Texas conservatives reject Harper's crime plan

What's next? Texas speaks out against the death penalty? It doesn't work either.

How does it not work? It's works 100% of the time in achieving the sentencing goals of punishment and segregation and the recidivism rate is 0% among those so sentenced.

It doesn't deter crime, and has the unfortunate side effect of killing innocent people, putting justice into disrepute, as well as brutalizing society by saying it's OK to kill when there's no need to. Revenge is not self-defence.

Deterence is only one goal of sentencing among many. No system of justice is 100% foolproof. That's the nature of the beast. But those errors, grave and troubling though they are, are EXTREMELY rare. Justice is not put in disrepute by a one in a million error.

Justice isn't foolproof. Incarceration serves the same functions you mentioned, with at least the consequences for the convicted innocent much less severe. The only extra function that killing serves is revenge. I don't think paying the price of killing some innocent is worth that.

You make it sound like that the moment they're convicted, they're sent off to be hanged outside the courtroom. There is a huge amount of redundancy, including automatic appeals of a death sentence.

You make it sound like that the moment they're convicted, they're sent off to be hanged outside the courtroom. There is a huge amount of redundancy, including automatic appeals of a death sentence.

I wasn't really trying to start this argument all over again. Do I really need to recite the list of people exonerated years after conviction, both in Canada and US?

The thing is, in the US right now, it costs more to kill a convict than to incarcerate him for the rest of his life. Why? Because of those redundancies, which have been found to be insufficient in so many cases. So either you improve the redundancies, and still kill a percentage of innocent, or you just say fuck it, can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Or, you just let em sit in prison and die the way Olsen did and avoid the whole mess.

With a majority of them probably being convicted before the age of DNA and advanced forensic science. Even so, there will ALWAYS be a risk to the criminal justice system. Letting an innocent person in prison suffer for 20-25 years, or even longer isn't exactly some positive alternative either. Hopefully, technology improves so that less and less innocent people are prosecuted, and more and more guilty individuals are punished.

Even so, the death penalty is effective in the sense that those who are executed cannot be released from prison, only to commit another crime. Serial rapists are one good example of a type of criminal that I'd have no issue with seeing executed. The automatic appeals and such are more expensive, yes, but if citizens of a state or country are willing to spend that extra money for the slight increase in security, I don't see an issue.

With a majority of them probably being convicted before the age of DNA and advanced forensic science. Even so, there will ALWAYS be a risk to the criminal justice system. Letting an innocent person in prison suffer for 20-25 years, or even longer isn't exactly some positive alternative either. Hopefully, technology improves so that less and less innocent people are prosecuted, and more and more guilty individuals are punished.

Even so, the death penalty is effective in the sense that those who are executed cannot be released from prison, only to commit another crime. Serial rapists are one good example of a type of criminal that I'd have no issue with seeing executed. The automatic appeals and such are more expensive, yes, but if citizens of a state or country are willing to spend that extra money for the slight increase in security, I don't see an issue.

DNA isn't magic. If you find it at the crime scene, it proves the person was there, nothing else. If you don't find it, it doesn't mean they weren't there or didn't do it. You only going to execute killers who leave DNA behind and it can be proved without a doubt they were the only person there? You won't be executing many then. Look at the case of the rapist identified by his victim, who it was years later proved by DNA that he wasn't the guy.

Recidivism is very low for crimes that would qualify for the death penalty. Serial rapists - give em life with no parole. We already do that with habitual criminal designation.

I recall reading in a textbook for a course I once took of a study by the law school of an American university. I do not remember the school.

Every case where someone was executed for homicide between 1900 and 1950 was examined. The conclusion was that there were 400 innocents executed.

They had better science, better safeguards and fewer executions from 1950 to 200. Let's say they killed only 40 innocents in that time. Is that OK? That's still almost one a year.

If it wasn't so sad, Steve's crime bill would be a laugh. It appears the new way in Texas costs less as well. Of course this could be attributed to Texans being a bunch of pinko lefties.

I don't know if capital punishment is the way to go, but for some like Olson or Bernardo it would be nice to have that option available. I don't believe that sitting in a jail cell for 20 or 25 years or the rest of your life is more humane than a neck stretching though. Also I wouldn't believe a word that a hole Terry Melewski had to say about anything.

I know DNA isn't magic, but it's pretty effective. There is no magic bullet to prove guilt or innocence, that's why there are numerous redundant actions and the demand of somebody needing to be convicted without reasonable doubt. I do think that it would limit the amount executed, but I don't see an issue with that.

Also, life without parole, or hell, parole for any violent offenders has issues to begin with