Prosecutors to seek death penalty for white supremacist who killed 10 at Buffalo supermarket

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to News@lemmy.world – 551 points –
Prosecutors to seek death penalty for white supremacist who killed 10 at Buffalo supermarket
apnews.com

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket.

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The death penalty is a barbaric institution. It always has been, and it always will be. The government says it’s okay to murder this person, so let’s murder him.

I don’t get why that doesn’t shock people’s consciences and sense of basic decency.

I think it's that guys like this one aren't a hill anyone is eager to die on. Like, it's bad, but let's not make this guy the poster boy for ending the practice. There are other cases I'm much happier to cite in arguments opposing the death penalty.

Perhaps one of the many innocent folks on death row, which includes a not insignificant amount of African Americans too.

But this guy can fuck right off, I am not losing a second of sleep to his suffering.

I am never worried about guilty people on death row. I am worried about those that kill them, those that help kill them, those that witness the killing, and those who believe falsely that this form of justice will heal anyone from harms or prevent future harms.

You forgot to worry about those who are raised in a society where it's okay to kill people for any reason other than preventing another person from being harmed.

Even a single innocent person getting murdered by the state makes the practice barbaric. The state is imperfect. It should not have a license to murder.

We're all in agreement, but as OP said, this
particular person isn't the time to make your stand on. We've all been vocally against the death penalty for a long time, but this specific person is not the one to make an especially strong "this is the line, no further" kind of stand for. I'm against him being killed like I'm against all cases of the government killing prisoners, but I'm also not doing any extra standing up for this particular person.

So you only stand by your views as long as it's convenient and easy?

I guess the right of attorneys is important but if the state violates his rights to that in this trial then you are not gonna have an issue with that either?

He is standing by his views. Just not going out of his way to defend this person. Let’s see you go to the courtroom and protest this particular guy’s death penalty if you are so dedicated.

If I lived there, I would. Not protesting this shows that you're actually okay with the death penalty, and your typical admonishment of it doesn't reflect your true beliefs.

Maybe alienating your allies is why the death penalty still exists

who's upvoting this coward bullshit?

this particular person isn't the time to make your stand on.

Those of us who are vehemently against the death penalty tend to be vocal about it every time it comes up, not just when it's happening to awful people. It's important to make it clear that even in cases like this, the death penalty should not be a thing, because otherwise we tacitly agree that sometimes, the death penalty is a good thing.

This particular person is absolutely the time to make our stand against the death penalty, because if we don't, then we don't stand against it at all.

The root of all of a state's power is the right to employ violence. It is a barbaric practice but to be fair we are a barbaric species.

Some people should not be allowed to curse the earth with their existence.

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I have a friend who went to protest outside the federal prison when Timothy McVeigh was executed. He had no love for McVeigh. He thought McVeigh was a monster. That wasn't the point. The point was that capital punishment is always wrong. The state should not have the power of life and death over its citizenry.

And I have great respect for him for doing so. Protesting capital punishment in cases like this are just as important as in lesser cases because the reason for the punishment isn't at issue.

I’ll be glad when death penalty is abolished. But we’ve still got time till then, and this guy live streaming himself doing the murders doesn’t leave much in the way of wiggle room for innocence.

Gonna be tragic when we learn it was secretly racist nano robots controlling his whole body by time traveling confederates.

I used to be against the death penalty. Read an article once about why it's racist. Don't remember them saying why it was racist but eventually they got to what the guy had done. He cut open a pregnant woman to steal her baby for his junkie girlfriend. I have been pro death penalty ever since.

You were manipulated to support the death penalty by a story you don't even remember lol.

I remembet getting most of the way through and wondering if they were ever going to say why it's racist but they really didn't give any evidence for it. Then i wss horrified by the unthinkable crime.
I never understood why people believe we have some super special value when some of us are quite obviously a waste of space. Look up at the stars and how can you claim we have some special, meaningful place, above all the rest. We are nothing.

What a childish thought process.

I used to be pro death penalty. The thing that convinced me was that it was so much more expensive to kill someone then jail them for life. Can you tell I grew up a good little republican? Of course the usual right-wing response is just take them out back and shoot them and while I might've given that some lip service, I knew then justice was imperfect. Appeals and last minute clemency were getting people off of death row all the time (or at least it seemed so).

