Fair to Ignore Murder Victims' Family Against Death Penalty?

When the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice held hearings last week on the fairness of the death penalty, I didn't expect all the details of more than 6 hours of hearings to be covered in my local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee. I was surprised, however, to see the Sacramento Bee article covering the hearings did not even mention the many murder victim family members who oppose the death penalty who spent all day at that hearing to share the stories I excerpt in my video. Instead, the Sacramento Bee only quoted a murder victim family member supporting the death penalty who did not even speak at the hearing.

The online version of the Sacramento Bee article I am criticizing is available at: http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/626308.html

And, video of the entire January 10, 2008, hearing is available from the California Channel at: http://www.calchannel.com/MEDIA/0110A.asx

Also, more information about the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice is available at: http://www.ccfaj.org/

Finally, a lot more testimonials from victims of crimes seeking alternatives to the death penalty are available at: http://www.californiacrimevictims.org/

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Death
• Penalty
• Victims
• Families
• Sacramento
• Bee
• California
• Commission
• Fair
• Administration
• Justice
• commentary
• analysis
• aclu

[Cr0uch1ng71g3r]

Basically, what you're saying is "life for a life". Yawn. Good luck with that.

[dustmundo]

But God needs his BLOOD!!!

[boogiechillen123]

@curingaging00

3. Poor people commit more crime, thus they are more likely to be candidates for capital punishment. Talk to any police officer in the country, ask him where the high crime areas are, he'll point you in the direction of the poorer parts of town.

4. The death penalty does not lower homicide rates because its not used effectively. For example, in 2010 there were 1,809 homicides in California. Since 1976 there have been 13 ppl executed in CA. The death penalty isnt used enough.

[boogiechillen123]

@curingaging00 In response to your comment...

1. The death penalty is expensive because when someone is sentenced to death, their appeals carry on for 20-30 years on average, due to our system being burdened by lawyers trying to overturn the will of the people.

2. Many people have not been found to be innocent after execution, thats a fallacy. 15 death row inmates have been freed since 1992 after DNA proved them not guilty...California alone has 695 death row inmates.

[curingaging00]

Reasons to End the death penalty.

1) its a waste of money, Death penalty cases on average are far more expensive then life sentences.

2)MANY people who have been put to death who were later found innocent.

3)If you are poor you are more likely to be put to death, sometimes there are even racial biases involved in the death penalty.

4) Death penalty DOES NO I repeat DOES NOT lower homicide rates. States which carry the death penalty have higher murder rates then those that don't carry it.

[edwardd6681]

NO DEATH PENALTY

[libgirl420]

@jtking2504

No unlike you I have a life and only check out comment responses about once every 1-2 weeks unless I have extra days off. I WORK for a living, and don't spend every waking hour on youtube like you apparently do. If DNA is so unreliable, then why is that all it takes to exonerate a criminal? So you can exonerate but not punish based on DNA? That is so absurd. If I'm on a jury, and there is DNA evidence to prove guilt, I will not have any reasonable doubts. I'd vote guilty.

[jtking2504]

@libgirl420, it took 2 weeks to think up that lame reply? This is why I disqualified you, you simply have not done enough work to comment. Did you even consider that DNA evidence can be tampered with or mixed up? It has happened, hence SOME exonerations. Its NEVER airtight & this is why we should not be killing ppl. You've illustrated repeatedly you have not researched the issue & I'm not giving you more of my time. I will not read or reply to anymore of your half baked comments.

[libgirl420]

@jtking2504

BS. I've seen enough rehashing of cases to know that there ARE incidents where DNA is airtight. Otherwise, we wouldn't make men who are proven to be the fathers of kids to pay child support. And there are murder cases where DNA proves innocence or guilt too. If DNA can prove someone's innocence, it only makes sense that it could also prove one's guilt.

[jtking2504]

@libgirl420, you're trying to debate this, but don't even know DNA is NOT airtight, or that you can NEVER have 'zero probability of innocence' and to top it off, you would put innocent people's lives at risk by reducing appeals? Even though ppl have been exonerated on more than 1? You would have been so ignorant as to kill those people for your blood lust? How much effort have you put into this? 10mins on Fox? Please, go away, you're disqualified from this topic, you dont deserve more replies.

[libgirl420]

@jtking2504

You can go the other way with it too. We can be far more sure of the guilt of many of the worst offenders due to the DNA evidence they leave behind. The jury should be given a new option of guilty with zero probability of innocence, and that offender should only be allowed one appeal. They should be killed within 3 years of the sentence, so that they never ever can victimize another American ever again.

[libgirl420]

If somebody murdered someone I love, I'd want the death penalty. I think more criminals should be put to death, like pedophiles, people who commit vicious rapes against anybody w/out killing, kidnappers, & for severe child abuse. Look at Cali, being ordered to decrease its prison populations. If we kill off the worst of the offenders, we can make room for the lesser but still dangerous criminals who need to stay in jail. I wouldn't want to chance that a one could get out to do more harm.