5% of Americans executed being innocent is apparently acceptable to some haters of "liberals"

[DFW]

The Washington Post ran a poll (I couldn't find it again, so maybe it generated more heat than the Bezos staff expected to handle). It came on the heels of the report of the botched execution in Oklahoma (where the condemned seemed to be quite guilty, by the way). It asked readers to comment what percentage of innocents executed was an "acceptable level." I couldn't believe that anyone would vote for a number greater than zero, but some people either didn't get what the poll was asking, or they have hearts hovering around zero on the Kelvin scale.

One of the options was "I don't believe in the death penalty," and it got 76% while the poll was still findable. But that left 24% of the responders who thought that SOME number of innocents being executed was reasonable collateral damage as long as we kept executing convicts. One commenter said he was OK with 5%, although he was sure that "liberals" would object.

OBJECT??? Oh, yeah, I object, alright. How bloodthirsty ARE these sickos anyway?

My response was that I'd go along with the 5% rule as long as the wrongly executed innocents were all people who specifically expressed the view that the wrongful execution of innocent people placed on Death Row was "acceptable." I also suggested that to reduce error, cops who manipulated evidence, along with prosecutors and judges who were in on the deal, should meet the same fate as their victims (should cut down on wrongful convictions a little, don't you think?).

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the site with the poll again to find out if the the heartless bastard was willing to sacrifice himself as one of the 5%.

[Jim__]

1. Well, like Scalia said, it's not like they "really" die.

They just pass on to their next life. How's that for the reasoning of a supreme court justice?

[jberryhill]

2. When your religion revolves around executing an innocent man...

...it comes as no surprise.

If Rome used lethal injection, imagine all the syringe jewelry they'd wear.

[DFW]

3. Half the emperors would have had more peaceful ends than what they got, anyway n/t

[DirkGently]

4. If you want to make a Justice Omelet ...

... you have to murder some innocent people here and there.

Executing people responsible for a wrongful death-penalty conviction is an interesting idea. I'd predict the number of prosecutors willing to risk that and seek the death penalty would be right around NONE OF THEM.

[KitSileya]

5. I was debating whether I should do an OP asking if Americans are getting more or less blood-thirsty

After reading some of the threads on the botched execution, I was horrified at how many simply don't seem to care about the chance that as long as one has the death penalty, there is a chance, nay a certainty, that someone who is innocent will be executed. Especially in a country as race-divided as the US, that seems to me to be obvious. They just want to kill the "monsters" without thought to fair trials, the Innocence Project, racial profiling, and cop brutality.

When this is seen alongside all the defenders of private handgun ownership, and "stand your ground" murders, and the almost fetishistic views of one day defending yourself against an imagined foe, I simply don't understand the American psyche these days. I guess I have lived too long in Norway.




(BTW, I put "monsters" in scare quotes simply because I think it is very dangerous to start referring to some people as something other than human based on their actions. Their actions are horrendous, yes, but we when we label them as other, it makes it easier for us to do monstrous things to them. It is called dehumanizing them, and it is the same mechanism that gave us Abu Ghraib, Rwanda, and, invoking Godwin's law, the Holocaust.)

[DFW]

6. If you've lived in Norway, no wonder!

Jeg kan førstå det!