R.I.P. Stanley Williams

[Squinky]

After all, the government should try to give an example. If the government may kill a killer, why can't I? That's already part of the wrong data that is stored on people's hard-drives.

Because of the same laws that are applied to the murderer, they are the reason, and probably the only reason more people don't murder the person accused of murdering their loved ones. This is where the Deterrent factor of punishment comes in. Also because you would be biased and unable to make any decent ruling...

I am aware that all of the above, could be complete nonsense. I don't know. I'm only a human being. But unless the death-penalty is imposed by someone who is almighty and completely objective, like God for example, the data on my hard-drive does simply not allow me to agree to it and since I don't believe in the existance of God, it's gonna stay that way, unless my data is changed and that's very probably never gonna happen.

This is why in so many places there is reference to God in American law. But I don't want to open up that can of worms....

Even though your "harddrive" analogy hurt my head, I can see where your coming from. But people have to learn to live in society without hampering others freedoms, regardless of their personal circumstances or upbringing. I don't care if I get shot by an overpriveledged yuppy or a downtrodden hobo, I'm still shot, and my rights and well being have been assualted. Your rights end where mine begin, and the other way around....

It's not hard to not murder someone, it's not like a fat person on a diet, compelled to sneak a little cake at midnight. This person murdered four people.

[pcj]

Funnily enough, this is one of the best reasons against death-penalty. We are all humans. None of us is almighty. Who are we to decide over the life and death of another human being?

The government is empowered by the people to enact such measures upon criminals.  If they don't want to live under our laws, they shouldn't live here.

I don't know if he really commited those murders. He very possibly has.

No question.  He admitted his guilt.

I don't think people are born to be murderers. I don't think people are born to be anything.

This is the old Hobbes-Locke argument over whether humans are born innocent and it is society which corrupts them or if they are born corrupt and society improves them.

Basically, I want to explain that I believe that something like ultimate free will does not exist. I don't know if that is really true. It is just my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in fade or anything like that. It's just that in my opinion that we as imperfect human beings are not able to see the world objectively.

That has nothing to do with free will; that's perspective.

The government on the other hand should try to be as close to objective as possible.

The defendant is entitled to a fair trial by a jury of peers.  The jury is randomly selected and then both parties are able to make sure none of them are biased.

If you kill someone who has commited a murder, he has no chance at all to learn something from that. It also doesn't protect society from the killer better than a life-long imprisonment would.

Yes, but it's also a deterrent.

After all, the government should try to give an example. If the government may kill a killer, why can't I? That's already part of the wrong data that is stored on people's hard-drives.

Because the government is acting under the law.

I am aware that all of the above, could be complete nonsense.

Yes, I ran it through Word's AutoSummarize and it gave me "This is utter crap."

You may as well, tear me apart now, if your data doesn't allow you to just accept my opinion as being my opinion. You may as well feel the desperate need (again due to your data) to change my data and express this need by argueing how wrong I am, even though it's very unlikely to happen, as it is unlikey that my post has changed any of the pro-death-penalty-data, stored on various hard-drives of various members of this community.

You're trying to make us disprove your beliefs in regards to morality with cold fact?  No, thanks. 

[Helm]

they shouldn't live here

not living there and dying there aren't exactly the same

[pcj]

You shouldn't expect to murder and get away with it.  It's against the law; the government was within its right to execute the law.  End of statement.  If you have a problem with the law, either find enough people who agree with you to try to change it, live with it, or leave.

[Helm]

thanks for explaining that to me

[Traveler]

1.
As a side note: the government shouldn't be trusted on its word. I'm from a country where this was obvious. So just because the government says that someone is guilty, it's not necessarily true.

2.
I think that reciting the government's right to execute is actually a cheap way to win this particular argument. The government has "rights" to do whatever they vote for themselves. It's not always right, even in a strong democracy, like the US.

Murdering someone is not bad because it's aganst some written law, but because it's morally wrong. In the current western society where it happened, it's quite easy to define "good" and "bad" in this context. There are killings which are not morally wrong and as such, don't count as murder. (For example if someone defends himself against a potentially deadly attack and kills the attacker. Solders do not commit murder during battles, even though they kill people.)

I don't think that being brought up in a bad environment/family should be an excuse for killing people for fun or profits. The same for not having the "right data". As a taxpayer, I'm not willing to support people who kill/terrorize others (and potentially threaten my family members, too) for their own agenda or gains. As I said in one of my first posts in this thread, I'd be willing take a different position under different circumstances. But knowing the history of this killer, I don't see any reason and apparently judges didn't see any, either.