Eventually I came to learn of people who'd been executed (no clemency, no appeal, no last minute heroics) and there was no solid evidence a crime had even been committed much less that they were guilty. And the math doesn't lie that it's extremely racist, and if racial bias exists then clearly justice isn't being served. I'm firmly against the death penalty for moral reasons now, but we all have our journey, right?

Sure, 1-5% of people executed by the state were either innocent or their guilt was under extreme doubt, but it's worth it if it means killing violent people, right? I mean, I would gladly accept a wrongful death penalty if it means that someone who's violent gets to be tortured to death with me

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Too busy getting our consciousnesses shocked by mass killings at supermarkets, I guess. By the way, nice work blinding that cyclops.

It may be barbaric, and considering how many innocents have been railroaded into it via abuse or neglect of justice, ethically untenable on the face of it.

That said, I feel there are certain people who's actions are so horrific and ideologies so dangerous that should not be allowed to harm society again, and that includes having to pay for their upkeep.

There are many worthy of execution that have been released to kill again.

In our imperfect world it is not right to levy a judgment that cannot be reversed.

If we magically had perfect knowledge of guilt and innocence, I would have zero issue with the death penalty being applied.

Since that world does not, and cannot exist, I will accept life imprisonment, grudgingly. Some people simply cannot or will not be rehabilitated.

The government says it’s okay to murder this person, so let’s murder him.

By that "logic", states also shouldn't be allowed to imprison people.

One you can reverse, mate, you know that.

Woah, now we're moving goalposts.

I thought the argument was, "the state says it's not okay to do this, and then they go and do it."

Imprisonment is theoretically less permanent than execution.

But people definitely shouldn't be profiting from imprisonment, and the conditions should be humane.

But people definitely shouldn’t be profiting from imprisonment, and the conditions should be humane.

I have a friend who is a plumber and most of his work is from jails.

Good point- my thought was poorly worded. I meant that if people with lots of money are making more money by putting people in prison, then they will find ways to ensure people keep being put into prison.

Imprisoning people shouldn't in and of itself be profitable since then imprisoning people is incentivized.

Your friend's work goes towards making prisons more humane, I'm in favour of him and you can tell him so :)

So what's the point of the rhetorical argument: “the state says it’s not okay to do this, and then they go and do it”?

Oh, please don't misunderstand. I think the death penalty is barbaric. That wasn't my argument at all.

You're implying that human beings have intrinsic worth. They don't. Human life has no value, and humans are trash. They're all garbage. Barbaric? You're talking about slavers, murderers, rapists. Humans are inherently flawed and earth would be better off without them.

Watch out for all that edge, you might cut yourself on it

Humans are inherently flawed and earth would be better off without them.

Cool. So why are you still here talking to us? Or are you the one exception?

"You're talking about slavers, murderers, rapists."

So are you one, two, or all three of those things?

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Fuck the death penalty, the guy needs to be punished, but the death penalty is barbaric.

I don't disagree, but also I think the death penalty is too merciful. This guy should live forever, watching the world go by without him or his ignorance. He should be forced to watch home movies and social media from the families of the people he killed. Watch them mourn, and how they find hope and love in a world where he also exists.

He should live long enough to learn that his life is meaningless, his actions, while extremely harmful, will be forgotten to history as just another violent, murderous bigot. He should realize that from inside a 10x10 room, and then he should live another 50 years with that knowledge.

The state shouldn't kill people at all. It isn't a deterrent, it doesn't cost less money, it doesn't increase justice, and sometimes we get it wrong. There isn't a good reason for the death penalty to exist, and plenty of reasons it shouldn't.

He should be forced to watch home movies and social media from the families of the people he killed. Watch them mourn

Please, that would make that racist prick feel pride, not shame.

Hmm, I am not sure torture is the point of a justice or legal system. We have the death penalty as a deterrent for violent crime, it’s not meant to be punishment. That said, even the punishment isn’t meant to be torture. You shouldn’t become the cruelty you aim to reduce in society.

The death penalty is not a deterrent for violent crime, and life is not torture.

getting killed because of your skin tone when going to shop at the grocery store is barbaric. i'm not trying to throw a zinger here, but we have to strongly address both sides of the situation.

"an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"

I am not excusing his actions, I disagree with the notion that killing him is an acceptable response

Except for pedophiles!

And Gypsies!

…what

It's making fun of people who think the death penalty shouldn't exist except for...

Either you think we should have it or we shouldn't. Allowing it means it can be used against so-called undesirables.

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The only issue with the death penalty is the potential to execute the innocent. There is no danger of that here. I don’t want to share the planet with this racist prick.

