Court overturns immunity for law enforcement for sending innocent man to prison 22 yr

[Subyman]

Yes. Our system of trial by jury does not guarantee perfection but only fairness, and arguing against the death penalty on those grounds is being patently dishonest.

Not really. If you take the stand: if there is a chance that an innocent man/woman could be put to death and you would not take that chance, then the argument works fine.

 

[realibrad]

If it makes you feel better to question the morality of those who support capital punishment so be it. I'll continue to counter that capital punishment is and would continue to be moral regardless if an innocent was killed.

I think you are missing the point of the argument. Its not "is capital punishment moral." I believe some crimes could warrant death. The problem is in how we establish innocence and guilt. If we could know 100% someone is guilty then I would be fine with it. The problem is that we are sometimes wrong, and its not a small amount either.

Again, its not an either or situation, its a question as to what is better over all. Is giving someone life in prison that much worse than killing someone with the chance they may be innocent?

 

[glenn1]

I think you are missing the point of the argument. Its not "is capital punishment moral." I believe some crimes could warrant death. The problem is in how we establish innocence and guilt. If we could know 100% someone is guilty then I would be fine with it. The problem is that we are sometimes wrong, and its not a small amount either.

Again, its not an either or situation, its a question as to what is better over all. Is giving someone life in prison that much worse than killing someone with the chance they may be innocent?

So your argument boils down to capital punishment is double-plus ungood because perfection doesn't exist? Sounds like the biblical story of Job where God allowed Satan to do whatever evils he wanted to the man so long as he wasn't killed. You get spared moral culpability if you wrongly convict someone and throw him in jail for life. Just don't kill him and you're generating good karma for yourself.

 

[BoberFett]

Wow, you're stretching on this one.

 

[etrigan420]

So your argument boils down to capital punishment is double-plus ungood because perfection doesn't exist? Sounds like the biblical story of Job where God allowed Satan to do whatever evils he wanted to the man so long as he wasn't killed. You get spared moral culpability if you wrongly convict someone and throw him in jail for life. Just don't kill him and you're generating good karma for yourself.

Curiously, what happens to your "moral culpability" when you execute an innocent man?

 

[BoberFett]

Curiously, what happens to your "moral culpability" when you execute an innocent man?

Oops, my bad.

But it's ok, the system isn't perfect.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Argh... answer me this.

1) Do the vast majority of cases "stop" at the circuit courts and go no further?
2) When a case goes no farther, where it stops is the final arbitration is it not?
3) Being that the vast majority of appellate cases on the federal side stop at the circuit courts, that means they have a crap ton of "final" arbitration power.

While they are technically not the final arbiter, they are in actual practice for most cases. It's a colloquial joke in most places that the buck stops there, thus the joke about circuit courts being the "supreme" court in most case. This very subject was even discussed on one of the shows on NPR. I think On Point had the discussion when they were talking about the current phone searching ruling going up to SCOTUS to be heard. The fact that you've never heard the joke about calling the circuit courts "supreme courts of their area" means you don't get out much do you?

I didn't call the circuit court a Supreme Court in the official sense in my post which you decided to somehow make an argument about. Go re-read my original post and realize how dense you've been.

There are supreme courts and intermediary appellate courts. The latter are in no sense supreme courts and I have never heard one called that. I don't mean to you tied up in knots over this but it would be totally nonsensical to call a circuit court a "supreme court." It would be like calling AA baseball "the major leagues."

I don't mean to sidetrack the thread with this silliness - I thought I could just address it once and move on . . .

 

[DrPizza]

The fact that you've never heard the joke about calling the circuit courts "supreme courts of their area" means you don't get out much do you?

I'm thinking that the fact that searching for "supreme courts of their area" yields only one hit on Google - this thread - is a pretty strong indication that DVC is correct and you're, well, just plain wrong.

Oh, and if you make it singular, "supreme court of their area," you get zero results.

lmao.