And let's not forget that some university professors actually nominated this moron for a Nobel peace prize. That's really a new low.   

[Nacho]

Would part "A" (For death penalty) and "B" (Against death penalty) accept a state of total sedation for those who have commited murders?

It can be made with drugs, in the way the prisoner would lost its psyque, even the dreams.

But the government wouldn't officially have the right of murdering. It should be a consolation for families, and the lawyers might look for more evidences of innocence of the prisoner, as it is a revertible state.

I personally am more for this that death penalty. Not because I do not believe that murders deserve it, but because I think that 10-15% of the people who receives the lethal dose hasn't really been guilty for trial mistakes, mainly.

What do you think?

[TheYak]

I can't honestly argue for or against it.  While many families struggle to make ends meet and keep their children fed while still paying taxes, is it fair for them to have to support a prisoner's expenses?  A murder in prison can expect regular mealtimes, a roof over his head, medical and dental care, while many families can't afford these things.  That doesn't seem just no matter how life-loving you claim to be. 

[edit: Removed paragraph too off-topic]

I don't agree with the death penalty.  If my family were killed and the death penalty was required to be carried out by the victims' family, I don't know that I could administer the killing blow.  I would be angry, sad, bitter and confused, but I don't know that I'd be able to claim the right to take a human life.  Maybe I would, under the circumstances, but I can't determine that unless I were in that state. 

I don't believe in killing for vengeance's sake, but I find it harder to argue against it being a deterrent or (and this seems cold and callous, but) as a cost-saving measure. 

What I do believe, however, is that all life is not equal.  We choose our value by the choices we make.  Regardless of being rich or poor, a person's worth is what they make it.  We're saddened, but not shocked, by the deaths of thousands of our military personnel.  We're saddened, but not surprised, at the deaths of police officers.  They did, however, make a choice to enter a career that carries with it a risk of death.   As a gang member/founder, Williams was fully aware that there was a risk of death, and he acted accordingly.  His victims had no such conscious choice.  The number 4 has been bounced back and forth as a measurement of his sin, but what about all the lives taken as a result of the gang he helped to found?  What about the enrollment in the rival gang (The Bloods)? What about their victims? 

Farlander's solution of sedation (can't help but think of Demolition Man's freezing penalty) might have some merit, but it's purely science-fiction at this point.  We can't keep a person in an indefinite coma and be able to wake them at any time, particularly with the same quality of life they had before, should they be found innocent of their crime.   It sounds much more humane than 25 years in prison only delaying the inevitable death, long after a person becomes something other than what they were when they commited the crime (whether better or worse).  For now, in some places, certain crimes carry a potential penalty of death (and only a small percentage are actually carried out, particularly in California).  If the person doesn't want to die, they probably shouldn't kill people.  Their sentence may not be morally right, and our execution of them is an act of murder in the name of justice, but it's not like this is a sudden change after the fact. 

If somebody wants to rail against California's execution of this man, and become indignant about the loss of a person who weaves a hell of a wonderful feel-good, morality reinforcing novel, try taking a look at Texas instead.  If you really want to discuss the correctness of the penalty, look at the state that uses it the most.  Look at the state that has a fast-lane law that pushes multiple-murderers to the front of the queue (thus putting some weight behind the 1 victim versus 4 victims argument).  Bottom-line: This guy's getting attention and bringing the issue up because he's a) being executed in a state that does so rarely and b) because he's in the spotlight due to an well-advertised repenting novel.  Arguing in favor of this person's right to life, while ignoring others in prisons across the nation, seems pretty hypocritical for a person claiming the sanctity of human life as their podium.  Congratulations upon being manipulated by a PR campaign into voicing your opinion now (rather  than previously).   

As stated, I can't side with either point of view without conceding points of the other.  The one thing I can say I disagree with absolutely is a person claiming to be Christian and quoting the "eye for an eye" passage.  This quotation is not only history inaccurate when taken out of context, but specifically rebuked by Jesus - ""You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, ‘Do not resist injuries, but whoever strikes you on the right cheek turn to him the other as well'"  This was in refutation of a law limiting the extent of retribution, not magnification of it.  Maybe Jesus realized the same thing as Ghandi: "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and the whole world would soon be blind and toothless."

I'm saddened that another human life was ended with William's execution, but I honestly don't have a better solution.  We revere life so much that we argue against the death penalty.  I wonder how much power those with no regard for human life gain over us as a result. 

[DonB]

Come on homes, I have some thing to say about this too, and I think it's a good conclusion, of course people will argue with me but please read:

I am absolutely against the death penalty, not discussing why now, that's not the order now..