That’s not “the only issue,” you fucking ghoul. It’s a barbaric practice and has no place in a civilized society.

I don’t think it’s barbaric at all. Hell, if anything, making people care for this asshole for 50+ years is barbaric. There is no rehabilitation for this guy. There is no way he becomes a productive member of society.

If even long-term KKK members can be rehabilitated then so can this kid whose brain hasn't even fully developed.

So what, you think you can just let a mass murderer walk the streets again because he convinced someone he’s rehabilitated?

Even those long term KKK members didn’t kill people.

What about the families of these 10 victims? They deserve justice more than this kid deserves freedom. I'm not saying he can't be rehabilitated. I am saying that it is very injust to let this kid to ever have a free life after he ended the lives of 10 people.

What makes you think the families will all agree with you that this is what the killer deserves?

I mean I'm not 100 percent that all of them would want it, but it's what the families want in the majority of these cases. Anytime you see a murderer come up for appeal you usually see family or friends of the victim in interviews saying how they don't want that to happen.

How often do you actually see what victims' families say when murderers are put on parole? For me it's occasionally when the news reports on it. I don't think we can say what the majority want.

I want to believe that, the goal should be rehabilitation somehow. That said, at this moment in time when we don’t have good rehabilitation implementations, I find this turn of events acceptable based on the crime committed.

True, in most countries the prison system is crap. I just don't like when people paint other people as monsters, no matter what they've done. Rehabilitation to me doesn't necessarily equal them being free ever again. Just means that they've changed as a person and truly regret their actions.

The only civilised country that still allows it is America. Take from that what you want...

What's your definition of civilized?

Majority white, probably.

Or, you know, Europe?

Geez, even Reddit wasn't this stupid. Perhaps spez did the site a favour by draining the pond...

The other issue is that it quite frequently costs exponentially more to administer the death penalty due to years of appeals. I'm not sure how that would work in this case, since as you said, it's apparent that the defendant is guilty.

His appeals will be focused on procedure, rather than facts. Pretty much the go-to defense strategy when a suspect is caught red handed. If you can’t argue the facts of the case, try to get the facts thrown out on technicality (like maybe the police mishandled evidence so it’s not admissible anymore,) or try to minimize the person’s crime as much as possible. Try to get the sentence reduced, try to downplay the convict’s actions, emphasize how much they have changed, etc…

Basically just damage control. Accept that you aren’t going to come out of it unscathed, so just work to mitigate the damage instead of trying to avoid it altogether.

I mean, given the choice of paying for him to have 3 squares and a place to sleep, I’d rather pay a little more to be rid of him.

It's not "a little more" to prosecute a death penalty case. It's a lot more depending on the state. I strongly recommend reading the link but here are some snippets from it.

A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000).

In Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment.

In Maryland death penalty cases cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases, or $3 million for a single case.

In California the current system costs $137 million per year; it would cost $11.5 million for a system without the death penalty.

Now consider that there is a very strong agreement among experts that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to other criminals.

That means that the extra expense of pursuing the death penalty has no effect on increasing public safety since the convicted criminal, whether they are executed or are spending the rest of their life in prison, is not a risk to the public. Finally, all that extra money spent on death penalty trials is money that could be better spent on measures that really would improve public safety such as reducing poverty or improving education.

Why do you people present this is as an answer to the previous statement? EVERYONE knows this at this point, it doesn't change thee previous statement in the slightest. It's like when people smugly respond "that's not how free speech works"....no, not according to everyone who prefers to limit it, it ain't. You're rebutting someone's principles with regulations made by people don't care for that specific philosophy and saying more about yourself than you think.

I don’t care. That prick has forfeited his right to keep living. That’s the bottom line. I would rather pay $3 million for him to die that $1 million to keep feeding, housing, and otherwise caring for him.

And face it. You present a false choice. The money would not be spent on education or reducing poverty. It would be used to give the rich larger tax cuts first.

If it were up to me, pricks like this should the tortured to death. Call me ruthless of you want, but what else does the guy who decided to kill innocent people because they are black?

I get that that is your preference. Personally, I would choose to spend the money where it would do some good rather than just slaking some people's need for revenge.

What on earth makes you think that is where politicians would choose to spend the money? Heck, we could spend that now and don’t.

