From: Trout, Larry
Conservatives believe in Due Process, while recognizing it is not infallible.
‘Obama has said that the death penalty is used too frequently and inconsistently. However, he favors it for cases in which "the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage."[78] Speaking as a state senator about the Illinois legislature's constant additions to the list of factors that render a defendant eligible for the death penalty, Obama said, "We certainly don't think that we should [...] have this laundry list that does not make any distinctions between the run-of-the-mill armed robbery that results in death and systematic killings by a terrorist organization. And I think essentially what the reduction of aggravating factors does is, it says, 'Here's a narrower set of crimes that we think potentially at least could deserve the death penalty.'"[79] In his own words, "While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes – mass murder, the rape and murder of a child – so heinous that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment. On the other hand, the way capital cases were tried in Illinois at the time was so rife with error, questionable police tactics, racial bias, and shoddy lawyering, that 13 death row inmates had been exonerated."[80]
On June 25, 2008, Obama condemned United States Supreme Court decision Kennedy v. Louisiana, which outlawed the death penalty for a child rapist when the victim was not killed. He said that states have the right to consider capital punishment, but cited concern about the possibility of unfairness in some sentences.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_social_policy#Death_penalty
From: Coffey, John
Governments have killed over a billion people. I know that people are afraid of giving government too much power for fear that it will be abused. So am I. Just because it is used fairly now, doesn’t mean that it won’t be abused later.
How is it that people who inherently distrust the government think that the government is trustworthy to fairly execute people?
I wonder where Obama stands on this position?
From: Coffey, John R
I have always been close to sitting on the fence. I don’t have strong emotional feelings against it, but I am not particularly for it.
The Death Penalty would have to pass 2 criteria for me to agree with it …
1. It has to be shown that it a greater deterrent from other punishments. In other words: fewer lives are lost by having the death penalty.
2. It has to be shown that the level of mistakes is very low. My main objection to the death penalty is that the notion that once a person is executed, we can’t fix our mistakes.
From: Trout, Larry
‘California has executed just 13 convicts and its death row has ballooned to 726 inmates since 71 percentage of the electorate voted to reinstate capital punishment in 1978…
Federal and state judges have halted executions in the state since 2006 after ordering prison officials to develop new lethal injection procedures. Those lawsuits are still being litigated.’
I know you are against the death penalty…any thoughts.
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