It's this case:

A guy, out of the getto, founded a local street gang, The Cribs, getting bigger, getting bigger, getting one of the two biggest gangs of America..
Dont forget this, I absolutely aint approving his actions but, in the American getto, you have to steal to live, not that murder is the case to survive..
Either way, upon the day we live now, street gangs Bloods and Cribs are the order of the day, Tookie has been caught for at least four murders, pretty sure he did them, he even confessed to do it, now this:

Tookie starts writing books for young black people in the getto's, those guys look up the "great" Tookie and read it. And learn from it, I'm almost absolutely sure Tookie evaded a lot of new gang member recruitment cause the kids dont wanna join anymore after his books. This man.. did very, very wrong, but he did very good too after, very very good.. probably prevented murders with this, cause, maybe you guys know, that being in a street gang like the Cribs means you gotta murder to be part of it.
He ain't nominated for the Nobel Peace Prise for nothing..

I think there's quite a difference in penalting a serial killer like the Texas Chainsaw Murderer who just liked to kill without a cause and not being able to regain being a human being("fictional" example), or an ex gang member who certainly cleaned his life..

About the death penalty, I said i won't discuss it, but I only wanna say even the Texas Chainsaw Murderer kind of guy ain't wor'thy for the death penalty..

How can you be just as bad as a murderer, cause murdering him is being as bad as him..
I just don't get it..

[TheYak]

I don't have a right to choose who lives and who dies, but if I were forced to choose between a mother of two and a ganster who had killed non-gansters, the gang-banging asshole dies, no question.  Wait! He said he was sorry?  Definitely the mom then. 

Death is an inequitable punishment regardless of the target, but justifying defense because of theoretical repentance and presumed slate-wiping?  I call bullshit.  Aside from that statement, I have difficulty not smiling when someone uses half-assed "Gansta" speak yet still insists upon calling the gang, "The Cribs" (versus Crips). 

I don't think he should've been executed either, don't get me wrong.  I don't think he should've been killed even though I consider gangsters to be some of the lowest forms of life.  It's testosterone rampaging gone awry, introducing an overblown solution to a very real problem, resulting in more loss of life.  If there were only gang-members involved, fine.  Let 'em shoot it out until they're eventually extinct.  Of course, since I've got more chance of dying from a gangster's bullet than from anything else while at work (due to the average 1-per-day homicide rate in the city) while at work, I'm probably a tad biased. 

By the way:

"I think there's quite a difference in penalting a serial killer like the Texas Chainsaw Murderer who just liked to kill without a cause"

New York Times write-up: "He and three friends had been driving around during the predawn hours. At about 4 a.m., they spotted a 26-year-old clerk named Albert Owens sweeping the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. Court records describe Williams herding Owens into the storeroom and ordering him to lie face down on the floor, before shooting him twice in the back. At some point, one of the men took $120 from the cash register. Two weeks later, Williams broke down the quadruple-locked door of an L.A. motel and shot Yen-I Yang and Tsai-Shai Yang, the Taiwanese proprietors.

When their daughter Ye Chen Lin heard her parents' screams and came out of her bedroom to investigate, Williams shot her too, leaving only one survivor from the immediate family, Robert Yang."

So, the difference being that a stereotypical serial killer never repents or gets a book deal? 

I'm not saying it's right to take his life in retribution.  He's probably really sorry and wishes he could take it back and remove the stains he's made on society.  I'm just saying that differentiating him from a psychotic killer isn't so cut-and-dry an argument.

[Nacho]

I have just received a PM... Apparently, when I wrote this:

Imagine a croatian who has killed your family in the death row. I am just trying to put you in the emotional situation of someone who is seeing a guy who hates in the death row

The verb "HATES" might be missunderstood. I am not saying that the croatian guy is the guy who has hate inside. I am not saying that the croatians are guys with hate. I am not saying that the serbians do.

I was just looking an example of a guy who I knew that the RELATIVE OF THE VICTIMS was going to hate, but not making a racial commentary. I guess that if shitar should have been proved to be a zealot of the NY Yankees I might have used the example of the Dodger's pitcher killing his family...

I was just trying to flip the omelette and attempting to make him seeing a person who he really hates in the death row, because it is obviously that he is making his arguments from the point of view of deffending a person whose books he reads and admires.

I apologise. It is a very bad example. And specially bad if it uses something so sensitive as races or religions.

Excuses to everybody, and please, if the topic turns into something worst I'd feel even worse, so, please, if you want to help me, no further commentaries on this, at least not in public. 

