for sure the Oklahoma judicial system should not be allowed to. If they have that power, all it takes is a half-assed police investigation plus a prosecutor playing hardball with plea bargains, and innocent people die. Mmm? So, because the system is not perfect, we should remove death penalty…

For me, it comes down to this: why should the state have the right to rob an absolutely powerless individual of their life? What possible reason can anyone provide for not keeping them alive?

> powerless individual of their life

Let's not make the butchers the victims. When you kill several people, what kind of redemption do you expect?

> why should the state have the right

Just as the State has the right to kill innocent people overseas. If you are worried about saving innocent lives, it's way more effective to prevent your state from going to war than to save the unfortunate innocents stuck in the death row. There are WAY more innocents killed in conflicts.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#108

Post by ekianjo »

swehner wrote: post #99
ekianjo wrote: post #97

> That's why we can't have the death penalty in the US. I don't know exactly when it's permissible to kill someone. But I know for sure the Oklahoma judicial system should not be allowed to. If they have that power, all it takes is a half-assed police investigation plus a prosecutor playing hardball with plea bargains, and innocent people die. Mmm? So, because the system is not perfect, we should remove death penalty…

You ask "Is that seriously the point PG is making here?" I think that is indeed the case. I also suggest that your writing doesn't make any kind of valuable argument against that suggestion. Yes, of course, "because the system is not perfect, we should remove death penalty altogether." That's the way it is. When you write "There should be strong consequences for murder and certainly Death Row has its place as well,"…

> I think that is indeed the case.

Then why is that PG article coming up now? It's not like it's a newsflash that we have innocent people dying in the Death Row. it's been happening for years. Is it an epidermic reaction of some sort ? The news effect, just like people who can't fall asleep for 15 mins because they saw something horrible on TV and then forget it and go on with their lives the next day ?

If you are revolted against something, that should be on your agenda every single day of your life, not just when the news talk about it.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#109

Post by cjslep »

Central Prison (where death row is for the state of NC) is right by NC State's campus. While I was there I was a heavy metal radio host for WKNC, and received a lot of letters from death row inmates.

Very few letters were of the type I was expecting at the time: "Play this Cradle of Filth song for me, or I will file down shards of my broken mirror in order to kill you". Along with very entertaining, if graphic, pieces of artwork.

Most of the letters were cordial, but gruff. Hard criticism of songs each inmate did not like, glorified praise for the songs they did like. Rarely, they would describe why a particular song was important to them and it was not anything alien to my freshman self: lost love, old buddies, family, trying times.

There was one I replied to and carried on a brief written correspondence with: Tilmon Golphin. Make no mistake, there is no excuse for his actions. But what I found fascinating was the attitude he decided to show in his letters; how true his words were I cannot accurately judge. He showed me major regret of brutally murdering officers of the law and provided no excuses, instead showing acceptance of what he had done with his brother.

I later learned that particular case of his and his brother's is one where the US Supreme Court's ruling in Roper v. Simmons divided the sentences of the brothers. Tilmon was 19, and his brother 17, so while both were sentenced to death, the SCOTUS ruling means Tilmon is still on death row while his brother is not.

I never would have thought I would learn so much from being a heavy metal radio show host.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#110

Post by Frondo »

webXL wrote: post #93
joshuaheard wrote: post #90

Government is too incompetent to have the power to take your life.

I'm sympathetic to that argument, but the logical next step is to say that they're also too incompetent to protect your life, and then it's the wild-west. I believe in extreme circumstances, society should reserve the right to "not turn the other cheek". Nothing is black and white. The government is not completely incompetent, and not all cases have reasonable doubt. But cases like this, no way. Define some clear-cut…

That is not the logical next step.

The logical next step is, "so the government should not be in the business of killing people."

Life in prison? Sure, though I'm personally not sure depriving someone of their freedom for the rest of their natural life isn't also unacceptably cruel.

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