It depends on what state you live in.  Each state makes their own rules about whether voting privileges are restored after the time is served.  It's my personal opinion that it SHOULD restore voting rights, especially with the fact that more and more people are being incarcerated, what with the incarceration business being "for profit" these days.  There's a vested interest in turning the most amount of people in the country into criminals.  What a great political trick, if you have enough money to fight anything that's thrown at you, and plan on running for office, to just wait until the majority of voters have become felons and then run on whatever ridiculous platform you want, buying off whomever is left who has voting privileges?

Then again, I'm kind of delusional and have the sneaking suspicion that the whole world is being run by a handful of shadowy, old, rich guys who smoke cigars, and in my mind's eye look a little like the banker on the Monopoly board game.

The whole idea (in theory anyway) of prison is that a person can be reformed. I think that basically these types of rules are saying that any convicted felon can never be reformed since they will be punished for the rest of their lives. If the courts decide that you can't be reformed, then that is what a life sentence is for.

By null at 2010-07-23

 

By null at 2010-07-23

The whole thing about prisons is a joke. All prisons do is make better criminals in the majority of cases. To call them a correctional facility is the biggest joke. There is absolutely nothing about a prison that will correct anything. And the U.S. has more outdated and outright ridiculous laws than all other countries combined. And any prison sentence you get last to the rest of your life whether you served your time...rehabilitated yourself...or found god. As far as voting...who really cares...look at the choices...and its not like your vote "really" makes a difference...it's just there so "you think" you made a difference and to shut you up. The government in the U.S. hasn't worked "for the people" in a long time...the people work for the government whether you like it or not.

Not always true....when the Legal System gets it wrong, eg. inadequate sentencing for rock spiders 'summary justice' can usually be relied-upon by the inmates.

I kinda never shed a tear when a murderer dies 'unexpectedly' in prison.  We had one here just recently....raised a smile...;)

I don't even think murderers should be in prison, they should be Dead. An Eye For An Eye. But, ONLY if it's proven the person is really a murderer and commited the act in cold blood. Accidental muder happsn too though it is rare but not Everyone deserves the death penalty. Mostly though, justice should fit the crime.

Um....what? .... JAFOCHECK

Like when someone steps in front of your car and you don't have time to stop and can't veer out of the way. Chances are in court it wouldn't be seen as the drivers fault, but crazier stuff has happened.

Not join the drugs discussion(nothing worthwhile to add), but accidental murder would be better termed as manslaughter(http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/m013.htm).  To convict someone of murder you need to prove their was prior thinking and planning of it, manslaughter needs none of that, in an example casesuch as zoning out while driving across a crossing, killing someone, which is bad, but not actually intended to kill.

though i highly doupt you would be convicted of either if you were driving along a highway and someone just ran out onto the road

(disclaimer, this is in my humble knowledge, which at best, is a rusty bucket that has bullet holes in it)

True, technically what I'm describing would be considered "manslaughter" or "accidental manslaughter" in a court of law I think. Then again I'm no lawyer.

I think this article from Time Magazine brings to light the realities and misconceptions that controlled substance decriminalization brings. It doesn't mean for sure we would have the same results in the US, but it does show that decriminalization doesn't result in rampant drug use.

No shit....maybe some people won't like my opinion, but imo murderers should be tortured before death, just like in the dark ages.

But that sort of mentality (torture) makes the justice system every bit as deranged as the murderers they are putting to death.

If you, who did not commit murder, would enjoy the idea of torturing someone, for whatever reason, then you understand what it is like to be a murderer.  You have reasons for causing harm and duress to someone else, that you justify, JUST like a murderer justifies their reasons for causing harm and duress to someone else.

I enjoy justice and fairness just like the next person, but as human beings, we are not omniscient, so we can never know what made somebody do something, and whether we have all the facts on someone who is charged with a crime. 

At the heart of torturing someone as punishment, is the presumption that person is 100% responsible for everything we accuse them of.  In the criminal justice system, we incarcerate people because we believe they chose to be that way of their free will.  My problem with that is that science doesn't fall very heavily on the side of free will.  Science says we DON'T have free will--that we are a product of our heredity, our chemical makeup, our past experiences (experiences we learned things from), and our environment.  Given the same experiences, chemical makeup, heredity and environment of the murderer you want to torture before death, YOU would do the exact same things they did and then YOU would be the one on the receiving end of the torture.

I'm not really sure where I stand on the issue of capital punishment.  I know for a fact that I don't agree with it, FOR punishment.  I can understand exterminating someone who murders repetitively, to make the world safer for others, but that's not punishment, it doesn't correct the behavior, and ethically I think the only one who should be making that decision to exterminate that person are the family members of the person who was murdered.  I look at this the same way I look at having to euthanize a pet that can't be rehabilitated (I've had 2 violent dogs in my lifetime, that I had to make the decision to exterminate because I just didn't have the resources to train the violence out of them) -- it's not something that's done for punishment, it's always tragic and it's only done to prevent a greater tragedy.

Deranged? Not at all. We are talking about murderers. They deserve it. Did you know that thieves got their hands cut off in those days in some countries? [Ex.: Here, in Hungary] It sounds brutal, but it was effective enough to reduce the crime rate.

