Somebody needs to get permission to plead for mercy for some fellow human, which is denied. Christians, these people call themselves. Such a mess we've organized ourselves into.
Sir Francis Bacon wrote centuries ago that private revenge "putteth the law out of office." It seems to me that when the state maintains and enforces the death penalty, it's making itself little more than an agent of private revenge, and thereby negating its higher aspirations to universal justice. I think I can understand why relatives and friends of a slain person would want the killer dead -- they're rightly enraged at the depraved and vicious person who killed someone they love. But a fair state system can't deal out justice from that perspective -- it will make reckless mistakes and kill innocent people. We've seen that happen for a long time now, and the numerous exonerations show how imperfect our justice system is. Human justice is bound to be imperfect, so it has to be kept humane. We don't need to torture people or kill them to maintain social order, so even if one considers only such utility-based matters (and leaves aside higher morality), capital punishment is a terrible idea.
If someone killed my loved one(s) I might be mollified if the state grabbed the nearest, easiest schlub to blame it on. But in theory, shouldn't the state have an interest in catching the actual killer so that the actual killer doesn't go on to kill again? This is why I have never gotten behind tough on crime. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with actually preventing crime.
"ardent death penalty enthusiast Attorney General Jeff Landry put out a new rule declaring that prisoners can only seek clemency for one year after a judge rules on their appeal."
Oh, Republicans. Must you always be heartless, racist assholes?
Let me state upfront, for the record, that I am opposed to the death penalty. Period. That said, I am puzzled by the fact that we continue to hear that executions have to be postponed or cancelled bc of a lack of human-killing drugs, when we also know that:
Overall, drug overdose deaths rose from 2019 to 2021 with more than 106,000 drug overdose deaths reported in 2021. Deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) continued to rise with 70,601 overdose deaths reported in 2021.
I feel like I must be missing something here. I'm really not trying to suggest a solution to the lack of human-killing drugs, I just don't understand why, if this seems so obvious to me, that the people who want to kill people haven't figured this out.
The drugs which were approved for death penalty by lethal injection are now unavailable to prisons for lethal injection because no pharmaceutical manufacturer wants to have an association equivalent to Zyclon-B. As one does. Big Pharma is rarely accused of being humane, so this isn't about humanity, compassion, or justice. It's just marketing.
Right. I don't want to belabor this bc it's very upsettinig to think about, but we've got 5 states that have approved firing squads for executions, for fuck's sake.
Moved to new Orleans in 2015. Thank god we had JBE during the pandemic. He’s a good man. I have lawyer friends who are working on this. Give what you can.
The Democratic Party remains a diverse (and argumentative!) group, and all the while the GOP has been whittled down to the size of Trump's pathetic and squalling id.
I always find it interesting that the same people who think universal healthcare means government run death panels think the government is infallible when it comes to deciding whether someone should live or be killed.
Catholics are supposed to be anti death penalty in all cases. It's in the new rules Papa Frank put in place. What is it with more than half of American Catholics?
I'm a lefty, liberation theology, anti death penalty, pro bodily autonomy Catholic. I don't want to be associated with them.
There's more of us than you think - particularly in south America and Europe. Bunch of people who believe in social justice and love your neighbour as yourself but not the judgy stuff. If you're raised Catholic it can be quite sticky. I'm not sure I believe in God a lot of the time but I keep going to Mass and trying to stand up against the ageing bigots.
MURDER is a vicious crime. It is tragic. But how does another death (By the state). make anything less tragic? Family of the victims are of course traumatized. Some of these want VENGANCE not JUSTICE!
If we are going to have the death penalty, then it should be limited to treason, espionage, or sabotage, committed during a time of war; acts of terrorism, foreign or domestic; or acts of sedition, coup attempts, or insurrection.
These acts attack the state or national government with the intent of bringing our constitutional democracy to an end, or they result in mass death. The evidence against the accused in these type of cases is almost always overwhelming.
But I believe that life without parole is a much better solution than the death penalty. More people fear long term incarceration than they fear death.
Dealing with a geriatric prison population gets expensive, too. Several states are finding this out because of their tough on crime policies from the 80s.
Massive reform of the justice system from laws, policing, courts, to rehabilitation and incarceration is needed, maybe then the US can join the civilized world. Then maybe we can tackle mental healthcare and education. I doubt that I will see even baby steps in this direction in my lifetime. It is disheartening.
