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NH Legislature over rides death penalty veto
- Thread starter snd1t
- Start date
KBCraig
NES Member
Glockster30
NES Member
In NY, if the fetus survives the procedure, its life can be ended. In VA, it can also be ended after birth.
The last time a person was executed in NH was 80 years ago. It changes nothing. This is like the 10th time in the past 15 years it has passed, always being vetoed without a majority override before this time.
Probably good anyways as the only way you could get the death penalty is for murdering a government official, because government has found themselves to be more important than the rest of us.
Probably good anyways as the only way you could get the death penalty is for murdering a government official, because government has found themselves to be more important than the rest of us.
It literally won't matter to anyone -- we have one guy on death row in New Hampshire, and the bill specifically says it's okay to execute him, just nobody after him.
Sucks to be Michael "Stix" Addison today.
D
Deleted member 67409
Stop for a moment and think about what has to happen to get someone sentenced to death.
First off, you need a crime sufficiently egregious to warrant the death penalty. Previously in NH, that just happens when a cop, judge, politician, or I believe a rape or kidnapping victim or drug user is killed by someone. There were a couple other wonky ones too. Cop murders happen once every decade in NH, give or take. I don't think a judge has ever been murdered in NH and there have only been four Federal judges killed in office per Wikipedia. Likewise with pols, I don't know of an assassination or assassination attempt in NH history. So let's go with rape then murder of the victim.
A trial in and of itself can last from two days for a three or four witness trial. Something with DNA evidence, expert witnesses, and the whole show lasts weeks. Have you ever watched a trial? I'm not talking about a trial on a movie or TV, I mean a real life trial in court that's open to the public. I've watched a Federal one for negligence and it took a week to get through the entire process. And negligence, in the grand scheme of things, is not complicated. Trials are also exceedingly rare as something like 95% of defendants accept a plea bargain.
Then you need a guilty verdict.
Then you need a separate sentencing jury or some way to ensure that the jury doesn't go off the handle and give ridiculously low or high sentences. Think about NH's political scene: do you seriously think you're going to find 6-12 people who are going to be hounding for a defendant's blood in any capital case? Divide up a 6-person jury into roughly the percentages of the presidential election and you'd have three liberals, two conservatives, and one libertarian. Are those people going to sentence to death?
Then someone requires at least one appeal. To deny someone an appeal, especially in a death sentence, would be a miscarriage of justice. However, yes, this can be expedited, but NH is a small enough state with a tiny state appellate court (in comparison to Mass, NY, TX, etc.).
When you put all this together, the right crime, the right trial, the right juries, the right case where an appeal makes no difference, the result is that capital cases in New England are exceedingly rare. And if something brutal does happen, like say the Boston Marathon bombings, the Feds can always come in and press for the death penalty.
If this is something that happens once every 80 years and if the Feds can probably take care of the situation, why do you need a "giant bug zapper"? The answer is you don't.
How many times in your life have you used a gun to defend yourself? Never? Well I guess you don't need one then. Don't worry if someone kills you and your family the fed can always come deal with it for you.
D
Deleted member 67409
That's not a comparison. My ownership of a gun isn't a burden on taxpayers. I don't need to spend $65k+ a year per corrections officer to own a gun (edit: NH pays corrections trainees $34-40k but those guys obviously aren't guarding death row). I don't need a prison in which to house and use my gun. My ownership of a gun doesn't deprive anyone of their liberty for decades. My ownership of a gun doesn't clog up courts with trials or appeals. I'm not a state that's part of a union and a part of a Federal system - if someone invades my property, there's no one else coming. If Canada invades New Hampshire, the Constitution mandates that the Feds protect the states.
That's all I'm going to post about the death penalty.
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![[rofl]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/013.gif "ROFL [rofl]")
KBCraig
NES Member
I look at it this way, "Why take the option off the table?". As you have said, it's rare and complicated and reserved for the most egregious offences. And history shows that it isn't being used lightly... so it's working the way it should.
So answer this, why remove the option? How has having the option caused any problem? How has having the option resulted in the massive misuse of the death penalty.
We can't predict the future, so how can you assure use that there will never be a need for this? We can only look to the past and see it has not been lightly used.
And you say the Fed would step in if it was bad enough. But your own example of Rape/Murder would never become a Fed case. So now, if some POS rapes, tortures, and brutally murders a 12 year old, we can't even consider the death penalty? That's not justice.
It's the ultimate pro-liberty liberty statement -- the government does not own your life, and doesn't have the right to take it.
If it is never acceptable for a citizen to kill someone unless that person presents an immediate threat, then it's never okay for the state to execute a prisoner.
Grendizer138
NES Member
More or less...
Since 1973 dozens of people on death row have been exonerated (Innocence claims 165, not counting the guilty who had sentences commuted due to procedural errors, mental capacity, etc). Sometimes, especially in Texas, this came a little too late.
Until a time where there are never any innocent people convicted, there should not be a death penalty.
And there definitely shouldn’t be a death penalty exclusively for murdering only a specific class of people. The notion someone’s life, based on their profession, it worth more than others, is asinine and perverse.
And there definitely shouldn’t be a death penalty exclusively for murdering only a specific class of people. The notion someone’s life, based on their profession, it worth more than others, is asinine and perverse.
jpk is correct as far as NH goes. We don't need to look at the mistakes of other states, this is a NH bill and it's about NH. Just as I don't like it when people cite CA or MA as a reason to do something in NH, I see no reason to base what NH does on other states that are messing it up, especially when we have a clear history of how it's worked in NH to look at.
This is why decisions shouldn’t be made based on emotion.
What about when some shitbag breaks into your house and slaughters your whole family and it isn’t on camera, but he’s caught and convicted? Still should be executed, no? That’s fair. It has to be. It’s the exact same scenario. The exact same standard of guilt has been met.
Except it’s not quite so fair when years after his execution it’s discovered they caught the wrong guy.
Is the death penalty sometimes warranted, and absolutely the correct punishment for the crime? IMO, yes. Most definitely. But there is no way to implement one and be 100% correct. And it does not matter what stipulations, it doesn’t matter how specific, it doesn’t matter which additional requirements of proof. It wouldn’t be infallible. And innocent people will be unjustly executed. There’s no retribution for that. And as little as it might be for someone innocent who’s spend decades in prison, at least there’s something.
