Criminal Rights

[Nailo]

We do turn a blind eye to them by only inflicting further psychological harm upon them by sending them to prison or worse, and then let them loose into the society again, and wonder why they commit crimes again. It's unacceptable AND immoral to do such things to people. Two wrongs does not make one right, and it has nothing to do with justice at all nor does it prevent crime.

 

Again, my idea of how punishment should be would prevent this from happening (the releasing of criminals back into society). Prison would not be in exsistence and if you do something bad enough to be sent to prison then you're killed. Therefore, noone would be going back into society to commit more crimes. Yes, sending people to prison now and letting them spend many years of their lives in issolation and confinement is indeed inflicting alot of psychological harm, and I think this is incredibly immoral. So if you just sent them to death then they would escape all of that harm and we as a society would be rid of them.

 

I still think society doesn't turn a blind eye. I mean the justice system, prisons, and all other things of the same matter are all out their for us to see. Its not like we turn it away as if it doesn't exist.

 

But then again the justice and punishment system does not work the way either of us want it to and I really doubt it ever will (at least the way I think it should).

[Zmid]

On understanding the criminal v pure and total punishment, I would say it varies according to the person. There are some criminals who commit crimes because their sense of right and wrong has gotten a little screwed, and they require understanding and rehabilitation. However, there are other criminals who commit crimes despite the fact they realise it's wrong, but just don't care. They require punishment.

[Nailo]

On understanding the criminal v pure and total punishment, I would say it varies according to the person. There are some criminals who commit crimes because their sense of right and wrong has gotten a little screwed, and they require understanding and rehabilitation. However, there are other criminals who commit crimes despite the fact they realise it's wrong, but just don't care. They require punishment.

I agree with you to the some degree. But I think punishment should be enforced if a horrible crime is committed (murder, rape, attempted murder) no matter who the person is that committed the crime. I think this is right even if the person is metally insane (ever read Of Mice and Men, has a good example of this, more or less)

[NCBeachBum]

Okay, I'm probably about to ramble out a ridiculously long post, but this topic hits pretty close to home for me. I'm going to start with 2 recent examples of murders that have been very widely publicized here in the U.S.(giving all the details for those of you not from here), then move on to my own story.

Christmas Eve, 1996, Boulder Colorado. A very young girl(6 or 7) named Jon-Benet Ramsey was murdered in her parents home, found dead in the basement only after they had reported her missing. The police couldn't find any evidence of forceful entry, so they immediately went for the easy target and decided her parents had done it. Over the next 2 years or so, they were convicted in every newspaper and around every water cooler in the country, but never charged. They eventually had to move nearly all the way across the country to Atlanta Georgia to live a life in peace. In March 2003, 6 years and 3 months after her death, a new district attorney took the case away from the police, and finally ordered DNA testing on blood that was in her panties, which the police had assumed was hers. Not only was it not hers, but it conclusively didn't belong to any blood relative. By polls, over 80% of the country still believe these poor parents murdered their daughter and got away with it.... because the new evidence hasn't been covered on the news. When the papers and television were saying they were guilty, it was front page news. Now that they're proven innocent, it's the back page of the society section, and not mentioned at all on TV.

August 11, 1989, Warwick Connecticut. A 29 year old woman is found in her home dead, her head bashed in with her fire extinguisher. In 1991, the state police took over the unsolved case, and immediately focused on a police detective who had been having an affair with her(he was married, she wasn't), and who had initially lied to investigators about the affair in an attempt to save his marriage. In 1994, they indicted him for her murder, and in 1996 he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Then, in 2002, after he had spent 6 1/2 years in prison, they caught the real killer, a carpenter who was robbing her house and killed her because she woke up and saw his face.