Yes. There needs to be a top-down reform of the criminal justice system in our country. We need to fill prisons with social workers and teachers instead of correctional officers. We need to restore a person's civil rights once they are discharged from prison. We need shorter sentences in much more humane conditions. We need to work to eliminate prison and street gangs and the conditions that give rise to them.
Most of all, we need to get rid of the corruption and racism that is inherent in our criminal justice system. I think it would be better if state judges were appointed for life instead of being elected so that they can be independent of district attorneys.
I think that attorney generals and district attorneys should be appointed instead of elected -- I don't see any other way to hold them accountable for their actions.
I think that civilian grand juries need more power to investigate government offices and institutions and should have the power to remove officials from office or employment instead of only making the recommendation that they be removed.
This just scratches the surface. There's much that needs to be done. It will take a lot of time to bring about changes, but that just means we must do our part to bring about this change that others will continue.
And every innocent person executed means a guilty person got off Scott free. You’d think the “tough on crime” folks would want to make damn sure the right person got executed. But it seems like any (nonwhite) body will do.
That story about Shareef Cousin being sentenced to death in spite of there being witnesses and video of him being elsewhere and the only witness saying she couldn't see too good at the time, highlights one of the big problems in our Criminal Justice system that nobody ever talks about.
Bad juries. There is no way that 12 normal, rational people would have convicted Shareef, let alone sentenced to him to death, with all that opposing evidence.
And, of course, I would bet money that Shareef had an overworked, underpaid public defender who didn't make enough out of the contradictory evidence. But really, in the end it was the jury who must have heard that Shareef was playing basketball elsewhere and there was video proof of this, and yet they still convicted him. In Louisiana ALL TWELVE JURORS must agree a defendant is guilty before a death sentence can be opposed. This shit happens all the time and I just don't understand it.
This is the only thing that worries me about my own trial ... I have very little control over who is in the Jury, and it is a rural, rednecked, mostly white Republican county, so who knows what we might get.
My guess is the jury didn't convict because the PD was overworked, and underpaid. It's Louisiana FFS. They're bloodthirsty racists who were waiting all their lives to lynch someone.
This is true. I lived there for 4 years and every single Black person I met was so kind and friendly and generous and polite, and every single white person I met kept using the N word when we were alone together. I had never heard ANY white person use that word until I moved there.
The ACLU did the same thing in Missouri in 2018. They won, but nothing has changed because the state can't find anyone willing to fill the new positions.
White females over 40 are the least likely to be convicted by a jury. Black males under 50 are the most likely to be convicted. The younger a defendant is, the more likely a jury will convict. The more "undesirable" (such as mental illness, drug abuse, homelessness) traits a defendant exhibits, the more likely the jury is to convict.
Too often a jury will convict people not so much on the evidence presented at trial, but on how well the prosecutor can "demonize" the defendant before the jury. The more unlike the jury the defendant is, the more likely the defendant will be convicted.
I once sat on a jury for a murder trial. A guy stole a car and three days later he was spotted by the county mounties. He tried fleeing south on NJ-17 which was a bad idea, particularly on a Friday afternoon south of the Garden State Plaza. He tried ditching them in the GSP parking lot, but that didn't work so he led them on a slow-speed chase down the right-hand shoulder. After three or four miles he thought he had his chance at the light behind the Bendix Diner (you may have seen it in TV commercials), beyond which the road opened up to three lanes and traffic moved freely. Unfortunately, when he tried to run the red light he t-boned a car going through the intersection and killed the driver. During the trial the sheriffs and EMTs ran through the facts of the case, while the guy's defense was "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen", which is pretty much a confession in and of itself. Anyway, we found him guilty of second-degree murder and auto theft, although I was kind of leery about that as I've bought beaters for cash and didn't necessarily have the title or registration within three days. As it turns out though, according to NJ law, anyone caught within seven days with stolen property can be considered the thief, so I ended up going along. There were three other auxiliary charges that we convicted him on as well. I actually felt bad for the guy, as he didn't seem to be all that bright. Some four or five months later I read in the paper that the guy was sentenced to life, partly because of his ridiculously long rap sheet, which had over 15 convictions, mostly for things like petty larceny and minor possession charges. I felt mad at him and sorry for him at the same time. I thought "Man, with all those convictions, maybe you should have figured out that you're not that good as being a criminal. Maybe you should try washing dishes at a diner or something and see if you can get promoted to being a cook or a waiter or something." If it were up to me, he'd get 3 to 5 in a Scandinavian-style prison - he did kill someone in the process of committing a crime after all - and find if there were underlying problems that were behind his problems, whether it was developmental disability or ODD or some other problem. I know there are some people who are downright mean, but this guy didn't seem like that - he just didn't seem to be able to judge risk and reward and didn't have anyone else in his life who could help him. This was over 30 years ago now, and I hope he's been released from prison.
i think that, under the circumstances, you did the right thing. This is even taking the harsh sentence your defendant received into account.
