Transcript
Alabama suffocated a man to death in a gas chamber tonight after starving him so he wouldn't choke on his own vomit as they did it. And this was deemed perfectly legal by multiple courts in the vaunted American legal system.
That's what happens when you value institutions over people.
Link for more info: https://www.reuters.com/legal/alabama-prepares-carry-out-first-execution-by-nitrogen-asphyxiation-2024-01-25/
Chances are, an innocent person has been killed because of the death penalty. That alone has me against it entirely.
That’s a chance we are just going to have to take.
How is that a morally coherent stance? You're basically condoning state-sanctioned murder.
I’ve made it clear in multiple posts. I’m on the side of justice.
I don't see any "have to" in here at all. To me, that just looks like a desire to have the state murder people. That's not justice.
I think executing someone who was convicted of murder is justified.
Elizabeth Sennett’s family can now know some peace. Don’t take it from me, feel free to read their direct quotes below:
_What was the stance of the victim’s family? “Some of these people out there say, ‘Well, he doesn’t need to suffer like that,’” Charles Sennett Jr., one of Ms. Sennett’s sons, told the local station WAAY31 this month. “Well, he didn’t ask Mama how to suffer. They just did it. They stabbed her multiple times.” Another son, Michael Sennett, told NBC News in December that he was frustrated that the state had taken so long to carry out an execution that the judge ordered decades ago.
“It doesn’t matter to me how he goes out, so long as he goes,” he said, noting that Mr. Smith had been in prison “twice as long as I knew my mom.”_
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/us/execution-alabama-kenneth-smith.html
Who's moving goalposts now? A decision being "justified" doesn't mean it's "a chance we have to take."
I’ve been consistent on my position as well as my statements. You however have yet to form a coherent argument that wasn’t based in emotion.
That's fucking rich. Your entire point is that killing guilty people is somehow justice. How is that not based in emotion?
Here's a coherent argument that isn't based in emotion: the death penalty does not improve society in any way when applied to a guilty person, and when it does lead to the death of an innocent person, it both reduces the likelihood of the real perpetrator ever seeing justice, and prevents the innocent party from ever being released.
Executing the sentence of those found guilty by an impartial trial is the very definition of justice. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that.
We don't have to, though. We can just put them in prison.
Or we can execute the guilty, either way is fine with me.
How many innocent people are you ok with murdering before it's no longer worth it?
Last I checked the guy they Nitrogen’d wasn’t innocent.
How many guilty killers are you ok with escaping punishment?
I am ok with every guilty killer not being executed if it means saving a single innocent person. Note that I did not say that I am ok with them being released.
I ask again, how many innocent people are you ok with murdering before it's no longer worth it?
I’d rather not see any innocent people executed. But nothing made by man is perfect, there are always going to be mistakes. No one wants to kill the innocent but it can happen. That’s the chance we take when living in a state with the death penalty.
Ok, but whats the number of innocent lives you'rewilling to end? Or maybe percentage? Where do you draw the line?
No one who is found innocents by a jury of their peers should be executed. The guilty however are a different story.
Some people are found not guilty when they really are, and some people are found guilty when they're really not. This is not a good enough metric by which to judge whether we should end a person's life.
Good enough for me.
So you are totally fine with a justice system that let Emmett Till's murderers go free, and slaughtered a man who lost his daughters to a fire he didn't start? Absolutely monstrous.
As stated before our system is not perfect. You seem all too eager to let those who have murdered, raped, and destroyed entire families live full lives while their victims are dead or suffering.
And you seem all to eager to let the state kill innocent people, as long as guilty people get killed too.
No I’m eager for Justice to be served. Something you don’t seem to have any interest in.
A life sentence is justice served.
Not for the victims who can’t live a full life.
A life in prison is justice for taking a life.
Many families of the victims who will never see their loved ones again will disagree with that sentiment.
Many families of victims who will never see their loved ones again will also agree. Either way, it doesn't make it untrue.
Weren't you accusing me of making emotional arguments just a few hours ago?
I am using the only type of argument you seem to understand.
What if the jury is wrong every time? Or half the time? Where do you draw the line?
So you’ve decided to go down the “Make up bullshit loaded questions that have no basis in reality” route. I’m sure in your own mind those questions make you seem justified and righteous in your own mind. But that fantasy world only exists in your head.
Why are you so desperate to justify your position especially for a man that brutally murdered Elizabeth Sennett?
https://www.al.com/news/2024/01/kenneth-smiths-execution-bittersweet-for-elizabeth-sennetts-family-nothing-happened-to-bring-her-back.html
Not justifying it for that person, but for everyone. Why haven't you answered my original question? How many innocent people do you think it's ok to execute?
I answered why in the comment above.
Maybe my reading comprehension is just bad, but I do not see anything that looks like an answer there
“So you’ve decided to go down the “Make up bullshit loaded questions that have no basis in reality” route. “
Your question is akin to asking why abortion is legal when it kills babies. You’ve taken a complex subject and distilled it down to the parts that make your case seem right. Your question fundamentally has no basis in reality, juries are not wrong 50 percent of the time. We would not base our legal system on a flip of a coin.
That doesn't look like an answer to my question.
My point is that a non-zero number of people are executed for crimes they did not commit.
My question is: How many innocent people do you think it's ok to execute in order to keep the death penalty available?
I’ll preface by saying I don’t want any innocent people to die. But with any system designed by man it will have its flaws, and you must accept that there can be mistakes. My answer to is as few as possible to ensure justice is served to those who have blatantly killed the innocent like Kenneth Eugene Smith. May he rot in hell where he belongs.
Given that we live in real life, and nothing is perfect, you would rather see some innocent people be executed. The only other alternative is being against the death penalty. If you're for the death penalty, then you're for some innocent people being executed.
I’m for justice to be carried out. There are people on death row who certainly deserve to die for the violent crimes they committed against innocent victims.
Our system may not be perfect but it’s the best one we have.
Life in prison is justice. Our system is what got Sedley Alley killed by the state. If it's the best we've got, then we need to find a better one.
You’re welcome to leave and/or avoid traveling to states and nations with death penalties.
And you're welcome to leave and go someplace that I'm not trying to improve
No, I prefer to stay and advocate for the victims of those you would protect.
Do they just let them go free if they don’t execute them?
No they tried to execute this guy before, it didn’t work so this is their second mistake.
In this case I was responding to a loaded question with another loaded question.