O/T: Opinion

[Lew Hodgett]

I am opposed to the death penalty.

Took a tour of the execution facility used in 1950 by the State of Ohio and I doubt I'll ever forget it.

Having said that, I'm beginning to have a totally different opinion of piracy.

The old timers had it right IMHO.

Capture a pirate vessel,.forget the trial, hang the crew and throw them over board, scuttle the pirate vessel, and keep on truck'in.

Obviously oil is driving current events.

Sooner or later; however, this problem has to be resolved.

Off the box.

Lew

[Lobby Dosser]

Why bother capturing it? Sink it and let the sea gather its own.

[Lew Hodgett]

--------------------------------- Difficult to sink an ocean going vessel; however, scuttling is a different matter.

Lew

[Lew Hodgett]

---------------------------------- Update your numbers a little bit.

Annual cost of incarceration is about $45-$50K/yr/inmate.

Estimated cost to execute someone is in the order of $2,000,000-$2,500,000.

On a worst case basis calculation:

$2,000,000/$50,000 = 40 years.

Life without parole is not only less costly but it's reversible if society gets it wrong.

As far as the pirates are concerned, they are past just the Zodiac inflatable, they are operating more than 200 miles offshore.

Lew

[Leon]

Might be worth retaking the bounty and returning to rightful owners.

[Leon]

The cost is really or should really only really be a few dollars to execute some one. A bullet is all that is needed. I understand the analysis, that in the grand scheme of things, that much more money is spent leading up to the execution however that is not the execution cost, it is the continued defence and accommodations cost. There should be a limit to the amount of money that is spent on both sides.

If our system were more decisive about how to treat the guilty perhaps that in itself would be enough deterrent to cut down on crime.

Sorta'a like your pirate solution you described. ;~)

[Robatoy]

Overzealous DA's with political ambitions are part of the problem. Those cut-throat bastards are the reason why sometimes innocent people get railroaded into long sentences and even death. If a crime has been committed which deserves the death penalty, you should have two eyewitnesses, and one of them has to perform the execution. That might be a bit 'old testament' but suggest a better way. The reason all those legal/appeal barriers, which increase costs, exist, is that we allowed our friends in the legal professions to create an income opportunity for themselves... you just can't trust most of those who are trained to circumvent the truth.

As long as 'Tough On Crime/ Death Penalty' is a component of an election formula, odds increase that innocent people are going to be executed. Now if *I* were to witness a murder and I knew another witness saw it and confirmed what I saw, I would execute the perp.... if for no other reason than to make sure no scumbag lawyer would be driving an expensive car from the proceeds of a sham appeals process.... paid for by the overburdened tax-payers.

[joeljcarver]

Why use a bullet? A hangman's noose can be reused many times.

[Larry Jaques]

Portable tactical neutron bombs would keep the hardware, mush the software. Problems solved, probably at the cost of a few rounds of artillery.

-- Most people assume the fights are going to be the right versus the left, but it always is the reasonable versus the jerks. -- Jimmy Wales

[dadiOH]

How would you feel about a more efficiently applied death sentence?

When I was in China 25+ years ago, a Chinese court sentenced a fellow to death. Twenty minutes later, he was (dead).

[dadiOH]

Those suckers should be earning their keep, prisons should be self supporting or close to it.

When I was a kid, the movie judges always sentenced the perps to X years at hard labor. Whatever happened to the "hard labor" part?

[Larry Jaques]

Crazy, isn't it?

Bullet, sword, pinch of poison, etc.

Agreed. Mandatory appeals are a travesty in themselves. Even if that asshole has confessed and there is a video tape of him doing the killings, the law demands an appeal. FTS!

When you consider all the people the bad guys are going to kill, inside prison or out, losing a couple innocents (as horribly distasteful as it is) is still a winning proposition, though not for these particular innocents.

I kinda liked the scenario in Escape from New York. Put up a wall, dump in the hardened criminals, and then just forget 'em.

That's a position many of us could agree with, and we'd sleep comfortably at night.

-- Most people assume the fights are going to be the right versus the left, but it always is the reasonable versus the jerks. -- Jimmy Wales

[Larry Jaques]

Bbbut, isn't the cruel and unusual punishment?

I love the "suicide watch" on Death Row, too.

Oh, the Muckin' Forons.

-- Most people assume the fights are going to be the right versus the left, but it always is the reasonable versus the jerks. -- Jimmy Wales

[Robatoy]

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0-- Jimmy Wales

Neutron bombs are totally cool weapons, with a few drawbacks. Along the lines of a nuclear hand grenade, one must have one helluvan arm to throw it far enough so it won't mess up yo'own-ass. A neutron bomb shell in artillery form must have a serious range as well. Also, keeping those bombs fresh is difficult as their content's half- life is about a decade.

[willshak]

Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

[RicodJour]

As are fisherman. I was very surprised to see guys fishing the Indian Ocean in small boats 700 miles from shore. The small boats have mother ships the same way that the pirates do. In any guerrilla action the trick is being able to tell the good guys from the bad. We have a tough enough time with a 1000 mile line of border - I have no idea how to effectively patrol a million square miles of ocean.

Offing the pirates on sight sounds great, but it creates problems for the people and ships already held hostage. You'd essentially be writing them off as well. When the topic of dealing with pirates comes up some people refer to how the Romans dealt with piracy. I'm not so sure that was anything more than marketing and spin.

[Swingman]

What he said ...

[Leon]

Why use a bullet? A hangman's noose can be reused many times.

You could use the gun in a court room and it would be easily concealed until needed. The rope would take a few seconds longer, why waste time? '~)

[Leon]

I heard George Carlin once question the procedure of the lethal injection. Why do they wipe the injection spot with an alcohol swab?

[Andrew Barss]

[e-mail] wrote: : I am against the death penalty as well, but not for any reasons of : benevolence. I have my doubts about our law enforcement community, : but setting that aside their is a much larger topic to consider when : being for or against it.

: Cost.

I used to be (when I was much younger) morally opposed to the death penalty. I'm not any more, but there have been enough cases of incompetence where the wrong guy gets convicted and in some cases executed that I'm opposed to it on the grounds that one wrongfully convicted and executed person is too many.

But I'm not convinced by the cost argument. If it were cheaper to execute someone than to house him, then what?

So, I'm in principle in favor of the death penalty. For practical reasons, I am not in favor of it, but want life sentences with *NO* chance for release as a substitute. And I mean none. Unless they can prove to have been wrongfully committed, some people really need to be removed permanently from society.

-- Andy Barss