The trouble is that our prison systems do a very poor job of rehabilitating or educating people. If the state is going to build prisons, then they intend to fill them up and keep them full. When you rehabilitate someone, and give them a good education, then they will be less likely to commit a new crime when they are released back into society.
Prison society is nothing like the society we experience in our daily lives. The skill set necessary to survive prison is very different from the skill set we develop in the real world. Prison society is a mockery of the American society; it is usually violent and brutal and not very redeeming.
I presume that your defendant, having a long rap sheet, mostly grew up inside some sort of locked facility, mainly prisons and jails. If he worked in a prison, then he would have received a very limited skill set that could be transferred to a real world job. Vocational education skills are usually 10 or more years out of date. Education is just enough to get a person their GED. Social skills are limited to what it takes to survive a unisex environment, with a very different ethical structure and different mores than what we are used to in our lives, but still within a very complex society that is often controlled by gangs and overseen by prison staff who are often just as maladjusted as the prisoners they are in charge of.
You set your defendant free and the first things he is looking for most of the time, are drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, getting laid, and then food and shelter. He may or may not report to parole, and, in too many states, the parole officer makes life much more difficult for the parolee instead of being there to help the parolee readjust to life outside of prison. Your defendant has no life skills that easily transfer into our society. He doesn't know how to fill out an application for work, doesn't know how to operate a computer, he's not used to the chaos you find outside of prison. Just going into a grocery store to pick up a bag of chips can be overwhelming. He suffers from PTSD, and he's often self medicating. He might find employment, but it's going to be low level and barely enough to survive on. He's a fish out of water; a stranger in a strange land.
For him, prison is home. So he will usually commit some low level crime to return to prison. Grand theft auto would be good for 8 years, double that for committing a crime while on parole and add on other enhancements, and he's good for 25 years down and will serve about half that before he's back up for parole, or his term ends. He definitely didn't mean to kill someone, but a life sentence doesn't bother him because he no longer has to worry about losing the home that he knows. When he is in prison, most likely he's a totally different person. He's in a place where he knows the rules and how to function and his place within that society.
Yes, we do need to adopt the Swedish or Finnish prison model where prisoners are not excluded from our society. We need to rehabilitate and education without institutionalizing so many people.
We have developed a prison system where we impose a "one size fits all" system of work/education/vocation without really considering the actual needs of the prisoner. All this does is prepare most prisoners to failure once they are released from prison; and then they are subjected to even longer sentences because of the government's failure to rehabilitate them during their prison term.
The States and Federal governments want an easy solution to a very complex problem. And it isn't working. There are no easy solutions if the goal is to take someone who has turned to criminal conduct and to make that person a functional member of society. It can be done, it should be done, but our current prison model does not work in getting it done.
That's very interesting, thanks. I've often wondered if juries are allowed to take notes while they are sitting in the jury box, just to remind themselves later of things they thought were important. I've never seen a depiction of anyone in a jury taking notes.
Some states, or local jurisdictions allow for note taking, and others do not allow it. Some states even allow jurors to ask questions of the witness, but the question has to go through the judge first.
You got me curious so I Googled it and found this: "Upon the court's own motion or upon the request of any party, the court shall permit jurors to take notes. If jurors are permitted to take notes, the court shall supply each juror with notebooks and pencils. Jurors shall not have their notes during recesses but may use their notes during deliberations. The court shall collect all juror notes immediately before discharge of the jury. After the jury is discharged, the court shall destroy the notes promptly without permitting their review by the court or any other person. Juror notes shall not be used to impeach a verdict."
There was another, I can't remember many of the details now. The murder took place in a northern state, and the defendant was at Disney World at the time with his family. He had receipts, pics and video from his family, they still convicted. he got out many years later.