[Nikolas]

I think that most of use (including me) are judging things from a very indifferent perspective.

I speka for myself now: I have my family, my life, my talents, my AGS forums, my music, I'm wealthy (compered to 90% of the population of Earth), I'm educated (doing a PhD now). These things do matter!

Someone with no chance, no life, no family, noparents, nothing but a gang, what would he say?

I'm not looking to say that he's innocent and that life brought things this way, I'm just trying to position the people who think that death penatly is a good idea, into a different perspective. And try to really keep an open mind. If you had some zulu killing and eating people, would you sentence them to death? I doubt it... Would you stop them and try to teach them, why they can eat pork instead of humans? Sure! Would you lock them up and make them slaves? Probably.  But you wouldn't kill them.

I just can't imagine that someone/anyone is born with the tendency to kill. With an instinct for killing. And due to that I can't justify death penatly.

Question: In Europe, is there any country that has death penatly? I honestly don't know, but I doubt it. But in USA death penatly exists. Especially in Texas. Why is that?

Over the years of growing up I've learned that the way to face a problem is to actually find the roots and destroy the roots, not face the consequences.

Example: New Orleans. The solution to flooding is not to make stronger barriers, but somehow to raise the level of the city, as it has been said. The barrier deals with the consequences of the problem, but the problem itself is that the city is bellow sea level. (Ok. I'm not sure abuot this, but take is as an example...)

[DonB]

"Aside from that statement, I have difficulty not smiling when someone uses half-assed "Gansta" speak yet still insists upon calling the gang, "The Cribs" (versus Crips).",

I am no half ass gangsta or whatever, I just ain't English so sometimes my language will read very strange, anyway, excuse me.. Crips -_-..

Appreciated for the fine redirection to my way, very smoothly done..

Back to topic now..

"New York Times write-up: "He and three friends had been driving around during the predawn hours. At about 4 a.m., they spotted a 26-year-old clerk named Albert Owens sweeping the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. Court records describe Williams herding Owens into the storeroom and ordering him to lie face down on the floor, before shooting him twice in the back. At some point, one of the men took $120 from the cash register. Two weeks later, Williams broke down the quadruple-locked door of an L.A. motel and shot Yen-I Yang and Tsai-Shai Yang, the Taiwanese proprietors."..

Okay.. you are right, maybe he is not to be trusted to be seeing the light again and stuff, still, like i said, even the Chainsaw Massacre Murder type isn't worthy for death penalty..

We shouldn't be like them, killing and all..

I don't say he wasnt a psycho mddfkka, i just think he saved a lot of lifes not going his way.. cause there are hundreds small gangs out there, not to even mention the big criPs/Bloods gangs who murder for daily cause..

And Nikolas, I think you are absolutely right with ur statement!
Some people have only their gangs, are kinda brainwached and just dont see the difference between good and bad anymore, just think all they do is to survive or just cool, going into such a gang is just making u more and more psycho..

[big brother]

Just to clear up a few things... The Bible does talk about an "eye for an eye" in the Old Testament and Jesus talks about "turning the other cheek". However, you need to keep these things in context. "Eye for an eye" was said in response to the  vengeance activities of the peoples in Canaan, where they would respond to an injustice by murdering an entire family (things would escalate from there). In perspective, "eye for an eye" makes more sense. There was also a system of "safe cities" for the wrongly accused or accidental crimes. The "eye for an eye" mandate was given to the Jews for their justice system. Like I said earlier, the law must be based on absolutes.

Jesus said "turn the other cheek" in response to the injustices inflicted on the Jewish people by the Romans (who occupied the entire Lebanon region). The Jews at the time expected their Messiah to be a revolutionary who would overthrow the Roman government. Jesus' guide is more of a personal one. If everyone treats each other as they want to be treated themselves, it's not necessary for a court of law to enact an "eye for an eye" punishment. Have I made this clear? These two different philosophies can coexist without being contradictory.

I wonder if the direction of this thread would be different had Williams killed Lennon.

[ManicMatt]

So if you think that a murderer could be re-educated into being what is considered a normal member of society, does that mean a person, say Nikolas for example, a man loyal to his family with strong values, could be re-educated into murdering people?

Also, Nikolas, I am confused as to why you would only murder someone if it was in a war? And why a spy in particular?

[Helm]

big brother, I am ill-equipped to discuss a biblical matter like this, mainly because I've uh... missed bible study for the last 15 years but I think jesus' teachings were supposed to be a 'new guide' to overturn the mosaic law (eye for an eye) completely. At least in the Orthodox church that's how it is. Your reasoning seems reaching, and the two modes of thinking ( love your enemy and eye for an eye ) seem completely inconcilable.