If you could point out even one benefit to the death penalty in our modern world, I'd be willing to consider it. There is none. Not on a moral, societal, safety, or fiscal level. There is certainly harm caused by it, not least of which is the belief that it's okay to take someone's life for any other reason than the immediate risk of life and health of another person. Some people think it's okay to kill 10, some think it's okay to have the government kill 1.

For many of us, simply knowing we will no longer be sharing this planet with them is enough. That’s a moral and societal benefit most definitely. He who deprived others of life gets deprived life themselves.

Hell, if nothing else, the death penalty can save a trial by providing leverage for a plea. If you are guaranteed life imprisonment, why not force a trial? But if you might be executed in such a clear cut case, maybe you plead guilty on exchange for life imprisonment to save your life. Save victims having to testify.

The bottom line for me is that this guy is pure evil. The cops shouldn’t have taken him alive to begin with.

There is a moral cost for treating life casually. When police kill a suspect who shoplifted $100 from a store and engineer some flimsy excuse to claim self defense when they flee or use excessively brutal force when arresting a drug user and possible petty counterfeiter isn't so surprising when we have the public advocating for summary police justice rather than doing what they can to uphold the rule of law, which does not include gunning down criminals in the street.

Also, a whopping 2.3% of federal criminal cases go to trial already. So your other justification for capital punishment is that number is just too high?

I’m not the one treating life casually, that’s the mass murderer.

I swear, some of y’all have more sympathy for him than the victims that died in far more pain and were far more innocent than he is.

As a poor, I would rather let him rot in prison and have that money go to making my life materially easier to live

As I said, there is a zero percent chance of that happening. Death penalty spending is hardly the obstacle to ending poverty, providing health care, investing in infrastructure, or anything else.

And he’ll hardly be rotting. He’ll be getting food, shelter, and healthcare. I’m not saying prison is fun, but they are not just throwing away the key.

Okay, lemme change my position then

As someone who has moral principles, I would rather the process by which he can be executed by the state not exist, because any law that the state can use to rightfully kill a guilty person can be abused to wrongfully kill an innocent. The state can never be truly 100% certain of the defendant's guilt, and so there can never be a 100% guarantee that only guilty people are executed.

This guy is 100%, no doubt, guilty as hell. Put us safeguards, but at some point, you have to do more.

That's exactly what they said about Cameron Todd Willingham. Professional firefighters took to the stand and said that there was no way his house could have burned the way it did without accelerant. They were as certain of his guilt as you are of this guy's. It turns out even "100%, no doubt" isn't a high enough bar.

He was wrongly convinced. This guy won’t be.

The next person could be. As I said, any law that can be used to rightfully execute a guilty person can be abused to wrongfully execute an innocent. Not every person on death row is as certain as this case, and as much as you will say "it should only be used when there's this much proof," in the real world, it won't be. Better to be rid of that system altogether. We don't gain anything from killing someone.

Which is why you execute them immediately, not 20-30 years later. I don't want to hear about innocent people in jail that long, I don't even want to hear about guilty people in jail very long. Just kill em and move on regardless, it's really less cruel.

From Wikipedia

Motive Anti-black racism White supremacy Belief in the Great Replacement and white genocide conspiracy theories[6][7][8]

A political wing of the USA is responsible for this

If you kill the man, his suffering is limited. If you lock him away in a supermax for the rest of his long days, his suffering is a thousandfold.

Why is there any value in making someone suffer for the sake of suffering?

If he's dead he's dead. There are plenty of evil people that are dead and I don't wish them to be alive just so they can suffer.

That's seems worse than killing them.

Sure, but there's also cost to the state to be considered.

That said, the common methods for execution used today are surprisingly expensive.

Isn't it more expensive to execute someone vs a life sentence?

We should do another penal colony. Like Venus or something.

On a tangential note: I propose we ship the top 1% wealthiest people to Mars and make them colonize it.

We can send all the life sentence and death row convicts with them.

Also experimental. No one wants to make the drugs used to end life so states are buying expired product and shady drugs from Indian compound pharmacies.

Those shady indian pharmacies are one of the things keeping american pharmaceuticals from skull fucking the plebs every chance it gets. Those boys are fine in my book. That countries approach to pharmaceuticals is commendable overall.

Except they have no quality control and you have no idea what you could actually be getting.

That said, the common methods for execution used today are surprisingly expensive.

It doesn't have to be.

I believe the saw movies had some good techniques

Just make sure to place him in a cell near/with black prisoners and give him a sandwich board like one from die hard 3 with "I hate n*****" on it too.b

A) I'm certain he'll advertise it all on his own. Probably fall right in with a Nazi prison gang.

