Now that we have such sophisticated forensics, should we have more states with the death penalty?

Question

In cases of murder where it is proven without a shadow of a doubt with all the new CSI's and forensic skills?
Our prisons are over crowded, should the burden of taking care of these lifers be on the tax payer with increased taxes?

John H : Not a recommendation, just a hand on the pulse of the answerers.

Ken: There is room for error in any science. There is no error with the folks like Manson, etc.,

Answer 1

The death penalty should be reserved for those who have committed very heinous crimes OR will be a danger to others if they are EVER released or escape.
In those cases (even if they are mentally ill) execution works.
It works as a preventative measure and to promote a true sense of Justice.
Vengeance is NOT becoming and should never be the motive for execution.
YES, all states should have a death penalty. It should be expedited. NO MORE sitting around for years while devious lawyers get rich filing specious appeals.

Answer 2

The answer to your first question is a no. Our intelligence and sophistication had nothing to do with the death penalt being abolished. Actually it is our increasing intelligence that is removing the death penalty. In principal Two wrongs don't make a right.

the answer to your second question is that doubt in whether or not person A murdered person B is also not the reason it is being abolished. It is a moral principal that our government should not be able to pass a law that murdering is wrong, and then murder someone. Not only is it hypocritical, but there are cases that (bear with me now) the guy that got murdered might have "deserved" it, such as being a rapist or child molestor, or murdering people himself. So then you start asking questions about whther or not the murder was justified.

The answer to your third question seems pluasible. I have heard that putting someone to death is just as expensive as taking care of them for life, but on the other hand when so many people get sentenced to life in prison you have to build a new prison, and tat ain't cheap. So we end up spending more money in the long run. The other problem is that there are people that spend their whole lives in jail that never murdered a person, one example is a young man in california that got 25 years to life for stealing a candy bar because it was his third strike.

My proposal is keep the death penalty abolished, and decrease the number of people doing life for stupid things, and increase the amount of education and therapy in places with high crime rates.

Answer 3

If they were really labratories like CSI's, then perhaps I would agree. But CSI is just a TV show.

In fact, your point of view is quite common and is popularly known as the "CSI effect", after the famous TV show. Specifically, it is defined as the trend where juries are becoming harder and harder to persuade because they expect evidence that is simply unrealistic, if not outright impossible. For more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_Effect

The techniques used in the show are often exaggerated and well equipped labs are few and far between. A "modern" lab probaly will consist of a small office space. I suggest you do a little reading on actual, existing forensic techniques before you recommend the death sentence. A famous quote goes, "Better set free a hundred guilty men before condemning one innocent to death".

Answer 4

DNA is available in less than 10% of all homicides and can guarantee we won't execute innocent people.

Our prisons are overcrowded but not because the death penalty isn't being used. They are overcrowded because we sentence low level drug offenders to long terms and because the social safety net that should provide appropriate and timely care to people suffering with mental illness has been dismantled.

Last of all, the death penalty is significantly more expensive than the death penalty, because of the legal costs.

Edit- for plezurgui and for Philip H-- Did you know that at least 50 of the 124 death row exonerees had already served a decade or more before evidence that they were wrongfully convicted was discovered? Speeding up the legal process, as you suggest, will guarantee innocent people are executed.

Answer 5

Not every taking of a life should be punished by the death penalty, but, certainly, most of them should be. Maybe a state wide referendum on the issue would be in order. Dropping the death penalty as an executive decision is not right.
I do believe that DNA evidence is powerful evidence, but the lack of it doesn't mean the person is necessarily innocent.
I think an even more pressing issue is appeals. Convicted murderers can extend their life by up to 20 yrs, by appeal after appeal after appeal. Now, clearly, the appeal process is an important safeguard of our judicial system, but death row inmates' appeals should be expedited. Their appeals should be exhausted within a year.

Answer 6

I think you put far too much faith in forensic science and the information that can be obtained therefrom. First, there have been examples of people intentionally distorting DNA evidence (a texas coroner comes to mind, he falsely testified in hundreds of cases simply to obtain more cases from the police). Add to that the unintentional mistakes that can be made when you are dealing with microscopic samples and you have a far from foolproof system.

DNA evidence can never tell you that one person killed another, it is not direct evidence. DNA evidence, in cases of murder, is always circumstantial evidence.

Let me explain. Suppose you have a murder scene in a hotel and you find the victim's blood (obviously) and several small bloodstains from another person together with hairs from several people (as would be expected in a hotel room). The evidence is collected and sent for DNA testing. The blood and several hair samples come back and are later determined to belong to John Smith who is promptly arrested as the murderer. Is that enough evidence?

See: Tarnish On The 'Gold Standard': Recent Problems In Forensic DNA Testing
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/698c98dd101a846085256eb400500c01/6285f6867724e1e685257124006f9177?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,forensic,forensics,evidence

For a good discussion on the subject. Also check out The Innocence Project at:

http://www.innocenceproject.org/
All over the map
The Innocence Project has seen forensic misconduct by scientists, experts and prosecutors lead to wrongful conviction in many states. The following are among the more notorious:

A former director of the West Virginia state crime lab, Fred Zain, testified for the prosecution in 12 states over his career, including dozens of cases in West Virginia and Texas. DNA exonerations and new evidence in other cases have shown that Zain fabricated results, lied on the stand about results and willfully omitted evidence from this reports.
Pamela Fish, a Chicago lab technician, testified for the prosecution about false matches and suspicious results in the trials of at least eight defendants who were convicted, then proven innocent years later by DNA testing.
A two-year investigation of the Houston crime lab, completed in 2007, showed that evidence in that lab was mishandled and results were misreported.
id.

ADDED IN RESPONSE TO YOUR EDIT:
If it were YOUR life or the life of a loved one, how much error would you allow?

PS Manson never killed anyone, he would not be eligible for the death penalty.

Answer 7

YES..... Every Town should have a Gallows for public execution and any one in prison for murder, rape, armed robbery or dealing drugs should be hanged first, each person found guilty in a speedy trial should be hanged with in 72 hours to stop waisting our tax dollars on the scum of the earth..... I am sure the crime would drop fast and the women and children could walk the street at night with out fear....

Answer 8

No. Every state should have no time off for good behavior. If you get a 50 year sentence for killing a family, you should have to serve the WHOLE sentence. Sometimes the death penalty is kinder than making the criminal serve the whole sentence. Let's not be kind.

Answer 9

Toughy. I think it cost more to execute a convict than to imprison them for life with the appeals process, and i wouldn't want to do away with that. On the other hand, they could never be accidentally released, pardoned, or escape to kill again. How about once a month, they string him up like a pinata, and sell tickets for 10 minutes in the room with a baseball bat to friends and family of his victim

Answer 10

NO!

The death penalty is the taking of a human life. Also, if a person pleads guilty, they are highly unlikely to get the death penalty (only two in the last 40 years).

No matter how good forensic testing is, it is still not perfect. I think if one person, ONLY ONE, dies after being wrongfully convicted, it is FAR too many. And from a human rights perspective, no matter how you try to make it seem painless, the procedures used to kill people are not as painless as they want you to believe. Just because they appear to be unconscious, their bodies are still in pain when they can no longer breathe. They are just unable to communicate. How humane is that?