It is - check if for yourself though. You should never believe anything
anyone says unless you have checked it yourself.

No, the Death Penalty is a big part of the problem. Execution is by it's
very nature final. If you later find out you've made an error, it's
impossible to fix.

As to the number of people who have been condemned to death and exonerated,
do some research - you'll be surprised at how often the system was wrong.

The Mad Hatter


>From a message by Cherokee about Re: [twgsdotorg]:
> Assuming that everything you say is correct, and for the sake of
argument I will grant that, then the problem is still not the death
penalty.  The problem is a justice system that does not provide
adequate defense for poor defendants, and corrupt police willing to
torture suspects to obtain false confessions. I would be all for any
type of reform that increased the accuracy of our justice system.

Death penalty opponents always use the scenario of the "innocent death
row inmate" to try to argue against the penalty. I'm sur this happens
occasionally, but I believe it is far less frequent than death penalty
opponents claim. 

But what about the truly guilty?  Do you think those who are truly
guilty of capital crimes should be put to death?  If you answer "no",
then you should explain why the death penalty in general is wrong,
rather than relying on the old "an innocent person could die" argument.




--- The Mad Hatter  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Check CNN, MSNBC, Nytimes.com, etc., all of the major news sites
> covered it.
> 
> And yes, these people were innocent. Through DNA testing (which was
> not available when many of them were convicted), research, etc. the
> convictions were overturned, and in several cases the real
> perpetrator was convicted.
> 
> 8 of the convictions were obtained by confessions that were extracted
> under torture. The officer who obtained those convictions has been
> removed from the police department, however he has not as yet been
> jailed (I was unable to even find reference to him being charged).
> 
> The Criminal Justice systems of both Canada and the United States
> have errored with great regularity. A conviction in a court of either
> country does not mean that you are guilty, it often means that you
> could not afford a good lawyer. Harsh but true.
> 
> What is really scarey about this is that you stand a better chance of
> getting justice in Canada or the United States (even with all the
> faults of both systems) than you do almost anywhere else.
> 
> The Mad Hatter
> 
> >From a message by Cherokee about Re: [twgsdotorg]:
> > I would like to know the source of your statistics, in particular
> the
> 23 Illinois men who were "innocent".
> 
> These cases are almost NEVER cases of truly innocent men being
> convicted, sentenced to death, and then exonerated. Rather, they are
> usually cases in which some legal technicality allowed the men to go
> free. In every such case, the body of evidence was enough to convince
> a
> jury of reasonable people beyond a reasonable doubt, that the
> defendant
> was guilty.
> 
> 
> 
> --- The Mad Hatter  wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > There are three good reasons that the Death Penalty is a dead issue
> > in Canada. The Killer M's, David Millgard, Donald Marshall, and Guy
> > Paul Morin.
> > 
> > All three of these gentlemen were convicted of murder, all
> > exonerated.
> > 
> > For those who say it couldn't happen in the USA, I suggest you look
> > at Illinois where in the last 10 years 23 inmates who were on death
> > row were later found innocent.


--- FEddy 1.4.03/modPHX