>>>Connecticut now the 17th state to abolish capital punishment.
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>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/conn-gov-signs-death-penalty-repeal-in-private-ceremony-with-clergy-victims-relatives/2012/04/25/gIQAkoEJhT_story.html
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>>I remember doing a study in college in the early 1970’s about the death penalty. The right wing, NRA Life Members love the death penalty, along with a few other assorted individuals. They scream that it is a deterrent to crime. That must be why we have 725 inmates awaiting execution in California.
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>>A few innocent people have been executed. Executing an innocent person is all right as far as some vocal individuals are concerned. If you execute someone, they must be guilty. After all, the guilty party was arrested by the cities finest, prosecuted and defended by our legal system. Our system of justice never makes a mistake.
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>>It seems like our local news relates the number of shooting victims in Oakland, California, which is almost one a day. Other areas of the Bay Area get into the act too. San Francisco March 23, 2012 – 5 people murdered in one incident by one person. Oakland April 2, 2012 – 7 people murdered, 3 wounded by one person.
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>>Surely if the death penalty was a deterrent to crime, the above two incidents would not have occurred. Nor would thousands of other serious crimes have occured.
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>>Under the Bush Administration, there was a big push to reduce crime in the U.S.A. A simple accounting trick did it. They announced that, “Serious crime in the United States has been reduced! However, murder and rape have increased”! That was an official FBI statement. So now we know what is not considered a serious crime. But what is?
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>>I do have some advice for everyone. Never be a victim!
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>Seems like it would be common sense that if someone is going to kill somebody, the odds are that they're not going to think "oh gee, that darn death penalty - I better not do it."
>I read zillions of studies/reports on all the problems with the death penalty - there is always conflicting reports. If you say it costs too much to house an inmate - then they say kill em. If it costs 2000 times as much to kill em as to house them - then they say that is a problem with the courts and there are too many appeals and it takes too long. You point out all off the DNA exonerations (I think we're up to 289 now, including 17 that were sentenced to death) then they way "oh - well death only if there is NO doubt". Yeah right - so I guess there was some "doubt" when they decided to kill these 17 innocent folks or what? Not to mention the fact that the average time for them to realize they had the wrong guy was ..uhhh..13 years! I just don't understand how anyone could actually think that this death penalty could actually be a good thing or could even be re-worked not to fail. Even if there WAS some 100% way to know that it was applied fairly and properly (which is of course impossible) then there is still the moral issue of killing a person.

There was a statistic given two years ago dealing with arrest, prosecution, and conviction of individuals who commit capital offenses. Imagine if you (third person singular) kill someone. Your chances of being caught are 53%. Of those caught, 23% are prosecuted, and 11% found guilty. So the odds are good that if you kill someone, you will not go to jail.

If we hear that someone was shot in the street we think that the victim was somehow guilty of something, and forget about it. In Oakland they have killed several infants (under 3) within the last year. One was in his house asleep. Anyone can be a victim.