I woke up this morning to find a bunch of river rocks strewn across my stairway. While that sounds weird, it’s because I have this huge art niche in the wall next to the stairway between the 2nd and 3rd floors. I couldn’t find anything that didn’t look ridiculously small in the space, so I commissioned my Dad to make something. At the time, he was really into “junk” art, which involved welding bits together into a sculpture. At the base are a bunch of river rocks, which Babby Axl apparently enjoyed knocking down, because he’s a weirdo.
OK, this has been bugging me since the other day. Austin H, I'm sorry for saying "fuck you city boy" and you're right, I am a good ol boy. As we speak, I'm on my pool deck, talking to one of my buds about the Cowboys while my wife rubs Auquafor on my new tattoo and my other buddy is making our kids (and some of theirs) laugh by putting the water hose down his swimsuit and squealing. I can't see things the way other people do, and I shouldn't ever be defensive about the truth. I apologize for the anger and the defensive dishonesty.
Somebody needs to get permission to plead for mercy for some fellow human, which is denied. Christians, these people call themselves. Such a mess we've organized ourselves into.
Their howler-monkey levels of fanaticism about bloodthirsty punishment is about what I expect from christians.
Sir Francis Bacon wrote centuries ago that private revenge "putteth the law out of office." It seems to me that when the state maintains and enforces the death penalty, it's making itself little more than an agent of private revenge, and thereby negating its higher aspirations to universal justice. I think I can understand why relatives and friends of a slain person would want the killer dead -- they're rightly enraged at the depraved and vicious person who killed someone they love. But a fair state system can't deal out justice from that perspective -- it will make reckless mistakes and kill innocent people. We've seen that happen for a long time now, and the numerous exonerations show how imperfect our justice system is. Human justice is bound to be imperfect, so it has to be kept humane. We don't need to torture people or kill them to maintain social order, so even if one considers only such utility-based matters (and leaves aside higher morality), capital punishment is a terrible idea.
If someone killed my loved one(s) I might be mollified if the state grabbed the nearest, easiest schlub to blame it on. But in theory, shouldn't the state have an interest in catching the actual killer so that the actual killer doesn't go on to kill again? This is why I have never gotten behind tough on crime. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with actually preventing crime.
But why don't we? If someone is raping women along the local hiking path, I want the police to arrest the rapist, not some random homeless guy.
If they believed in the truth, they wouldn't be "religious."
"ardent death penalty enthusiast Attorney General Jeff Landry put out a new rule declaring that prisoners can only seek clemency for one year after a judge rules on their appeal."
Oh, Republicans. Must you always be heartless, racist assholes?
That is unfair. I have the feeling they would kill ANYbody, regardless of race.
You have a point.
Ummmmmm.......Yes.....
Let me state upfront, for the record, that I am opposed to the death penalty. Period. That said, I am puzzled by the fact that we continue to hear that executions have to be postponed or cancelled bc of a lack of human-killing drugs, when we also know that:
Overall, drug overdose deaths rose from 2019 to 2021 with more than 106,000 drug overdose deaths reported in 2021. Deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) continued to rise with 70,601 overdose deaths reported in 2021.
https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates
I feel like I must be missing something here. I'm really not trying to suggest a solution to the lack of human-killing drugs, I just don't understand why, if this seems so obvious to me, that the people who want to kill people haven't figured this out.
The drugs which were approved for death penalty by lethal injection are now unavailable to prisons for lethal injection because no pharmaceutical manufacturer wants to have an association equivalent to Zyclon-B. As one does. Big Pharma is rarely accused of being humane, so this isn't about humanity, compassion, or justice. It's just marketing.
Right. I don't want to belabor this bc it's very upsettinig to think about, but we've got 5 states that have approved firing squads for executions, for fuck's sake.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/26/1166139433/idaho-is-the-latest-state-to-permit-execution-by-firing-squad
Insofar as any execution of a human can be humane, I think a lethal injection would be preferable to a fusillade of bullets, but mebbe that's just me.
I recently, sadly, had to put my sweet cat Bella down. The vet administered a sedative, then an overdose of anesthetic. Very quick, very peaceful.
I share your puzzlement.
Moved to new Orleans in 2015. Thank god we had JBE during the pandemic. He’s a good man. I have lawyer friends who are working on this. Give what you can.
Exactly. I can't imagine the chaos had one of those other republican idiots been elected.
Bel Edwards is a very decent guy - not as liberal as some Dems but hell, he gets elected in Louisiana, so.
The Democratic Party remains a diverse (and argumentative!) group, and all the while the GOP has been whittled down to the size of Trump's pathetic and squalling id.
