{"id":8322,"date":"2005-12-16T09:33:36","date_gmt":"2005-12-16T16:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/12\/16\/why-capital-punishment-is-problematic.html"},"modified":"2014-11-10T15:49:11","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T22:49:11","slug":"why_capital_pun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/12\/16\/why_capital_pun.html","title":{"rendered":"Why capital punishment is problematic"},"content":{"rendered":"

While I felt neither sympathy nor inclination to question the execution of Tookie Williams earlier this week, another case I just ran across<\/a> demonstrates the biggest problem with capital punishment in this country — the relative ease by which miscarriages of justice can occur and the frequency thereof. While I fall into the camp that believes capital punishment, per se<\/em>, is a legitimate action by the state, I continue to be convinced by cases like Cory Maye<\/a> that there are far too many bad applications of it to allow it to continue at the present time.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the only “lesson” that seems to be taught by the Maye case is that if cops burst into your house on a no-knock drug warrent, and you’re frightened for the life of yourself and your daughter, don’t do anything to protect said lives (like shooting at the mysterious intruders) — especially if you’re black<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let’s summarize: Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn’t named in the warrant, and wasn’t a suspect. The man, frightened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door’s been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town’s police chief. He’s later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.<\/p>\n

Mistakes happen. Sometimes there are tragic results from those mistakes. But when that turns into further intentional miscarriages of justice, it points to fundamental problems that need to be addressed before we allow ourselves (as the state) to kill people because of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I felt neither sympathy nor inclination to question the execution of Tookie Williams earlier this week, another case I just ran across demonstrates the biggest problem with capital punishment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[715,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-punishment","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13075,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/07\/30\/while_im_not_one_to_gener.html","url_meta":{"origin":8322,"position":0},"title":"While I’m not one to generally concur with the President these days …","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 30-Jul-08 1:15am","format":false,"excerpt":"... and I'm not altogether sanguine about the justice system's ability to fairly administer capital punishment as a general\u00a0rule, it certainly seems that the fellow in question here seriously deserves...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22462,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/31\/bryan-fischer-is-a-dolt-theres-no-testament-like-old-testament-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":8322,"position":1},"title":"Bryan Fischer is a Dolt (There’s No Testament Like Old Testament Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 31-Aug-11 11:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Two days running, Bryan? \u00a0You think I'm just made of screediness? In general, we associated Good with Life, and Evil with Death. \u00a0Death, killing, violence, we cringe back in pain, in discomfort, in fear. \u00a0Christians, for example, consider themselves people of Life. \u00a0Conservative Christians, for example, talk of a Culture\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/LuykenStoningStephan.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/LuykenStoningStephan.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/LuykenStoningStephan.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/LuykenStoningStephan.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4320,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/09\/25\/arf_wi_is_ead_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":8322,"position":2},"title":"Arf wi’ ‘is ‘ead!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 25-Sep-03 11:09am","format":false,"excerpt":"A good essay here on the death penalty, with links to other material, and one that hits the nail on the head as to why I've concluded that, while it's...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4027,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/02\/25\/color_commentar-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":8322,"position":3},"title":"Color commentary","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Feb-03 3:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Supreme Court has agreed that you can't stack the jury with whites, even if you think blacks will be more sympathetic to the accused -- and if there's evidence...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3496,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/11\/07\/justice_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":8322,"position":4},"title":"Justice","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 7-Nov-02 6:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I want to see the DC Sniper(s) brought to justice. Heck, I want it to be hard justice. I want a case so rock-solid, the Devil himself couldn't argue...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42111,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/20\/an-amusing-or-not-look-at-the-death-penalty.html","url_meta":{"origin":8322,"position":5},"title":"An amusing (or not) look at the death penalty","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 20-May-14 11:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The difficult thing about any death penalty debate is that it's hard to get past the emotions, either the emotions about state-sanctioned killing or the emotions about creating a just end to an (assumed) bad guy.Honestly, I'm morally comfortable with capital punishment -- if we had a much higher confidence\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47823,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322\/revisions\/47823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}