Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online • Hacker News Board

Re: Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online

#221

Post by HardlyCurious » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 11:00 PM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #20

dionidium wrote: post #9

Hard to reconcile some of these last words with the reality of their crimes: Juxtapose: I was so glad to leave this world a better, more positive place. It’s not an easy life with all the negativities. ... I hope I left everyone a plate of food full of happy memories, happiness and no sadness. [0] With this: > On September 11, 1999, Jones murdered his great aunt, 83-year-old Berthena Bryant, bludgeoning her to death…

The crime was when he was deeply addicted and drugged out of his mind 22 years earlier. I don't find it shocking that he's had another life since. Killing him in 2021 just seems so... pointless

Is it less pointless to keep him in jail for the rest of his life?

Re: Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online

#222

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 11:00 PM UTC

jackson1442 wrote: post #192

conductr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current process is a middle ground. Stay on death row for decades to ultimately be executed (after likelihood of being found innocent is extremely small). I like the idea of capital punishment because I don't want to pay to keep murderers alive for decades. I feel like the bigger issue is, and what pushes me to think twice on the issue, people get found guilty of murder "without a reasonable doubt" on purely circ…

> I don't want to pay to keep murderers alive for decades According to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice[0], “The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California’s current death row population of 670…

[deleted]

Re: Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online

#223

Post by throwawaylinux » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 11:00 PM UTC

jackson1442 wrote: post #78

dilap wrote: post #42

I was amused by the Texan racial categories: White, Black, Hispanic, Other Spot checking a handful of statements, it seems like most people executed found God, peace, and remorse at the end. Though at least one person never stopped proclaiming innocence: > I’m not the one that killed Christina, so whatever makes ya’ll happy. I wonder how many on the list were, in fact, innocent.

That's my biggest issue with capital punishment. You can't take it back, if you're wrong you just killed someone's child, parent, sibling, or combination thereof. While being sentenced to years of prison for a crime you didn't commit is also horrible, you can at the very least be released if you're found innocent.

You can't take any punishment back. If you sentence a man to 20 years but overturn it and release him after 10, that's still 10 years of his life you took. Being against capital punishment does not absolve you of the injustices of the justice system.

Re: Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online

#224

Post by loeg » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 11:02 PM UTC

dotgov wrote: post #137

loeg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP is talking about Mathis Milton. You're quoting a wikipedia article about Quintin Jones. Obviously, they are not the same person.

Whoops my mistake. I’ll try to make my point with Mathis Milton as well: “Milton dropped out of school after the 8th grade and worked as a cook, mechanic’s helper, and laborer before his arrest. Milton abused alcohol and drugs as a teenager.” In another article he was being referred to as having “low IQ”. Combined with the fact that the murders happened in a crack house, I infer that he probably lived in a similar en…

I don't dispute that Milton's life growing up was probably tough, but your comment upthread is making specific factual claims (e.g., that he was raped by his sister/siblings), which are to the best of our knowledge not true (because you confused the subject of the thread). We should avoid making false statements.

Re: Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online

#225

Post by conductr » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 11:05 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #214

conductr wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I'm just stating my thoughts and discussing. I think if you want to retort in this manner, you probably should head over to Reddit

No this is good. Part of the villainy of this place is that as long as it's "just discussion" and you keep a controlled tone, you can call for whatever viciousness and violence you want. And you can! I can't stop you. But I can also point out that you can be seen when you do this, and my assessment isn't less valid because the idea of stomping out human lives is abhorrent to me.

It ceases to be just discussion when you call me evil and vicious and sick world view. It's fine if you disagree in a more productive manner. I wasn't even trying to take a stance; I stated my stance and you attacked. /end

Re: Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online

#226

Post by nickelcitymario » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 11:12 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #9

Hard to reconcile some of these last words with the reality of their crimes: Juxtapose: I was so glad to leave this world a better, more positive place. It’s not an easy life with all the negativities. ... I hope I left everyone a plate of food full of happy memories, happiness and no sadness. [0] With this: > On September 11, 1999, Jones murdered his great aunt, 83-year-old Berthena Bryant, bludgeoning her to death…

Another way of looking at is that 22 years ago he did a terrible thing that he thought he would never do and has regretted ever since. This does not absolve him of shit, but:

We then collectively, as a society, took 22 years to murder him back.

Are we going to claim we did it as a mistake? Is ours a crime of passion? What excuse do we have for our violence? "He did it first"?

So I find it hard to reconcile that we are living in modern, democratic, freedom-loving countries, and the best we could come up with in response to murder was more murder.

When we kill inmates, we torture them for decades with the knowledge that they will be murdered for their crimes and it will hurt. We deprive them of all freedom in the meantime. Decades of knowing that society as a whole hates you so much that they locked you away out of sight and want your blood. We then surround them with the most violent people we have in society, and offer them little protection from each other.

And then finally, one day, if they survive the ordeal, we kill them and call it justice. That's what I have a hard time reconciling.