B) I don't think the prisons are intentionally stoking racial tensions. Makes things dangerous for the guards and invites attention they don't want.

The suffering should never be the point. It never gives meaningful satisfaction to the bereaved and affected and studies support this.

It is only human and normal to burn with anger and a desire to see monsters such as this torn apart and made to suffer.

This is part of our animal mind that views tribal justice and the dubious 'wisdom of the crowds' as absolute, and most of the fuckdamn reason we've spent so long learning how to live around millions of each other is in part giving up these outdated and unhelpful social traits.

In the long run, from the cultural perspective, no amount of his suffering will bring his victims back, and no amount of suffering will convince him that he was morally wrong.

So execute him, and quickly, and spend the money otherwise that would have covered his upkeep on free food for single parents.

You were so close! The first four paragraphs were a perfect argument against the death penalty. And then you somehow turned around to argue for it in the last one?

The logical conclusion from your argument isn’t a quick death, it’s trying to reform offenders, no matter how heinous their crimes. If that’s not possible, keep them locked away, but treat them humanely and keep trying.

Dammit, you were so close. Quick executions are how you turn the 1-5% innocent kill rate up to a 10-50%.

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I don't even kill spiders. It's hard to look at that photo and understand, how this young adult even considered doing this. What broke him like that? Maybe, instead of killing him, we can somehow guarantee no new guys like him would happen. Not in a genetic crime bullshit fashion, but in providing psychological services, making regular checks, noticing them and reaching out before they act like that? He's a fucking idiot, but also a guy that fell through many safety nets proving them ineffective.

That's not how the prison industry works. There's no money in fixing people if you can use them as unpaid labour.

"prison industry" - I like that

There are actually privately owned prisons, with investors, and profit incentives, and they're a problem.

And they literally do forced labor for corporations, who pay the prison for that, which is legal because slavery is still legal in prisons. It's absolutely an industry.

I know in the early 2000s both McDonalds and Applebee's were known to have used prison labor to have their uniforms made.

I seen some doc about some ultra tough texan prison guy. He was all "We need to punish people and my prison the best because we break our prisoners and make them behave perfectly and control everything they can do so they do no wrong. Then finally after decades of doing that we release then into the public all fixed"

So the doc was about him going to Norway where they live on this island and have a room and "freedom" to wander around. They just have to be at certain places at certain times and can't do lots of stuff. He gets on the ferry and the guy running the ferry is a prisoner in a paid job. He tells him he tried to get that job because that's the easiest way to escape. But then he laughed and told him he was joking.

The whole time this texan is just confused that a prison like that has better rehabilitation and lower repeated criminals than his prison

I write about what can be done before the bloodshed and the prison sentence. But yeah, the next logical step is to look into these fuckers too.

People who feel like they have nothing to live for often take their frustration out on others.

It's like they know their lives suck and likely won't get better, so they focus on making other people's lives worse because it's literally all they feel they can do.

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Maybe, instead of killing him, we can somehow guarantee no new guys like him would happen.

How are those mutually exclusive? Do you think killing him will make him respawn somewhere?

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Let him rot in prison. Abolish capital punishment!

The reactionary in me thinks "life in solidarity confinement without the chance of parole."

The me in me says he needs a long time in some sort of rehabilitation program. As much of a monster as he is, he's a bit of a victim. May he be studied so that we can pinpoint and prevent others from following his path.

They are so much better at this stuff in other developed countries. The US prison system is all about punishment where others focus a lot more on rehabilitation and prevention.

(Not so) fun fact: The US has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's prison population.

The United States system has financial incentives for low police/prevention and long harsh prison sentences, due to cities paying for police but counties/state paying for prisons. Cities can cut taxes and police and pass the cost onto the county or state.

Ideally you'd want quick guaranteed consequences for breaking the law. We have the complete opposite, and when we do catch you, we impose a huge penalty to make up for all times we probably didnt catch you before.

What if I have problems with both capital punishment and the current prison system?

Abolish capital punishment, improve prisons.

Guy kills ten black people and Lemmy comments are all 'yeah but death sentence and prison are wrong, maybe we should get him a nice job and somewhere to live, I'll pop round to massage his feet once a week...'

Capital punishment is always wrong.

Maybe the death sentence would be the better option than prison. Not like we are on par with other peers with prisons. Either way I could care less about this one specific case.

