Albama
Albama
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/
You're viewing a single thread.
Sennett was found dead in her home March 18, 1988, with eight stab wounds in the chest and one on each side of her neck. Smith was one of two men convicted in the killing. The other, John Forrest Parker, was executed in 2010.
Prosecutors said they were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her pastor husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance.
Yes, a complete barbarian. We have them too, but we aspire to be better than just being equally barbaric in return. That's why civilisations do justice, not revenge.
I’m good with revenge.
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 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.
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.
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.
Apt username.
"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" - William Blackstone.
Buddy are you so deprived of empathy that you have no problem with sending innocent people to their deaths? Are you okay with cops playing judge, jury, and executioner? Lot of innocent people die from cops deciding that its okay if that guy is dead.
No, I’m happy to send this guy to meet his maker.
Literally avoided my questions. Why are you okay sending someone who is innocent to death?
Death cult.
You started with a quote that has nothing to do with the case I commented on. You also presented a straw man argument with a loaded question about cops shooting people which once again has nothing to do with the case and situation I originally commented on.
I assumed you either have poor reading comprehension or are just in it for the fake internet points and I responded appropriately and was going to leave it at that. But since you wanna do this, lets go:
“Are you ok with cops playing judge jury and executioner?” -No.
“Lots of innocent people die from cops deciding that it is okay if that guy is dead.” - Ahhh yes the meat of your argument. I can see you follow the typical Lemmy pattern of not doing any research what-so-ever on the subject you are posting on. If you take the time to read up about the subject you’ll find he was tried and convicted by a jury for stabbing of Elizabeth Sennett and has been on death row for some time. The “cops” did not play “judge, jury, and executioner”. The actual Judge, Jury and Executioner played those roles. This is an example of justice for the victim who at no point in your argument did you even think to mention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Kenneth_Eugene_Smith
Hey buddy. Lets roll it back. I'll fully agree that this person is an asshole. Okay? No one is disputing this.
However the point I really want to get to is when someone pointed out that many times innocent people are given the death sentence for crimes they didnt commit. Your response was and i fucking quote you "That’s a chance we are just going to have to take." That means you thibk it is okay to kill innocent people just because some other people did horrid shit.
So again, why the fuck are you actually okay with killing innocent people? That is what i want to know. You keep dodging around it. Answer the question "Why do you think it is okay for the state to have the power to kill people who have commited no crimes?"
Ahhh the old “moving the bar because my argument is flawed trick”. Whatever, I’m still game.
Last time I checked the state does not have the power to “kill people who have committed no crimes.” There is no law on the books nor precedent set, that gives any U.S. State or Federal agency the power to execute the innocent. So to directly answer your question, no I don’t think the state should have the power to kill people who have not committed a crime.
Certain states do have the death penalty for citizens who are found guilty by a jury of their peers for very serious crimes. All states that have death penalties currently require that said jury of their peers vote for the death penalty. Only in those cases can the guilty party be sentenced for execution.
You can make the argument that our justice system is not perfect. (Which is what I think you are clumsily trying to express with your last two posts.) That a jury’s can convict a defendant who may be innocent. To that I reply, that’s a chance we’ll have to take.
I do know a man on death row. I worked with him for two years. I traveled with him, worked on projects, I even had an hand in promoting him up the ranks in our company. I was the person who counseled him and sent him home on the day he committed his crime. He was extremely upset, I heard him out and told him to take some time for himself, go home, calm down, and think it out.
Instead he left and murdered two people and destroyed three families. He’s been on death row for well over a decade. I think he belongs there and deserves his fate. I support the death penalty.
what if it happens to you or your family? then is it still worth it?
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.
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.
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.
The problem is that if you get it wrong even once --and we know for a fact, through things like The Innocence Project, that many innocent people have been executed-- then it's the state committing murder in our name.
Morally I'm not OK with that. Are you?
I'd rather err on the side of caution.
Again, we only have to get it wrong once, which we know we have done, and it's basically the state murdering an innocent citizen.
How many innocent citizens are you OK with murdering?
Morally I’m ok with that, no system is perfect. We should strive to be as accurate as possible, but in the end we can only make the best conclusion based on the facts at hand. If a jury finds those facts compelling enough to vote to execute a defendant then so be it.
even for 1988 thats not a huge chunk of money. poverty is the biggest driver of crime. imagine if we reinvested all the money we pour into prisons into actually taking care of people
Yeah, and you know what stuck out to me in the article? That the conservative justices said, he was “gaming the system” for too long with…appeals and requests for stays…and that justice wasn’t done until he was murdered.
Like…he was gaming the system by rotting in prison? So these arbiters of justice think justice is only an eye for an eye and these prisons they adore so much are not brutal enough?
Sounds like the husband killed her with his wallet. He wielded this guy like the guy wielded a knife.
It's absurd to think that killing him would really bring any more peace to the children than destroying the knife.
If anything, having to bear witness to endless appeals and proceedings for 35 years prolongs their torture. I'd really like to see a form of justice that focuses on ensuring the peace and stability of the victims and their family rather than the pain and suffering of the perpetrators.
Man fuck that, someone stabs my mom to death over a measly $1000 and my dad kills himself because he's the one who paid for it and I'm going to want that anger taken out on someone, better be the ones who did all this.
My dude killed someone for $500, literally doesn't deserve to live in society and I don't want to be paying for him to live outside of it.
I'm surprised so many people on lemmy are anti death penalty.
Two eyes for one eye?
Edit: maybe I've been misunderstood.