Executions to resume in U.S. after high court OK's lethal injections

Thursday 17th April, 05:27 AM JST

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jambon at 12:09 PM JST - 18th April

If you find out you've executed someone who hasn't committed any crime, you can't un-execute them.

Name for us the last time this happened in the U.S. Tell us what year it was.

It is the absence of the death penalty that leads to more innocent people being killed. When there is no death penalty, convicted murderers kill other prisoners and guards; and, when these murderers escape, they kill innocent civilians.
cleo at 01:16 PM JST - 18th April

The last time a prisoner on death row was released, all charges dismissed, was Mr. Edward Chapman earlier this month.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2669008/

Maybe they don't bother going over the evidence once the 'criminal' has been executed. After all, it's not like you can bring them back to life.
jambon at 02:09 PM JST - 18th April

Name for us the last time this happened in the U.S.

Requiring "un-executing."
keech2 at 02:49 PM JST - 18th April

jambon,

Your information is incorrect. The majority of states in the US that do not have the death penalty have a significantly lower homicide rate than states that do have the death penalty. Please check here:http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=169

While this group is anti-capital punishment, their information comes from the FBI Crime Report. Here:http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm
jambon at 03:14 PM JST - 18th April

comes from the FBI Crime Report

Finally, in a given year, nearly 17,000 agencies contribute data to the FBI; however, because of computer problems, changes in record management systems, personnel shortages, or a number of other reasons, some agencies cannot provide data for publication. The FBI appreciates the conscientious efforts made by law enforcement personnel throughout the nation to report accurate and reliable crime data. Their efforts make it possible for the FBI to provide assessments of the nature and type of crime in the United States.
jambon at 04:19 PM JST - 18th April

The majority of states in the US that do not have the death penalty have a significantly lower homicide rate than states that do have the death penalty.

The great thinker Ernest van den Haag brilliantly made the case for execution as deterrence: Imagine if a state announced that murders committed Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays would be punishable by execution and murders committed the other days of the week would be punishable by imprisonment. Would murder rates remain the same as they are now on all the days of the week? I doubt it.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table20.html http://wiki.answers.com/Q/WhichUSstatesallowcapitalpunishment

(cough)
keech2 at 04:35 PM JST - 18th April

jambon,

Thank you for the quote from the FBI and the interesting philosophical argument, but neither of these posts really has anything to do with why I posted. That is the fact that you got your information wrong. If you are implying that, according to Professor van der Haag' argument, people would kill people more on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, then I have to ask why do states that have no capital punishment, for the most part, have lower homicide rates than states that do have the death penalty? By that argument, states with no death penalty should have bodies strewn in the streets, which I don't see happening in Iowa or Maine.
cleo at 05:15 PM JST - 18th April

Requiring "un-executing."

There is no judicial mechanism for review of guilt or pronouncement of innocence after an execution. The courts are done with it. Therefore, it should go without saying that no court has announced that an executed person was innocent, since American courts by definition do not make such findings.

Anthony Porter, was only two days from lethal injection when his execution was stayed. .....had Porter been executed, he simply would have been regarded as guilty by definition and there would have been no hand-wringing over executing the innocent.

http://www.justicedenied.org/executed.htm

People whose executions would probably require "un-executing" if the US ever admitted the possibility that it may have killed an innocent man include:-

Jesse Tafero, executed in 1990. He and Sonia Jacobs were convicted of the murder of a state trooper and his companion, the main evidence against them being provided by Walter Rhodes, an ex-convict who negotiated a plea-bargain to have his own part in the crime reduced to second-degree murder and a life sentence. He later admitted that he had lied. Jacobs was released in 1992, the conviction against her thrown out by the courts. Since the evidence originally used to convict Jacobs was the same evidence used to execute Tafero, either a murderer walked free or a man was executed for a crime he did not commit.

Girvies Davis, executed May 1997 for murder. Iliterate and intellectually slow, Davis was convicted on the strength of confessions he had been forced to sign although he was unable to read them.

Odell Barnes, executed March 2000 for a murder for which another man was later implicated.

Philip Ray Workman, executed May 2007 for the murder of a police officer. The conviction rested heavily on the testimony of a witness who later retracted that testimony. Five of the jurors who convicted Workman later said they would have voted to acquit him of the charge of first-degree felony murder without the so-called eye witness testimony.

There are many others.
jambon at 07:11 PM JST - 18th April

Jesse Tafero

et al, urban legend.

Start here: http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/marquis063005.pdf
1keiron at 09:38 PM JST - 18th April

"inhumane this..in humane that... Picture this...a mad man mutilates your new born daughter, wife and son while you're at work ust because he felt like it. The mad man gets a 25 year jail sentence cut short. Is that fair for him to still breathe air?
SuperLib at 08:39 PM JST - 19th April

Capital punishment is useless. It should be abolished.
RomeoRamenII at 09:06 PM JST - 19th April

"Capital punishment is useless. It should be abolished."

I agree. Open up the doors on all Death Rows in the States and let the liberals take the condemned prisioners into their homes and financailly support them instead of the U.S. taxpayer. They can all sit around dining room tables across America, hold hands and sing "Kum-bah-ya."

RR
SuperLib at 12:55 AM JST - 20th April

Sorry but the financial argument is meaningless to me. My tax dollars also pay for rapists and arsonists and child molesters to be kept in prison. If you want to debate the financial aspect of it then we might as well just look at the actual time sentenced and kill every prisoner who gets sent away for more than X years regardless of the crime.
dano2002 at 04:28 PM JST - 22nd April

why should i pay for a killer's meals three times a day, TV and internet, and food, water and clothing?

I think we should go back to hanging or more painful executions. maybe if someone knows what will happen they think twice. maybe not but maybe. look at charles manson getting TV converage. this guy killed how many people that never had a breath again but he is still living and painting pictures? how long did john wayne gacy live on death row? imagine how you would feel if he raped and killed your son.
1keiron at 04:27 AM JST - 23rd April

^^ and if the murder is proven then eradicate these sick people from existance the day after trial. Just like in them old days. pff Awwww dont sentence that murderer who killed your loved ones for the hell of it, its inhumane, its cruel! I know its in prison but let him live his life!..barbaric..inhumane?!..People are too soft nowadays. I know wonder rape mutilation, paedophillia and serial killing is a hobby amongst sick men. Prison is nothing to them but a giant slap on the wrist whilst they live in a mental time warped version of a life sentence whilst living with their murderer friends. Only to be let out on parole. Not to mentioned we've paid for em to live and study in Prison for that duration in form of Tax. Sick sick world.