And will that help reduce violent deaths at all in the future? A large number of shooters are just out to commit a mass murder-suicide. Who does this serve justice to? Or is this just to get people feeling like they've been "avenged"?

I know it's a cliche, but it is a bit dumb to kill someone to show that killing is wrong.

Why waste resources on one who has proven themselves to be the worst kind of man? He won't learn a lesson. He doesn't deserve an opportunity to ever rejoin society. Your suggestion is to house, feed and provide medicine for this monster for the rest of his life. To give him what millions of Americans can not obtain. You want to reward his actions.

The death penalty is not revenge. It's not a lesson.It should not be seen as some deterrent. It's culling a sick animal so it can't do any more harm to the rest of the population. It can be done quickly, humanely, and even cleanly though the cheapest method would make a small, containable mess.

In the US it usually three times more expensive to put someone to death than to incarcerate them for life

Wow today I learned!

There's no good summary that I found in my five mins of research, and a lot of it came from https://deathpenaltyinfo.org, which appears to be a very biased nonprofit against the death penalty.

But the info seems consistent all around. It costs more because since it's such a big deal for the state to kill somebody, the legal costs skyrocket dramatically. Hence, it's more expense.

https://www.quora.com/How-is-lethal-injection-more-expensive-than-the-costs-of-having-someone-serve-a-life-sentence

Again, 5 minutes of research. Somebody correct me. It still smells a bit funny if this cost is lifetime of the prisoner vs someone who has life in prison for multiple decades.

The costs come from years if not decades of appeals that are legally required after someone is sentenced to death, among other things like the cost of the chemicals used for lethal injection.

Factually, the anti death penalty advocates are correct about the expense argument, but it's largely of their own doing because they're the ones who imposed those expenses on the government by pushing for such laws. They literally largely made it a problem.

But do you have any research that shows it reduces or deters crime?

That is not and never has been the reason for capital punishment. The kind of people who should be executed are not doing the kind of crimes that are deterred. The point is to remove the individual who is not compatible with society.

I don't necessarily disagree with the reasons behind your conclusion, but it costs more to execute a prisoner than to house them for life. The nature of the death penalty means that every appeal must be heard and fought through, which is one reason why it takes so long to kill them after conviction. All of those people involved in that process are thus being dragged away from other things they could be doing.

About the only time an execution occurs quickly is if the individual decides not to appeal. Rare, understandably. The other option would be to ignore the appeals process, and frankly we have already executed too many innocents for any person, even those who believe in the death penalty, to believe that would be justice.

Do you think it's a waste of resources to even give him a trial? Death penalty trials are long and expensive and often cost more than lifelong incarceration. You might be okay with a low bar for having the government remove someone from society but I think the bar should be high, and the decision shouldn't be done lightly. However, keeping that bar high also takes more resources so the issue isn't as easy as you make it out to be.

Americans not being able to obtain housing and the rising homelessness does not mean we should employ capital punishment, which is an expensive and inhumane procedure where there is a chance to take away the life of those potentially innocent, not to mention that it doesn't actually reduce or deter crime. In fact, it seems that places with more capital punishment have more violent crime.

Yes, because he's a fascist actively helping his cult to take over the country and can only be stopped with violence.

No one wants him dead to prove all killing is wrong, they want him dead because he is genocidal and a threat to the existence of everyone else. Don't you bother trying to understand how other people think and feel, or do you think your arrogance and unwarranted sense of superiority over your opponents is what empathy is?

"Unwarranted sense of superiority" says the person who thinks that we as a society somehow have the right to choose to end someone's life.

There are things that society can decide. That’s part of being a society. Sometimes it’s stupid, like men can’t wear women’s clothing. Sometimes it’s right, like you can’t be an unrepentant mass murderer and continue to live among us.

Going against basic human rights, that should never be anything anyone can decide.

On the contrary, this individual already made that choice.

I’m not pro-death penalty at all. Generally quite the opposite. Too many over-zealous prosecutors, too many shitty cops, etc. just trying to be “tough on crime”, close a case and save their jobs. However there have been instances where I don’t have a problem with it. The Nuremberg trials. Or maybe in instances where irrefutable, undeniable proof exists.

That said, I’d far, far prefer this person live in a hole for the rest of their life. Death is too easy an out, and IMO a life with no purpose, future, change, or hope is hell. They should get just that.

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🤣 Oh, you're so cute when you pretend your way of thinking is an axiom inherently better than others.

