USA Politics

Meh. As long as he never gets out of prison alive, who cares whether or not enough they execute him or he dies in prison. Same shit really. He didn't show remorse for his actions, so fuck him.
 
This will drag on for what I hope are incredibly miserable years for this unworthy of being called a "human being" person as he watched the clock and his appeals tick down to the moment of his death.
 
He could last long enough that the death penalty is again found unconstitutional in the USA. Who knows.

Or maybe they will run out of death drugs and replacement methods won't be allowed.
 
LooseCannon said:
He could last long enough that the death penalty is again found unconstitutional in the USA.
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That's never going to happen.

Though I don't generally agree with the U.S. legal system, I'm completely with Night Prowler on this. The eye-for-an-eye mentality might be barbaric or outdated or whatever you want to call it, but if the punishment does not match the crime, than what's to stop criminals from being criminals? Obviously, not all killing is created equal, but this sick bastard trying to bomb a bunch of innocents without remorse is just wrong.

Not only is it just, it's simply rational. Jails are massively overcrowded as it is, people are going more broke by the day and we're the ones paying for jails. Do I want to pay for some sick bastard to have two square meals a day and a decent library for the rest of his life? Fuck no. Get rid of him. We don't need his baggage.
 
I'm not sure the financial arguments raised by Knick are correct, as I've read that a death row inmate costs the government a lot more to jail than a life in prison inmate. Nor should such arguments trump the moral question: we shouldn't execute people just because it's financially expedient. However, if you assume that killing someone on purpose is "morally indefensible and barbaric," as I do, that may just be an argument in favor of the death penalty. If someone deliberately and callously takes a life, let alone many lives, that is the ultimate crime that should befit the ultimate penalty. What better way for society to express its condemnation of supremely heinous acts than simply eliminating those responsible? If you take someone else's life, then you don't deserve to live.
 
The death penalty is reasonable to me in certain circumstances, This is clearly one of them. You have a person who took deliberate actions to plot out the death and maiming of as many people as possible. In the US/states that have it, there are a very narrow set of crimes that will get you the death penalty and I have no problem with people who commit those crimes getting that penalty.

Despite what the Justice Department will not say, this is a religiously motivated crime (not that the motivation really matters all that much here), but it is pretty pathetic how they are trying to tap dance around that.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
I'm not sure the financial arguments raised by Knick are correct, as I've read that a death row inmate costs the government a lot more to jail than a life in prison inmate. Nor should such arguments trump the moral question: we shouldn't execute people just because it's financially expedient. However, if you assume that killing someone on purpose is "morally indefensible and barbaric," as I do, that may just be an argument in favor of the death penalty. If someone deliberately and callously takes a life, let alone many lives, that is the ultimate crime that should befit the ultimate penalty. What better way for society to express its condemnation of supremely heinous acts than simply eliminating those responsible? If you take someone else's life, then you don't deserve to live.
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I've heard the same thing re: death row costs, and that just boggles my mind. There's no reason that housing someone for a shorter period of time should cost more than someone spending 40/50/60+ years in prison. Regardless, I completely agree with the rest of your statement.


bearfan said:
The death penalty is reasonable to me in certain circumstances, This is clearly one of them. You have a person who took deliberate actions to plot out the death and maiming of as many people as possible. In the US/states that have it, there are a very narrow set of crimes that will get you the death penalty and I have no problem with people who commit those crimes getting that penalty.
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Exactly. If we were talking about someone who accidentally killed 4 people because he fell asleep at the wheel, it's a different story. The end result is still equally as horrific and deplorable, but should he be given the same type of punishment as someone who plotted and intended to maim and murder? No.
 
I don't want to end this discussion here, but I'll just point out that we've had a thread about this recently in case there's interest on how everybody here sees this issue.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
There's no reason that housing someone for a shorter period of time should cost more than someone spending 40/50/60+ years in prison.
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Death row is usually its own building within a larger prison. One building dedicated to few prisoners = more housing cost etc. per prisoner. I think they also count the cost of the state defending against the prisoner's appeals, which can last for years.
 
A good ruling, I get and agree with the minority opinion of state rights, but the initiator (in this case Maryland) is tramping over them further

===========================
Supreme Court Calls Maryland Income Tax Law 'A Tariff'

In a ruling that will trigger the loss of millions of dollars in tax revenue and is likely to affect many other states, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down Maryland's practice of double-taxing residents' income earned in other states.

The case challenged Maryland's refusal to grant residents who paid income tax on money earned in other states a credit against that amount when they tally up the taxes they owe to their home counties (and some cities). The state allows the credit to be applied only against the state taxes; county income taxes can be as high as 3.2 percent.

Agreeing with two lower courts, the Supreme Court said Monday that Maryland's law unconstitutionally raises the cost of doing business in more than one state. It also noted that the state's comptroller collects the "county" tax for the local governments.

"Maryland's tax scheme is inherently discriminatory and operates as a tariff," the courtwrote in its summary, "which is fatal because tariffs are '[t]he paradigmatic example of a law discriminating against interstate commerce.' "

The ruling could affect "similar tax laws in nearly 5,000 local jurisdictions in other states, including New York, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio," the AP says.


"The case arose after Maryland residents Brian and Karen Wynne challenged their tax bill. They had been blocked from deducting $84,550 that they had paid in income taxes to 39 other states. Brian Wynne's out-of-state income resulted from his ownership stake in a health care company that operates nationwide. ....

"Maryland officials said an adverse ruling could cost local governments in the state $45 million to $50 million annually and warned that Maryland might have to refund up to $120 million in taxes."