Re: Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online

#227

Post by rsj_hn » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 11:16 PM UTC

nickelcitymario wrote: post #226

dionidium wrote: post #9

Hard to reconcile some of these last words with the reality of their crimes: Juxtapose: I was so glad to leave this world a better, more positive place. It’s not an easy life with all the negativities. ... I hope I left everyone a plate of food full of happy memories, happiness and no sadness. [0] With this: > On September 11, 1999, Jones murdered his great aunt, 83-year-old Berthena Bryant, bludgeoning her to death…

Another way of looking at is that 22 years ago he did a terrible thing that he thought he would never do and has regretted ever since. This does not absolve him of shit, but: We then collectively, as a society, took 22 years to murder him back. Are we going to claim we did it as a mistake? Is ours a crime of passion? What excuse do we have for our violence? "He did it first"? So I find it hard to reconcile that we ar…

This is such a foolish way of looking at public order. The point is not whether murder is wrong or whether punishing is wrong, because after all we are not children arguing about right and wrong. Rather, we need a public that is free of murderers and so when people engage in antisocial behavior we remove them from the public. We don't remove someone for X years because we think they "deserve" to be removed for X years -- we remove them for X years because that's how it takes them to age out of being prone to commit acts of more violence.

It is about keeping society going. The moment you start getting into debates about right and wrong, you prove that you have no interest in keeping society going and are instead focused on making yourself feel good by making various philosophical pronouncements which are ultimately quite arbitrary. But what is not arbitrary is whether people can walk the streets safely at night or not. Do we live in a peaceful society or do we live in a society in which the wealthy barricade themselves in and hire private security while the poor are left to fend for themselves? That's what matters, and it's all that matters, because public justice is not an ethics class, it's a class about how to create safe streets so that society can continue to function in peace.

The moment you stop caring about how to create a peaceful society, what you get is a violent society that eventually disintegrates into warring clans and someone will rise to the top who can promise order, and he will not care a bit about your philosophical debates. And the people will support him, because not worrying about being attacked as you walk about the city is a required part of having cities in the first place. And we want cities, we want high density living in which strangers can interact with each other without violence -- we want civilization. Therefore we adopt policies that defend that civilization independent of any musings about who has the right to take a life or imprison someone and what that means for someone's soul, etc. It is only those people who take it for granted that they are living in a peaceful society, who are able to engage in these musings about what is right and wrong. But God help the society that takes them seriously or listens to their advice.

Re: Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online

#228

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 11:17 PM UTC

fphhotchips wrote: post #198

dionidium wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s something very odd to me about the modern progressive position that, more or less, if you can explain a crime, then you can in some sense excuse it. That description of his childhood works for me in sociological terms — let’s avoid stuff that we know to create monsters — but not on individual ones (i.e. the monster, having been created, is indeed a monster).

The question is, do you blame the monster for being a monster? Or do you blame the people that made them one? There are valid points both ways. IMO I think the idea is that if you can explain the crime then maybe the monster was created by society and thus can be redeemed by society. If you can't explain the crime, maybe the monster is just a monster.

>IMO I think the idea is that if you can explain the crime then maybe the monster was created by society and thus can be redeemed by society.

I think that might be the thought process, but I do not think it is very accurate. Some damage simply cant be undone, especially early childhood trauma and developmental damage.

Similarly, blame isn't binary, both can be true. If we have dispensed with the concept of free will, then nothing is to blame, neither society or the individual. It simply is.

Once you reach that point you have to ask, what is it, independent of the assignment of blame.

Are they a monster? Did they brutally murder 3 people?

Re: Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online

#229

Post by rootusrootus » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 11:24 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #200

rootusrootus wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a serious question? Only the justice system can execute someone.

Cartels execute people all the time.

The definition of execute is killing a legally condemned person. The cartels can kill someone execution-style.

Re: Texas Records All Inmates Last Words Before Execution And Puts Them All Online

#230

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 11:26 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #209

fphhotchips wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is, do you blame the monster for being a monster? Or do you blame the people that made them one? There are valid points both ways. IMO I think the idea is that if you can explain the crime then maybe the monster was created by society and thus can be redeemed by society. If you can't explain the crime, maybe the monster is just a monster.

As a materialist and a determinist I accept implicitly that everything has a cause and nobody is really responsible for anything, in some sense. But I find it’s pretty hard to actually live as though that’s true. Taken to its logical conclusions: I’m not even responsible for my belief that he’s responsible, and so on.

My response to this materialist argument is that it essentially goes full circle.

Once everyone has no responsibility, you are just left with what are they and what did they do. Did they act like monster, independent of the upstream causality?

I try to apply the same logic to myself when I get into a deterministic ego trip.

The question of if I can choose to go the gym today is irrelevant. The relevant question is do I think I am a dedicated person who will go to the gym today. If I am are kind, loving, and charitable to myself, I find that the answer is "Yes, S1artibartfast is the kind of hard working person who would go to the gym".