Communities DO have that right because they're the community and they're the ones who make the rules. There is no god or goddess dictating morality to us humans no matter how badly people want to pretend there is, there is only ourselves and nature, and we as the self-aware ones who invented morality have the right to make those choices because it's OUR institution.

And not yours.

Right. Keep living in the shitty current world we're in with that thinking.

We will, because that is the way reality is whether you want to accept it or not. Your god is NOT coming to save you because he is not real. He is a fictional character in a book.

Communities have the right to make those decisions because the well being of their constituents is in the balance. Humans are diverse, self-aware, and have free will, and they can actively choose to do helpful or destructive things whenever they want. That also means they have diverse interests, and those interests directly conflict with one another. A or not A. B or not B. And we can't have both. That means communities have to make hard choices about whose needs and interests it is going to place above others, because logically it is impossible to make both happy. And given the whole point of a fucking community is to protect the best interests of its members, it's those interests it has to prioritize above everything else.

This is why communities not only have the right to kill humans that threaten it, but have a responsibility to. Because its members have to be placed higher in importance to those who threaten or harm it for the community to survive.

This is the world we live in based on the laws of physics and evolution. It is NOT going to change just because you don't like it.

Do what you tell every rape victim to do when they call you out on your obvious immoral shit: get over it and move on, honey, or the world will move on without you.

you're ok with putting a bullet in every rapists head aren't you

btw your appeal to nature fallacy is showing

For the life of me, I just want to know where that rape crap came from. Like... At least they should have asked me first or checked my comment history to understand my view on rape yet they made the assumption and moved on. Ironically, I myself was raped as a teenager /: so congrats to that edgy SJW, they just did something dumb as fuck to a rape victim, big no no in SJW world.

yeah I'm done engaging, not about to unpack a lifetime of trauma in a few comments.

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Yes, that is what is moral. That's why communities have the death penalty.

It also literally doesn't matter if you want to accuse me of using a naturalistic fallacy or not, it's reality whether you want to admit it or not.

All morality ultimately boils down to is our feelings, the community's feelings, and what works in the real world and in the real world, you're just wrong.

It's up to you to put your ego and pride to the side and actually think about what I'm saying.

Now you think that your own moral outlook and beliefs are objective facts when they're really not, and you think your axioms are shared by everyone when they are not. The world doesn't revolve around you. You don't dictate morality to us. We dictate it to you.

who the fuck is this we? who do you think you're representing? the justice league?

Jesus you're really no better than this murderous fascist.

Literally everyone else except you and your creepy little cult.

Including the Black, Jewish, Hispanic and LGBTQ+ communities whose existence on this Earth you are threatening because you don't see or care that your absurd anti-death-penalty stance is enabling literal genocide, because you are now defending fascists.

You might not like it, but the state executing people like him is vital not just for his victims but to prevent very real crimes against humanity as a species.

But you didn't think about that.

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And yet another essay rofl told you that you love it!

Your god is NOT coming to save you because he is not real.

Sorry, could you stop for a moment and please explain to me who you think I am?

Like what's this stuff about god and genocide? I'm an atheist.

Sorry but...

I want to write this in title, so please imagine me saying this in a REALLY LOUD VOICE just to make sure you don't respond by jumping into a whole different topic, but what god?!? Where in my profile or my text did I ever say I believe in god? How did you come to this conclusion? Man, I think you're like.... confused.

Do what you tell every rape victim to do when they call you out on your obvious immoral shit: get over it and move on, honey, or the world will move on without you.

I am a rape victim myself. I was raped at age 15/16 by a medical professional. My parents didn't believe me and the police told me to better not report it because as a girl I'd get into more trouble than it's worth. It took me lots of therapy to overcome this trauma.

Again, who do you think you're talking to? You seem to get everything about me wrong in every single post and I don't understand what would motivate anyone to waste so much time being like this.

This is the world we live in based on the laws of physics and evolution. It is NOT going to change just because you don’t like it.

It's not going to change if you do like it.

This is why communities not only have the right to kill humans that threaten it, but have a responsibility to.

Sounds like a pretense for human rights violations ROFL

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What is a justified consequence for someone that killed people just going about their normal lives? Do the families impacted by this tragedy have any input?

I'd really like for us to move towards a restorative justice system instead of the punitive one we use now. In my mind, that would look something

  1. Seeking input from the people who were impacted by the crime about what would help them move past or recover from the crime.

  2. Separating the perpetrator from society at large while providing the resources to prepare them to reenter society when they no longer pose a threat.

