Opinion: End death penalty or charade of delays
By Marcos Breton, Sacramento Bee
Why even seek the death penalty when it hasn’t been implemented in California in nearly a decade and when Democrats who rule the state allow it to linger in perpetual limbo?
Jan Scully, the outgoing district attorney for Sacramento, answered the question without a hint of cynicism on Tuesday – quite a feat considering how cynical people on both sides of this issue have become.
Some death penalty supporters have come to believe that death penalty cases just waste taxpayer money because legal obstacles have prevented anyone from being put to death in California since Clarence Ray Allen was executed by lethal injection on Jan. 17, 2006.
Yet there was Scully, and her counterpart from Placer County, announcing they would seek the death penalty for Luis Enriquez Monroy Bracamontes, the Mexican national accused of killing two law enforcement officers in a terrifying late October crime spree that gripped the region.
It’s still the will of the voters, and by not following this law we disrespect the will of the voters,” Scully said.
Pretty sure the will of the voters is to actually put these insects to death. That’s why we voted for it. Not life in prison! Not endless appeals costing us and gaining nothing. Either vote it out or start emptying cells.
Our prison system is so messed up. We house dangerous criminals with those who have been caught with minimal amounts of drugs.
As to the death penalty, when all avenues for appeal have been exhausted, carry out the sentence. Keeping death row inmates alive for 10 or 20 years does nothing to ease the burden on already overcrowded prisons. And figure out the cost!!
Long appeals paid by tax payers keep hundreds of liberal attorneys employed and because of that there is no move to change anything by soft on crime liberals who are letting out all of the criminals they can and not building any new prisons or enforcing the law on death penalty cases. Nothing will change until liberals are defeated or the state broken up.
End the death penalty forever. It is not a deterrent and never has been (pickpockets in England were known to pickpocket actively at public executions for pickpockets). The states with the death penalty have a higher murder rate than the states that don’t. It is applied unevenly across races and several people who have been on death row have been found to be innocent. It is barbaric and we are the only Western Nation to still practice it. Our partners in still having the death penalty? Bastions of democracy such as Gambia, Botswana, Somalia, China, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Only China Iraq and Saudi Arabia have had more executions than the US in 2014. Polls show that if you ask whether people are in favor of death penalty or life without parole, they choose life without parole.
“Only China Iraq and Saudi Arabia have had more executions than the US in 2014.”
Not sure on this but don’t they stone people over there? Hardly makes a shot in the arm barbaric.
How is killing someone ever not barbaric?
Bloody thirty freaks.
Anyone else notice how justass’ rhetoric is similar to jihadis? Just change one word and check it out:
“Nothing will change until *infidels* are defeated or the state broken up.”
Read all of his comments in a sterotypical terrorist voice and they are hilarious.
Cosa: What is a Bloody thirty freak?
Change Liberals to *infidels* ? Sounds like you’re smoking the stuff you shovel. Back off on the Methane, it’s starting to emit from your pores.
So Kits, First, no they don’t just stone people in those places and frankly the method isn’t the issue. It is the execution itself.
I believe in the death penalty and always will.
Certain parasites who do nothing but prey on innocent people by inflicting horrible and unimaginable pain, suffering and death have no business on this planet. The people on death row are there for a reason. Why should we continue to house, feed and give them medical attention? They need to be culled from humanity.
I respect your right to not believe in it. But I stand my ground.
What all of these simple minded liberals can’t figure out is how to oppose the fact that all murderers who have been executed have never killed again and it is the only sure way to make that possible.
Sorry, Justice. I must disagree; Life without parole would accomplish the same thing, at much less expense in the current system. Constant appeals and lawyers at public expense add up for death penalty convicts.
I haven’t believed in the death penalty for a very long time. It doesn’t make sense financially. Nor does it make sense for our humanity.
Unfortunately, murderers in prison kill staff and other inmates routinely, they have “nothing to lose.” So keeping them alive and the cable on doesn’t work and keeps the murderer in a position to kill again. A death penalty is the only sure way to keep a murderer from killing again.
Not routinely. Occasionally. Horrible as it is, That alone is still not reason enough to murder another human.
It is the only way to protect the innocent, regardless of your personal emotional reaction with death of those deserving the penalty. Keeping killers alive allows their possible release and their danger to others in killing again.
Excuse me?? You call MY reaction emotional?
I would call executing criminals in revenge for their crimes a very emotional response. I feel no sympathy nor love for murderers and rapists. But God is their judge, not I.
If the people, the majority, decide that the death penalty is THE penalty, it is the penalty for murderers. It is only used rarely in the most egregious cases. It is what was decided and has the support of the people and is the way it is supposed to be as it has been for over a hundred years.
We do have a basic philosophical difference, though. I don’t happen to believe that the State has any more right to take a life than an individual does.
If a thing is wrong if one person does it, is it right when 3 do it? Or 5,000? Or 300 million? Wrong is wrong.
Justass, YAWN
Some people don’t ‘play well with others’.