Again, anti-death-penaltites tend to ignore this:

"In 1974 he ordered the execution of his son’s girlfriend, for which he was sentenced to life in prison. From prison in 1980, he orchestrated the murders of three witnesses (by sawed off shotgun) who had testified against him, and plotted the deaths of four more, which landed him on death row."

I dunno about you, but if I had a relative who was gunned down because he told the truth about a convicted criminal and the criminal had thugs kill the relative for it, I'd want the punk-ass dead.

Mercy in cases like this is the slap on the wrist that encourages more crime like this.

I'm not denying he was a fucked up guy--that's why I posted his crimes, and didn't just play the old-man sympathy card.

I still think the death penalty is heinous--especially in a country that has so many flaws in its legal system.

Yeah, if I had relatives to which something so awful had happened, I'd be upset and irrational too. I'd want them dead, no doubt. And that's exactly why I wouldn't be empowered to decide their fate. The justice system is not based on the emotions of the victim or the victim's family but (in theory) an impartial notion of justice, protection for the rest of society, and - maybe - rehabilitation.

Besides the basic idea that punishing what we consider to be an unthinkable act with the very same act is, how do you say... stupid, the ultimate criticism of the death penalty is what Cienna says above: Absent an infallible justice system, there is no just way to apply it. The murder by the state of a single innocent person is far more horrible than a bunch of guilty people languishing in prison for their natural lives rather than being executed.

Oh, and your last line about mercy encouraging more crimes like this is absurd. Leaving alone the idea that life in prison is a "slap on the wrist," no one has ever shown that the death penalty is a deterrent and they never will, because it isn't. Take a look at the murder rates in states that have the death penalty, not to mention countries, compared to ones that don't. There is no correlation whatsoever. Murderers do not consider the laws of the state they happen to be in when they commit their crimes.

We commit very, very few death penalties given the number of eligible criminals, a few hundred total executed in many of our lifetimes. It's just that all of them are publicized a great deal.

It can't be that much of a deterrant if a small percentage of murderous criminals are actually executed. Most of those convicted criminals either get life in prison or are released at some point.

Allen's dead.

Allen's dead.

Well that rather killed off the thread. Maybe now the celebrties and famous who congregated to plead for Williams can go to work for Corey Maye - guilty - at best - of manslaughter on a questionable no-knock warrent.

See ">http://www.theagitator.com/

So how 'bout it Stranger? Drum up some good press for a deserving death row inmate, eh?