  3. Even those perpetrators who could never be reintroduced to society safely still be treated humanely and with respect.

I can't remember which off the top of my head, but there's a country (Scandinavian if my memory is accurate) that provides prisoners with small homes (still within the confines of a prison-like facility that separates them from society at large) which they have to take care of. I believe they even have jobs that let them contribute to society, and they receive counseling and all that as well. When they're eventually released, they know how to maintain a home, keep a job, etc, so they're well-prepared to reintegrate with society.

Give him a job, make him work, and send the proceeds to the families of the victims. At least he will be somewhat useful then.

What if he kills again? How can one person pay enough for 10 lives?

It's not good to report the number of deaths in headlines without humanizing the victims in some way. It's better to list each individual name in the article itself.

This dude probably thought he was setting a number score that would put him in the spotlight, but he didn't realize he's just another tally for the Executioner.

Out of pure academic curiosity, how is the death penalty part of this under federal jurisdiction?

The article refers to federal hate crimes.

There are federal crimes that include hate crimes and violation of civil rights, but from what I can tell in the list of federal capital crimes, neither of those appears to me to qualify as subject to the death penalty.

I looked up Derek Chauvin as a base then realized he was never under threat of death penalty.

I don't like the death penalty and how inequally it's applied, but in this case I say we decrease the surplus population.

Rest in piss, asshole.

Just kill the useless and dangerous folk and it’ll work out in the benefit of society.

Who will be deemed useless and dangerous?
Who will have this power to judge?
Will they be responsible, or corruptible?

Exactly. I said that to make the death penalty look bad, which it is.

What alternative do you have for people actively detrimental to societies such as serial killers and child rapists?

Reform, and if they continue to pose a risk for society keep them in a prison/psychiatric ward until they die or are reformed.

Look at how Norway handles Breivik for example. That guy is a proper monster. But he still gets treated according to human rights, cause he is still human. We as a society should be better and more rational than the monsters that we condemn.

It's pretty easy to not-murder. I've been doing it my whole life. Even went vegan!

You know that life in prison means they usually don't go out to kill and rape against right?

You know that most rapists never actually see a day in court, let alone are jailed, and rape actually does not net people life sentences, only a few years at most, right?

But who needs facts or to take anyone else's feelings into consideration when your personal feelings are so much more important than the rest of the planet's and the women you subjugate with your shit?

Me. I see no problem with this. All of me in favor, say aye. Aye. The ayes have it, motion passed.

Will you still have no problem with this if you're deemed useless?

Let me check. Do I deem myself useless. No. Looks like we're good to go.

The only danger that creeps in here is 'who gets to decide who is useless and dangerous?' because I wear glasses and don't feel like being on the receiving end of a Khmer Rouge style microcide.

Good for you, it's not glasses this month, it's the hearing aids that indicate "useless" status and crutches for dangerous because you can use them as weapons.

Should we tackle the mentally inferior and physically infirm next?

How old are you?

One death penalty still has a lot of wiggle room given there were ten lives taken. Hope justice is served here.

No civilised society executes it's citizens. A lifetime of reflection is adequate.

Yes they do, because they value protecting their people over appeasing your sensibilities.

And don't even bother wasting time arguing with me; I already know exactly what you're going to do -- you're going to bitch to the high heavens with talking point after talking point after talking point, and you're going to do this because you don't care about anything other than the way articles like this make you feel. You're just going to be irrational and not listen, so don't bother.

Why are you wasting everyone's time responding if you're not here to discuss?

Why are you? I explicitly told you I'm not here to discuss, that you're just wrong and there's no convincing you because you don't want to hear the truth. What discussion is there to be had? You just want to bully and guilt-trip people like me into submitting to your opinion and it's not going to work. Now get out of my inbox, and out of my life.

Oh, me? I don't care. You're the one who wrote a whole paragraph about not responding to you.

I was actually going to ask about your grandma's oatmeal cookie recipe.

It's a bit difficult to pull off a mass shooting from a prison cell, no?

Edit: It's hilarious you clowns think this is a hot take.

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We are all meat popsicles. Either way, I could care less. War, what is it good for?

Well, that's good news for once. Pump the goober full of sodium enditall; he won't be missed.

Agreed. They should do it as cheaply and quickly as possible to set an example of how executions don't need to be expensive.

We'll ignore the estimated 4% of innocent people on death row. Let's get to it! We can always exonerate them posthumously.