100%
I always find it interesting that the same people who think universal healthcare means government run death panels think the government is infallible when it comes to deciding whether someone should live or be killed.
Yes, but on the right, it is never a question of "should we kill," but "who should we kill."
I'm a proud atheist on the issue of the death penalty. https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ft_2021.06.15_deathpenalty_02.png
Catholics are supposed to be anti death penalty in all cases. It's in the new rules Papa Frank put in place. What is it with more than half of American Catholics?
I'm a lefty, liberation theology, anti death penalty, pro bodily autonomy Catholic. I don't want to be associated with them.
There's more of us than you think - particularly in south America and Europe. Bunch of people who believe in social justice and love your neighbour as yourself but not the judgy stuff. If you're raised Catholic it can be quite sticky. I'm not sure I believe in God a lot of the time but I keep going to Mass and trying to stand up against the ageing bigots.
We will take the "agnostics," too. "Atheist" and "agnostic" are the same thing for all practical purposes.
Present!
Me too.
count me in brotha's.
MURDER is a vicious crime. It is tragic. But how does another death (By the state). make anything less tragic? Family of the victims are of course traumatized. Some of these want VENGANCE not JUSTICE!
I don't believe the State should have the power to execute its citizens.
If we are going to have the death penalty, then it should be limited to treason, espionage, or sabotage, committed during a time of war; acts of terrorism, foreign or domestic; or acts of sedition, coup attempts, or insurrection.
These acts attack the state or national government with the intent of bringing our constitutional democracy to an end, or they result in mass death. The evidence against the accused in these type of cases is almost always overwhelming.
But I believe that life without parole is a much better solution than the death penalty. More people fear long term incarceration than they fear death.
Life without parole costs less than an execution. I'm sure the right will respond to a fiscally-responsible argument.
You crack me up.
Dealing with a geriatric prison population gets expensive, too. Several states are finding this out because of their tough on crime policies from the 80s.
Massive reform of the justice system from laws, policing, courts, to rehabilitation and incarceration is needed, maybe then the US can join the civilized world. Then maybe we can tackle mental healthcare and education. I doubt that I will see even baby steps in this direction in my lifetime. It is disheartening.
Yes. There needs to be a top-down reform of the criminal justice system in our country. We need to fill prisons with social workers and teachers instead of correctional officers. We need to restore a person's civil rights once they are discharged from prison. We need shorter sentences in much more humane conditions. We need to work to eliminate prison and street gangs and the conditions that give rise to them.
Most of all, we need to get rid of the corruption and racism that is inherent in our criminal justice system. I think it would be better if state judges were appointed for life instead of being elected so that they can be independent of district attorneys.
I think that attorney generals and district attorneys should be appointed instead of elected -- I don't see any other way to hold them accountable for their actions.
I think that civilian grand juries need more power to investigate government offices and institutions and should have the power to remove officials from office or employment instead of only making the recommendation that they be removed.
This just scratches the surface. There's much that needs to be done. It will take a lot of time to bring about changes, but that just means we must do our part to bring about this change that others will continue.
That's the thing. We can decide the death penalty is too dangerous to leave lying around without having to agree about anything else.
We've executed innocent people.
And every innocent person executed means a guilty person got off Scott free. You’d think the “tough on crime” folks would want to make damn sure the right person got executed. But it seems like any (nonwhite) body will do.
Not always. Like the guy in the story convicted of killing his kid, the kid died of pneumonia, not of an act of another person.
The "tough on crime" people just want to kill someone. Guilt or innocence doesn't matter to them.
That story about Shareef Cousin being sentenced to death in spite of there being witnesses and video of him being elsewhere and the only witness saying she couldn't see too good at the time, highlights one of the big problems in our Criminal Justice system that nobody ever talks about.
Bad juries. There is no way that 12 normal, rational people would have convicted Shareef, let alone sentenced to him to death, with all that opposing evidence.
And, of course, I would bet money that Shareef had an overworked, underpaid public defender who didn't make enough out of the contradictory evidence. But really, in the end it was the jury who must have heard that Shareef was playing basketball elsewhere and there was video proof of this, and yet they still convicted him. In Louisiana ALL TWELVE JURORS must agree a defendant is guilty before a death sentence can be opposed. This shit happens all the time and I just don't understand it.
This is the only thing that worries me about my own trial ... I have very little control over who is in the Jury, and it is a rural, rednecked, mostly white Republican county, so who knows what we might get.