"the law must be based on absolutes" I don't know about that, but I'm pretty sure the interpretation of the law is left upon us incomplete human beings.

[big brother]

Let me put it like this -
Golden rule - guide for personal behavior
Eye for an eye - rule for when personal behavior violates the law

Clear now? Eye for an eye is the society's safety net enacted by the law, not by individuals acting on their own incentive.

As for Mosiac law (the 613 mitzvot of the Torah), Jesus overturned the need to sacrifice animals. He sought to convert people to see the spirit behind the law, rather than to follow it by the letter. At this time, the Rabbis were adding laws (and elaborating on existing ones), like the exact distance one can walk on Sabbat (day of rest) before it's considered "work". When the religious leaders caught Jesus and his disciples picking and eating grain on the Sabbat, they confronted them. Jesus countered with something like "Sabbat was made for man, not man for the Sabbat." Jesus was not trying to overthrow the idea of a day of rest, only define the spirit of what it means.

[TheYak]

In case I wasn't clear before, I was stating the the typical interpretation of Christians quoting the law was contrary to Jesus's statement and that people that used it as a justification for retribution didn't understand the original context (as reinforced in Leviticus).  Further interpretation gave way to proportional needs and losses with a starving person in need might receive less punishment than a wealthy thief (thus making the amount paid back more proportionally similar instead of absolutely).

[DonB]

"So if you think that a murderer could be re-educated into being what is considered a normal member of society, does that mean a person, say Nikolas for example, a man loyal to his family with strong values, could be re-educated into murdering people?

I am afraid yes.., if a man loses all he got, he changes.. some people will change agressively, other people will be just lonely all day and feel sorry for themselves..

[Venus]

I totally agree to Nikolas. At last in the EU, there is no country that has the death-penalty and the system seems to be working. You don't need to threaten people to kill them, in order to prevent them from killing others. Otherwise the European Union's killing rate would simply go throught the roof, but as far as I know, it is even lower than in the USA. I think threatening someone to kill him as a deterrend simply sends the wrong signals. Let's take a simpler example than killing. Let's say a child hits someone. Should the parents hit him for it as punishment and as a deterrend to not do it again? The person who was hit and that person's relatives might feel better, knowing that the kid had to make the same expierence as a punishment. But doesn't that also imply the idea that hitting becomes an established form to punish someone for that kid? Why do so many children who were hit by their parents, go and start hitting their own children? It's a vicious circle and to break that is really difficult. If a government now kills people as punishment, doesn't killing become an established form of punishment? I try to understand the difference between murder and killing by enacting law, but even though I consider myself to be somewhat educated, I still don't get it. How can someone who has received no education at all, but that violence is the answer to everything, get that difference?

This whole argument that death-penalty is not murder and wrong, because it is enacted by the law is something I really don't understand even though I'm really trying to. Who makes that law? It's the government. Does that mean that as long as it is stated in some law, a government can do anything they want to? That would actually make Hitler a very decent guy, who did nothing wrong at all. He was elected by the people of his country! They didn't stop him making laws that stated that Jews were not considered to be humans and could therefore be killed to "clean" the country! I think we can all agree that Hitler wasn't a decent guy and that he murdered millions of people, right? According to his own laws, he was doing nothing wrong whatsoever. Simply saying that the government may kill people, because that's how it is stated in the laws, is a bit too risky for my taste. Even if a majority of people agrees to those laws doesn't make them ultimately right. We just hope that the majority of people is doing the right think, but that's not necessarily true. I am German myself and believe me, I have to deal with my country's past on almost a daily level, because it is my duty to make sure that something like this is never going to happen again and I'm currently reminded on that, which is a really good thing. I'm quite certain that something like that is not going to happen here again, because the majority of people understood that this was just plainly wrong. A consequence of Germany's past is, that we have established some unalienable rights for people. Nothing and no-one can take those away from you, no matter what religion you believe, which colour of skin you have or what you did. The most important of these rights is living. No-one should be able to take that away from you, no matter who you are and what you did, because everyone could be wrong. A government can be wrong, people, even if there are a lot of them in a group, can be wrong. Therefore an eye for an eye should never ever be the society's saftey net, because the society could be just as wrong as the individual acting on his own incentive. If you take away someone's life, that life is lost forever and since every institution could always be wrong, I'm really glad to live in a country that ensures me to have the unalienable right of living.
There is no ultimate wrong or right. Not everything is just black and white and since we as incomplete humans are not able to determine which colour it is exactly, we shouldn't kill people, claiming that we could.