And now my own story, which I'll have to tell the long way around just a bit. I was born in Athens, Alabama, in 1967. In 1988, I was 21 years old and tended to party a bit too much. I smoked a good bit of grass, snorted a little coke now and then, and spent much of my time at the bars, getting drunk and picking up easy women. I got a DUI and lost my driver's license, and never showed up for court, so I had a failure to appear warrant out for me. Later in the year, I got pulled over when a headlight went out, and they got me for that warrant, possession of drug paraphernalia(a pack of rolling papers), and carrying a concealed weapon. I had a permit to carry concealed, adn the gun was legally purchased, but my permit had expired 3 weeks before and I hadn't realized it. I had never used it other than for target practice and rattlesnakes, but I did tend at that time to go into some pretty rough neighborhoods for my hook-ups, and felt a lot safer with it. But, since I had no actual drugs on me, everything they got me for was a misdemeanor, no felonies, and i got six months probation and a very hefty fine. By 1993, I was 26, had settled down and quit partying, and even found myself married and with a daughter on the way. The marriage turned out to be a huge mistake, as it soon turned out my wife wasn't ready to quit partying yet, and left me for a drug dealer she met at work 4 months after out daughter was born. We were in the process of the divorce, and had a pretty good custody battle going. My reasons were because I didn't want my daughter growing up in a drug dealer's house, and her response was to use my own misdemeanor convictions from 5 years before. Her mother and grandmother were testifying on my behalf, so I thought I had a pretty good case going for me. Then, in early 1994, someone shotgunned my wife and her live-in to death in his car. Thank God, my daughter was with me at the time. The police had no idea who had done it, and quickly decided to go after the easiest target to try to get a public conviction, not caring whether they had the right person or not. Of course I was that target, and so less than one week after the murder, any investigation into other people such as who his rivals or customers might be had stopped. I was at a friendly poker game in a nearby town, about 40 miles away, at the time of the murder, and had 14 people to testify to that fact, so the Sherriff (and a very crooked one at that, most of the drugs dealt in Limestone County come from him, and he's been under federal investigation 3 times, but all the witnesses keep seeming to meet up with accidents) intimated to the papers that I was some sort of drug lord and could get all the people I wanted to lie for me, and pulled out my 'previous record' (the misdemeanors) from, by then, over 6 years before, as his evidence. I was brought before a grand jury, where the case was no-billed after they decided the prosecutor had no evidence to merit a trial. My hands didn't test positive for gunpowder, my shotgun at my house had not been fired recently, and I had 14 people as an alibi at the time. But by this time, the papers had done such a wonderful job of running with the Sherriff's drug lord tale that pretty much everyone in the area who didn't know me was absolutely positive that I was guilty. I was fired from my job for missing work while I was in jail (I was held without bond until the grand jury), and no one else would hire me. There was such a hue and cry raised about me getting my daughter after getting away with murdering my wife and the man she had left me for that the Department of Human Resources held a hearing and took her away from me, again using two misdemeanor convictions from over 6 years previous as grounds. And because my in-laws were still backing me, they put her into the state foster system rather than give her to the grandparents after they admitted under oath that they would indeed still allow me unrestricted access to her. I had to move 700 miles away to North Carolina, leaving behind my family and my entire life up until then just to have a life and be able to find work. And my daughter lost everyone she had ever known, both parents, both sets of grandparents, everything, at the age of 2. None of us have seen her or spoken to her in nearly 10 years now, and don't even know what her name is or where she is.

Now add to this the innumerable cases we've seen the last few years of people in jail being proven innocent after many years because of new DNA testing that wasn't available when they were convicted. If, as someone suggested, we went to the Chinese justice system and immediately executed anyone convicted, that police detective would've died for having an affair and lying about it. If it weren't for the rights of the accused, both I and those grieving parents would have went to jail for murders we didn't commit, and in my case, I would have gotten the death penalty. And even once we're proven innocent, the large majority of the public still believes us guilty, just that we 'got away with it'. It destroys lives and makes people move away and leave their lives behind with the protections in place. How many more would it destroy if we took away those protections? We live in a time when the media runs our country through public opinion, through a large portion of the population that are sheep and believe what they are told without thinking about it. Because of that, the police quickly latch onto the quickest and easiest suspect, whether they did it or not, because they don't want the press hounding them for not getting the job done. The purpose of these laws isn't to protect the guilty, they're to protect the innocent who've been accused from falling victim to a lynch mob mentality.

And while I hate to make this even longer, I'm going to throw my 2 cents worth in on the side topic discussion that's been going on banning guns. During the 27+ years I lived in Alabama, the closest neighbor I ever had anywhere I lived was over a mile away(around 1.6 km). It's a very rural area, and if you live outside of the cities like I did, there is no government other than the county over you, no animal control to call. I would kill around 6-8 rattlesnakes and/or copperheads ever summer around my house(was even bitten once by one I didn't see in time), and a minimum of 2 coyotes a year, which roam the area in packs. Now that I've moved to North Carolina, I'm in a city, and on an island, so I really don't have that problem anymore, but if you go 15 or 30 miles inland, then you have major problems with rattlesnakes and grizzly bears. Now add to that a ridiculous amount of rabid rabbits, racoons, and o'possums. How would the people out in these rural areas protect themselves from these animals if all firearms were banned, as many suggested?

[Breton Thief Oriana]

quoted from NCBeachBum Posted on Jan 14 2004, 03:42 PM

If it weren't for the rights of the accused, both I and those grieving parents would have went to jail for murders we didn't commit, and in my case, I would have gotten the death penalty. And even once we're proven innocent, the large majority of the public still believes us guilty, just that we 'got away with it'. It destroys lives and makes people move away and leave their lives behind with the protections in place. How many more would it destroy if we took away those protections?

 

 

 

you know how many people it would affect....all the ones brought under suspicsion.....and i greive for your loss, NCBeachBum