My guess is the jury didn't convict because the PD was overworked, and underpaid. It's Louisiana FFS. They're bloodthirsty racists who were waiting all their lives to lynch someone.
This is true. I lived there for 4 years and every single Black person I met was so kind and friendly and generous and polite, and every single white person I met kept using the N word when we were alone together. I had never heard ANY white person use that word until I moved there.
The ACLU is suing over a shortage of public defenders .https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-sues-over-public-defender-shortage-and-resulting-wait-list-new-orleans
The ACLU did the same thing in Missouri in 2018. They won, but nothing has changed because the state can't find anyone willing to fill the new positions.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-rules-missouris-waiting-list-public-defender-violate-constitutional-right
White females over 40 are the least likely to be convicted by a jury. Black males under 50 are the most likely to be convicted. The younger a defendant is, the more likely a jury will convict. The more "undesirable" (such as mental illness, drug abuse, homelessness) traits a defendant exhibits, the more likely the jury is to convict.
Too often a jury will convict people not so much on the evidence presented at trial, but on how well the prosecutor can "demonize" the defendant before the jury. The more unlike the jury the defendant is, the more likely the defendant will be convicted.
I once sat on a jury for a murder trial. A guy stole a car and three days later he was spotted by the county mounties. He tried fleeing south on NJ-17 which was a bad idea, particularly on a Friday afternoon south of the Garden State Plaza. He tried ditching them in the GSP parking lot, but that didn't work so he led them on a slow-speed chase down the right-hand shoulder. After three or four miles he thought he had his chance at the light behind the Bendix Diner (you may have seen it in TV commercials), beyond which the road opened up to three lanes and traffic moved freely. Unfortunately, when he tried to run the red light he t-boned a car going through the intersection and killed the driver. During the trial the sheriffs and EMTs ran through the facts of the case, while the guy's defense was "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen", which is pretty much a confession in and of itself. Anyway, we found him guilty of second-degree murder and auto theft, although I was kind of leery about that as I've bought beaters for cash and didn't necessarily have the title or registration within three days. As it turns out though, according to NJ law, anyone caught within seven days with stolen property can be considered the thief, so I ended up going along. There were three other auxiliary charges that we convicted him on as well. I actually felt bad for the guy, as he didn't seem to be all that bright. Some four or five months later I read in the paper that the guy was sentenced to life, partly because of his ridiculously long rap sheet, which had over 15 convictions, mostly for things like petty larceny and minor possession charges. I felt mad at him and sorry for him at the same time. I thought "Man, with all those convictions, maybe you should have figured out that you're not that good as being a criminal. Maybe you should try washing dishes at a diner or something and see if you can get promoted to being a cook or a waiter or something." If it were up to me, he'd get 3 to 5 in a Scandinavian-style prison - he did kill someone in the process of committing a crime after all - and find if there were underlying problems that were behind his problems, whether it was developmental disability or ODD or some other problem. I know there are some people who are downright mean, but this guy didn't seem like that - he just didn't seem to be able to judge risk and reward and didn't have anyone else in his life who could help him. This was over 30 years ago now, and I hope he's been released from prison.
i think that, under the circumstances, you did the right thing. This is even taking the harsh sentence your defendant received into account.
The trouble is that our prison systems do a very poor job of rehabilitating or educating people. If the state is going to build prisons, then they intend to fill them up and keep them full. When you rehabilitate someone, and give them a good education, then they will be less likely to commit a new crime when they are released back into society.
Prison society is nothing like the society we experience in our daily lives. The skill set necessary to survive prison is very different from the skill set we develop in the real world. Prison society is a mockery of the American society; it is usually violent and brutal and not very redeeming.
I presume that your defendant, having a long rap sheet, mostly grew up inside some sort of locked facility, mainly prisons and jails. If he worked in a prison, then he would have received a very limited skill set that could be transferred to a real world job. Vocational education skills are usually 10 or more years out of date. Education is just enough to get a person their GED. Social skills are limited to what it takes to survive a unisex environment, with a very different ethical structure and different mores than what we are used to in our lives, but still within a very complex society that is often controlled by gangs and overseen by prison staff who are often just as maladjusted as the prisoners they are in charge of.