It's not about enjoyment, it's about punishment.

 

 

Who are you to say "they deserve it"?  Have you walked around in their shoes?  Do you know what sort of thoughts run through their head, or chemicals run through their blood stream?

Also, just because a brutal practice of dismembering people "was effective enough to reduce the crime rate," doesn't mean that's the BEST method for reducing the crime rate.  Maybe giving people enough resources so they don't have to steal would be a BETTER way to reduce the crime rate.  Maybe educating people in ways to get what they need without stealing would reduce the crime rate AND...would result in more productive members of society -- cutting off their hands adds to the disabled population, perpetuating the neediness of the thief!





What is the point to punishment?  I was under the impression it was to alter negative behavior.  There is NO behavior after a person is executed.  You fool yourself if you think it's for punishment -- it's for appeasement of the masses, because EVERYBODY has a bloodthirsty, vengeful, little caveman inside them, that would prefer to engage in violence, rather than find a better solution to the problem. 

No sophisticated argument needed.

Torture is sick. It stems from rage and a desire to hurt the [hopefully justly convicted] perpetrator as much as or more than the victim.

Execution should ideally be instantaneous, painless and unexpected. Anything else is barbaric.

Hopefully someday spiritual health visits will be as important as or more important than medical ones....better yet, the conditions that spawn murderers will have been dispatched.

 

 

Until then, we at least have Jafo.

  Spot on, Doc! 

Thanks, Special K.

Oh, God...the 'diminished responsibility' argument.

Gee...if I was sober I wouldn't have killed those kids on the crossing....ergo it is not my fault and they did not die.

Gee if I wasn't 'intoxicated' by my extremist religious beliefs I would not have flown that plane into that building.

No matter how mind-altered you are....people die.

The dead will not forgive you...they CANNOT forgive you...so why should anyone else?

Compassion?

Fine...hold their hand when you administer the hot-shot.

Not to belabor the point, but the law does recognize 'diminished responsibility' for certain causes.

 

That's not one of them.

 

Neither is that.

 

"Diminished capacity is a defense which serves to negate the mental state of "malice". If a jurisdiction recognizes that a person can kill with justification, but also without any evil intent, that jurisdiction is free to define the crime as something less than murder. It is not present in all US jurisdictions. In many, a mental defect, or even mental illness, will not reduce the seriousness of the offense whatsoever. However, if a US state legislature so promulgates, a diminished mental state may be used as a justification for the finding of a lesser crime. This is distinguished from the complete defense of Insanity." From the Wikipedia... this is pretty cut and dried and so well known as to be trustworthy (if not, use the English 'Homicide Act of 1957'). Developmental mental abnormalities would come in here.

Doc....I'm 55. You have not told me anything I do not know already [probably never have].

If you are killed 'without malice' you are no less dead.

The end result is the same.

Oh...and 'the Law' recognises all sorts of things...

...except that it is an ass.....;p

Not sure how they do it in Russia these days...and I could be wrong about this...but it is/was my understanding that when your found guilty of a crime in Russia such as murder and a few others...upon sentencing you are taken out of the courtroom and into a room with nothing more than a drain in the floor and shot in the back of the head. And that's how they should be doing it rather than spending ridiculous amounts of money to house you for 10 or 15 years until they finally carry out the sentence of death. The only circumstance I could see you being housed for longer than a day is if there was some doubt regarding your guilt. If not....please step inside this little room.

And though I'm sure some people might find it enjoyable to torture a murderer to death or cut off the balls of a pedophile...I'd say we spent enough time on this person. And this diminished capacity defense seems to be getting abused these days. Someone like that...ok...we keep them around for a bit till we figure out what is diminished....and then we shoot'em in the head. I think we should have recalls like they do with cars.

And Doc...when it comes to the government and laws...nothing is cut a dried. I wouldn't use Wakipedia as a source to be trusted in something like this.

Is it the testosterone in your systems that makes you all so ready to dehumanize a person charged with a serious crime and execute them on the spot or what?  Depending on the sort of justice system in place in the area you happen to reside in, you can be charged with murder for simply looking like "the type" and pressure put on the local cops to find the perps who did this to "one of their own."  Then you spend the next 30 years in jail, trying to be heard and taken seriously, IF you have enough money, and IF you can get a change of venue.  The first case that comes to my mind is the case of the West Memphis 3 -- children, put in prison because they had the misfortune of residing in a backwoods town and were teenagers at the time who enjoyed listening to Metallica.  They didn't LOOK like the local law wanted them to, and so they were accused of a heinous crime, murdering three 8-year-old boys.  Those teenagers, now in their 30s, are still fighting to get the truth out -- that they are innocent, that the crime was committed by someone else (with a financial backing from celebrities, new evidence is coming out, and it looks like it's the stepfather of one of the 8-year-olds who did it).  However, all attempts to get the case retried have failed.  (you can read about it here, if you're unfamiliar with the case: http://www.wm3.org/ )

Shabby police work, prejudice, public pressure to just "FIND" somebody...there are all kinds of reasons NOT to just exterminate people who are found guilty of a serious crime.

This goes both ways. The dead can't condemn you either.

There was a famous English professor and novelist who made a related point, much more eloquently than I can.  But I'm no good at channeling Ian McKellan.