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The Case of Richard Glossip

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Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#111

Post by tew28 »

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…

The government failing to protect a life is not the same as, or even similar to, the government erroneously taking a life.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#112

Post by jsudhams »

epmatsw wrote: post #10

Seems like the real issue is that Oklahoma is not giving the guy a fair trial. While the finality of the death penalty makes it (or at least makes it seem) worse, it would/could be just as unfair to throw the guy in jail for life without giving him his due process.

I agree based on what i know, India is the best when it comes to giving chance to the folks to trial multiple times. And while high courts (highest in states) can give sentence that could be overturned in supreme court. Can he not apply to USA supreme court or equivalent of that?

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#113

Post by peteretep »

johnnyg wrote: post #15

RE: How people are and the death penalty The other day I was driving down the road and thinking about how people are. It was 33 years coming but here's what hit me: people do what they want, even in the face of devastating consequences. See that long line outside any burger joint? See the stats on the amount of hard drugs guaranteed to destroy your world we consume? See that person cheating? See that DA wanting a win…

"We build jails for people we're afraid of, and fill them with people we're mad at

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#114

Post by cbsmith »

TillE wrote: post #45
cbsmith wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that you're survey of examples is likely biased by what makes a good story... and journalists have become very good at figuring out which cases will make a good story. It's a problem that there is enough material to keep the stories coming, but let's not conclude that the stories we read about represent the bulk of the justice system's operations.

The fact that the egregious examples exist is proof enough of the insanity and incompetence that's permitted by the justice system. The appeals processes seems too restrictive to allow for proper review in many cases. Just because a system has existed for a long time doesn't mean it's ideal in any way. The murder of Meredith Kercher is another prominent example in another country. All evidence pointed to one murderer…

> The fact that the egregious examples exist is proof enough of the insanity and incompetence that's permitted by the justice system.

It's more like proof of the law of large numbers.

> The appeals processes seems too restrictive to allow for proper review in many cases.

Appeals processes should be restrictive, otherwise the time and expense of the trial itself are essentially squandered. That said, I have no doubt that at least in some, and possibly many systems, it's over the line.

> Just because a system has existed for a long time doesn't mean it's ideal in any way.

I hope you didn't think I suggested anything to the contrary.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#115

Post by peteretep »

tbrooks wrote: post #41
msabalau wrote: post #9

It's increasingly seems that the powers of prosecutors are deployed in arbitrary and unjust ways: either overreaching (as in the case of Aaron Swartz or Xiaoxing Xi) or non-prosecution of police brutality or corporate crime (just changing now that the statute of limitations run out on those responsible for the 2008 financial crisis) It's not clear what can be done about it, other than occasionally writing a check to…

Prosecutors have almost absolute immunity. A prosecutor can intentionally cheat the system, get a conviction, put a person in jail, and if caught, there is no lawsuit that can be filed against them and it's almost impossible to get them disbarred. There are incentives to cheat; as long as there are no ramifications for it, it will continue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqChMa4GV3w

This is a very very US-centric problem on the basis that most civilised countries don't elect prosecutors because that'd be insane.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#116

Post by [deleted] »

peterwwillis wrote: post #6

I upvoted this mainly because I think it's healthy that people consider the ethics by which they and their fellow citizens live. But generally speaking, this is a stupid reason not to kill someone. The DA basically told this guy point-blank that if you don't want to die, take this deal. If you do want to die, don't take the deal. He chose not to take the deal. Is there a chance that "good sense" could have prevailed,…

[deleted]

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#117

Post by cbsmith »

cbsmith wrote: post #27
peterwwillis wrote: post #6

I upvoted this mainly because I think it's healthy that people consider the ethics by which they and their fellow citizens live. But generally speaking, this is a stupid reason not to kill someone. The DA basically told this guy point-blank that if you don't want to die, take this deal. If you do want to die, don't take the deal. He chose not to take the deal. Is there a chance that "good sense" could have prevailed,…

Omg you are proposing such a hugely distorted justice system. The punishment for making a bad decision on a deal presented to you should not be death. If your crime deserves the maximum sentence, and you are in subway helpful to the criminal justice system, then maybe you deserve a pass. However, if you didn't commit the crime, or if there is reasonable doubt as to whether you did, I don't care if you mooned the DA w…

s/subway/someway/

Missed the autocorrect foo. Sorry.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#118

Post by falsestprophet »

efuquen wrote: post #86
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…

> Counterintuitively, justice may be better served by abolishing life imprisonment and mandating the death penalty for cases where periods of imprisonment would exceed 20 years or so. I've seen several people already share this sentiment and it really confuses me. Because 1) It's made by people who have never, and come from a background where they most likely never would, have to seriously make such a choice. (If I'm…

Richard Glossip did make this choice. He could have pled guilty and have received a sentence of life imprisonment.

In our current system innocent people accused of capital crimes are often faced with the choice of pleading guilty or going to trial and facing the death penalty.

This isn't a highly just arrangement.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#119

Post by webXL »

tew28 wrote: post #111
webXL wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The government failing to protect a life is not the same as, or even similar to, the government erroneously taking a life.

I know there are big ethical problems with my "next step", but do you really care if you're killed by a murderer or a careless police officer? Or a careless safety inspection that leads to an accident?

Incompetence that leads to my wrongful conviction and death is probably just as likely as the incompetence that would lead to my death when I'm supposed to be protected. It's a hell of a lot less likely than the death of those whom I'm not-exactly being protected from, such as the countless victims of "collateral damage".

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#120

Post by webXL »

Frondo wrote: post #110
webXL wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"so the government should not be in the business of killing people."

But as a species, we're a long way from selecting government officials who don't want to kill. These freaks crave power.

And Glossip had the chance to take life if he confessed. He chose death. Just goes to show that cruelty is subjective.

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