You set your defendant free and the first things he is looking for most of the time, are drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, getting laid, and then food and shelter. He may or may not report to parole, and, in too many states, the parole officer makes life much more difficult for the parolee instead of being there to help the parolee readjust to life outside of prison. Your defendant has no life skills that easily transfer into our society. He doesn't know how to fill out an application for work, doesn't know how to operate a computer, he's not used to the chaos you find outside of prison. Just going into a grocery store to pick up a bag of chips can be overwhelming. He suffers from PTSD, and he's often self medicating. He might find employment, but it's going to be low level and barely enough to survive on. He's a fish out of water; a stranger in a strange land.
For him, prison is home. So he will usually commit some low level crime to return to prison. Grand theft auto would be good for 8 years, double that for committing a crime while on parole and add on other enhancements, and he's good for 25 years down and will serve about half that before he's back up for parole, or his term ends. He definitely didn't mean to kill someone, but a life sentence doesn't bother him because he no longer has to worry about losing the home that he knows. When he is in prison, most likely he's a totally different person. He's in a place where he knows the rules and how to function and his place within that society.
Yes, we do need to adopt the Swedish or Finnish prison model where prisoners are not excluded from our society. We need to rehabilitate and education without institutionalizing so many people.
We have developed a prison system where we impose a "one size fits all" system of work/education/vocation without really considering the actual needs of the prisoner. All this does is prepare most prisoners to failure once they are released from prison; and then they are subjected to even longer sentences because of the government's failure to rehabilitate them during their prison term.
The States and Federal governments want an easy solution to a very complex problem. And it isn't working. There are no easy solutions if the goal is to take someone who has turned to criminal conduct and to make that person a functional member of society. It can be done, it should be done, but our current prison model does not work in getting it done.
That's very interesting, thanks. I've often wondered if juries are allowed to take notes while they are sitting in the jury box, just to remind themselves later of things they thought were important. I've never seen a depiction of anyone in a jury taking notes.
Some states, or local jurisdictions allow for note taking, and others do not allow it. Some states even allow jurors to ask questions of the witness, but the question has to go through the judge first.
You got me curious so I Googled it and found this: "Upon the court's own motion or upon the request of any party, the court shall permit jurors to take notes. If jurors are permitted to take notes, the court shall supply each juror with notebooks and pencils. Jurors shall not have their notes during recesses but may use their notes during deliberations. The court shall collect all juror notes immediately before discharge of the jury. After the jury is discharged, the court shall destroy the notes promptly without permitting their review by the court or any other person. Juror notes shall not be used to impeach a verdict."
Missouri law, I presume. And I presume that you will request that your jury be allowed to take notes?
I'm actually surprise that Missouri would allow jurors to take notes since it tends to help the defendant.
Yes, I intend to ask for that, because it's what *I* would want to do if I were on a jury.
You’d think having an air tight alibi would have gotten the case tossed out. But Louisiana, black defendant.
There was another, I can't remember many of the details now. The murder took place in a northern state, and the defendant was at Disney World at the time with his family. He had receipts, pics and video from his family, they still convicted. he got out many years later.
I woke up this morning to find a bunch of river rocks strewn across my stairway. While that sounds weird, it’s because I have this huge art niche in the wall next to the stairway between the 2nd and 3rd floors. I couldn’t find anything that didn’t look ridiculously small in the space, so I commissioned my Dad to make something. At the time, he was really into “junk” art, which involved welding bits together into a sculpture. At the base are a bunch of river rocks, which Babby Axl apparently enjoyed knocking down, because he’s a weirdo.
https://substack.com/profile/155629588-2cats2furious/note/c-22275132?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knok4
OK, this has been bugging me since the other day. Austin H, I'm sorry for saying "fuck you city boy" and you're right, I am a good ol boy. As we speak, I'm on my pool deck, talking to one of my buds about the Cowboys while my wife rubs Auquafor on my new tattoo and my other buddy is making our kids (and some of theirs) laugh by putting the water hose down his swimsuit and squealing. I can't see things the way other people do, and I shouldn't ever be defensive about the truth. I apologize for the anger and the defensive dishonesty.
I have a cousin who is Austin H. Hopefully a different Austin H.
Are they on Teh Wonkz?
No idea. They’re currently in Colorado, though, if that helps.
I'm not a stalker! I'm over it...
My cold-eyed, tough-as-nails, and mean-as-shit, correctional officer uncle was against the death penalty.
He said: "I've seen too many men who shouldn't have died, go to the gas chamber."
(He worked at San Quentin, and Folsom.)