In the 5-4 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion. On the other side were Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas, and Elena Kagan — who among them produced three different dissenting opinions.

Addressing some dissenters' concerns that the nation's highest court shouldn't be concerned with a state matter that could be addressed in local voting and legislation, Alito wrote, "the notion that the victims of such discrimination have a complete remedy at the polls is fanciful. It is likely that only a distinct minority of a State's residents earns income out of State."

 
Preach it Brother

Rand Paul: Bill Clinton put ‘generation’ of black men in prison
By Alexander Bolton

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...l-bill-clinton-put-generation-of-black-men-in

PHILADELPHIA — Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul says he will bash Hillary Clinton over her husband’s record of putting “a generation of black men in prison” if he is the nominee.

Paul, a freshman senator from Kentucky, says he will compete with Clinton in Philadelphia, where Democrats have a 7-to-1 registration advantage, and other impoverished cities by highlighting his support for criminal justice reform.

“If I were the nominee, we will compete in Philadelphia,” he told CBS radio talk show host Dom Giordano at the National Constitution Center.
“I’ll ask Hillary Clinton, what have you done for criminal justice? Your husband passed all the laws that put a generation of black men in prison. Her husband was responsible for that,” he said.

“She’s changing her tune now. She’s changing her tune because people like me have been speaking out against these injustices,” he said.

As president, Clinton signed the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which gave states fiscal incentives to enact tougher sentencing laws.

Paul noted that in some predominantly African-American communities such as Ferguson, Mo., there are substantially fewer black men than women because so many black men are incarcerated.

He touted bills he has introduced with Democratic support that would give judges more discretion in handing out sentencing and would reduce penalties for non-violent drug offenses.

Paul said he would also challenge Clinton about her vision for reinvigorating blighted urban centers.

“I’ll also ask her what she’s going to do for poor people in Philadelphia. I have a specific plan that would dramatically lower the taxes for people who live in zip codes of poverty and high unemployment. I would leave billions of dollars in Philadelphia over 10 years. What’s Hillary Clinton going to do?” he said.

A spokeswoman for Correct the Record, a rapid-response group aligned with Clinton's campaign, argued Paul was engaging in partisan attacks.


"Hillary Clinton has continuously fought for a criminal justice system that is fair and balanced by cosponsoring legislation to end racial profiling, fighting for community policing through the COPs program, and presenting bold ideas on how we can work together to fix the inequities in our current system," Mary Rutherford Jennings, deputy communications director for the group, said in a statement. "Rand Paul is choosing instead to play partisan attack games, even attempting to halt this opportunity for progress if it gets him headlines."
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
With this kind of logic...
...discussion seems kind of pointless.
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Others seemed to understand it, but for you, I'll spell it out more. There are lots of things that would be morally reprehensible if you or I did them, but that are perfectly acceptable -- indeed, desirable -- if our government does them. For example, it would be immoral and wrong for me to take your money at gunpoint; but that's pretty much what governments do to you, albeit the gun is only implied unless and until the sheriff comes to your door to arrest you for tax evasion. Maybe a better example would be this: It would be immoral and reprehensible for me to abduct you, handcuff you and throw you into a cell simply because you did something I thought was wrong; but that is exactly what the government does, and would rightly do to me, if I did the same to you. So, for me, "killing is wrong" is a truism that we can all accept, but it doesn't say anything about whether it is justifiable in a moral society for a government, exercising due process and applying the rule of law, to execute someone who maliciously killed another. Imprisoning someone is "wrong" too -- unless it is done by the government under due process and under the rule of law.

What the Tsarnaevs did was morally indefensible and barbaric; of that there can be no question. But that doesn't mean that the government's decision, consistent with established law, to punish him with death is wrong too. I understand that reasonable minds can differ on the question of the death penalty, and there are a number of good arguments against the death penalty, but simply saying that killing is wrong or immoral doesn't really cut it. One could, I suppose, adopt the view that killing is ALWAYS wrong, no matter the circumstances. That may be a consistent and defensible worldview, but it has alarming moral and practical consequences. For example, suppose a foreign power has invaded your country with the stated goal of enslaving you and your countrymen. Fighting back with violence -- including shooting to kill -- is justified in that circumstance, is it not? What if someone was going to kill you or your family unless you killed him first? What if someone was about to start killing dozens of elementary school children and the only way to stop him was to kill him first -- would you do it? If you accept the notion that killing can sometimes be justifiable, including in one or more of the above examples, then the "killing is inherently wrong" argument against the death penalty collapses, and you need a more sophisticated argument to defend your position.

My biggest criticism of the death penalty is that there are undoubtedly dozens of innocent people who have been sentenced to die. THAT's a big problem, in my view. Here, there isn't any question that Tsarnaev did it -- he didn't even claim otherwise in his defense -- so I have no problem with the death penalty in this particular case, and the crime was so awful, cowardly and reprehensible that it needs the strongest possible punishment the government and society can impose.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
My biggest criticism of the death penalty is that there are undoubtedly dozens of innocent people who have been sentenced to die. THAT's a big problem, in my view. Here, there isn't any question that Tsarnaev did it -- he didn't even claim otherwise in his defense -- so I have no problem with the death penalty in this particular case, and the crime was so awful, cowardly and reprehensible that it needs the strongest possible punishment the government and society can impose.
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That is a good point ... I do not want to see the death penalty overly used or abused ... the massive abuse of it in Europe is probably (understandably) a good part of why they oppose it. I am in favor of it in select cases and realize we need a proper appeal channel. For people that essentially kill for the sake of killing with malice of forethought ... it is a just and proper punishment
 
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