Note that the three surviving candiates are basically anti-death penalty.

[genius]

I don't think this is an accident.

Here is a brilliant, very factual article about Kevin Cooper, an African-American who was the innocent victim of racist police and prosecutorial misconduct. This type of abuse is something our society must fix before we can consider ourselves human.

http://debateusa.com/featured/hull_richter.htm

SHOULD A BLACK MAN BE EXECUTED FOR A WHITE MAN'S CRIME?
Part I. Why Not Trust The Jury and Free The Guy Who Didn't Do It?
by Natasha H. (Age 12)

...

Back in 1983, three white or Hispanic men used an ax, an ice pick and a knife to commit four brutal murders and almost a fifth one at the Ryen home in Chino Hills. A member of the American Board of Pathology said it would be "virtually impossible" for the crimes to have been committed by one person and this was confirmed by the lone survivor, eight-year-old Joshua Ryen, who stated that the three assailants were whites or Hispanics. After the convenient arrest of an African-American who had walked out of a low security prison where he was serving time for a property crime, Joshua saw pictures of Kevin Cooper on TV and immediately exclaimed to the officer who was present, "That wasn't the guy." Unfortunately the words of a little boy who wanted justice for himself and his family did not carry any weight. The jury never heard these words. Nor was it presented with the sizable number of six-inch long blonde hairs which were found clutched in the hand of Jessica Ryen. It did not hear that the police threw three white men (two covered in massive amounts of blood) out of a Chino Hills bar the night of the murders. It also did not hear the confession of Kenneth Koon that he (Koon) and two other men carried out the murders. It did not hear about a set of bloody overalls which were worn by an additional suspect (Lee Furrows) who had previously used a knife to kill. This later evidence was destroyed by the police before the first juror was sworn in. When you have a black man in custody, why should you care about giving the defense or the jury the proof of innocence that will blow your case? The white-supremacist demonstrators holding a mock execution of a toy gorilla outside the courthouse didn't even see the need for a trial.

,,,

Opposition to these unjust executions is widespread among those who have studied the issue. Dennis Kucinich, John Kerry, Al Sharpton and John Edwards have all voiced concerns about the risks of executing innocent people under the current system. This risk and the fact that the death penalty has been used in a discriminatory fashion against African-Americans are much of the reason Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has called for its abolition. Al Sharpton and John Kerry (except for terrorists) have also shown the courage to oppose to the death penalty. A great many of Congressman Kucinich's supporters have actively protested the execution of Kevin Cooper. Those fighting to stop this unjust execution have been joined by other great leaders, such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Rubin Carter, Denzel Washington, Mike Farrell, James Cromwell, Sean Penn, John Heard, Richard Dreyfus, Janeane Garofalo, Danny Glover and Angelica Huston, who have all shown the courage to stand up and say "no" to the racist execution of Kevin Cooper. It is time for all Americans to say "no" to these executions.

...

Part II Police Misconduct: When Will We Learn? When Will We Care?
by Alexandar (age 14)

...

In the case of Kevin Cooper, police misconduct was at its pinnacle. Witnesses and circumstantial evidence made it clear three white men, not African-Americans, had committed the crime. The only eyewitness to the crime itself repeatedly told the police that Cooper was not the assailant and that he was the wrong race. That eyewitness was one of the victims. Why would he lie? Did he want the killers to get away and finish their job on him? If an eyewitness had said a black man committed a crime would the police have instantly grabbed the nearest white man and then have done their best to make a case solely against Suspect White? Here they did not bother looking for the white assailants. Instead they went after the African-American they knew did not do it.

...

[tobius]

1. "Issues" , much less a single issue had very little to

do with selecting the nominee this time around.

[Constitution]

2. Great article on Kevin Cooper. He should be freed.

I hope whoever gets elected President will appoint justices who will end the death penalty. Cooper's case shows why we need to end it.

I thought that this point of Natasha's was excellent.

...
The fact that a black man was even arrested in a case where the witnesses identified the assailants as whites or Hispanics is, itself, an indictment of our society. If the officers who worked on this case had supervised the investigation into the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald, Martin Luther King likely would have been arrested instead of Jack Ruby and the police would have worked hard to make it stick. Are the adults in our society so blinded by race-hatred that they cannot see that the emperor's case has no clothes?

...

http://debateusa.com/featured/hull_richter.htm

[IndianaGreen]

3. What the heck is "basically anti-death penalty"?

One is either for the death penalty, or against it. One is either for abortion, or against it. There is no middle ground!

Either life is precious and must be defended, or is not!

This sounds too much like some Christian fundamentalists that speak of the "sanctity" of life when they oppose abortion, but ignore it when they support the death penalty.

[Cuban_Liberal]

5. In that sense, the RCC is wonderfully consistent.

The RCC believes in a 'seamless web of sanctity' regarding human life.

[IndianaGreen]

7. The prolife position is not exclusively a Catholic one.

A valid moral position on life, whether one agrees with it or not, is immediately labeled by some as some sort of Republican conspiracy.

I think this speaks volumes about the lack of moral compass that permeates our political system.

[Cuban_Liberal]

8. Huh?

The RCC is not a 'tool' of the Republicans, no. I was just pointing out that it has the only wholly-consistent position on life.

[IndianaGreen]

10. I re-edited my reply, I am sorry

I misunderstood your reply, so I re-edited it to conform to a point I was trying to make.

Sorry!

[Constitution]

6. Kerry supports it for terrorists. The other two are simply opposed.

If you listen to Ashcroft, peace activists are terrorists.

[Cuban_Liberal]

4. I'm a police officer, and CP is barbaric.

Despite repeated instances showing the individuals were wrongfully (and sometimes in bad faith) sentenced to death, America continues to cling to this broken relic of a barbaric past.

Lock 'em up and throw away the key, or natural life at hard labor, no problem.

[Raya]

9. Really heart-warming to have an anti-Death nominiee

[maxanne]

11. we don't

Either you're for it or against it - there isn't any waffling.

[sangha]

12. "Either you're for it or against it "

Why does this phrase remind of an ugly little Republican?

[maxanne]

14. why not tell us

sangha - instead of beating around the bush?

[IndianaGreen]

15. Is murder okay, or is it always wrong to commit murder?

I don't recall the Ten Commandments putting caveats on its prohibitions. Where is the part that says that murder is wrong except when (fill-in the blank), or that adultery is wrong except when (fill-in the blank).

And if that doesn't dissuade you, how about posing the question that voting for Kerry in November is good except when (fill-in the blank)?

Is not a question of being "for" or "against," is more of a question of whether the state has the right to take human life away when life itself is held to be sacred.

There is no middle ground on the death penalty. You are either for it or you are against it!

[JVS]

13. I suppose one could be indifferent.

But yes, it is a binary thing. There is either aq death penalty active in a country or their isn't.

[genius]

17. My hunch is that Kerry is being diplomatic with his terrorism exception

Given all the lunatics wanting to fry everyone they consider soft on terrorism, he's probably just saying what he thinks will go over well. Given his expressed opposition to killing in the debate on Feb 26, I doubt if he'd actually favor executing anyone if he got into office. At least none of the people on death row in this country fall within his exception.

[gottaB]

16. Do the absolutists in this thread stand for capital-E Evil?

Justice Blackmun came around to "absolute" opposition to the death penalty not on the basis of denying the government's fundamental right to punish by death, but rather, on the basis of empirical evidence that showed him that it could not be done justly.

Said he, in his famous Callins dissent:

From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored—indeed, I have struggled—along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. The basic question—does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants "deserve" to die?—cannot be answered in the affirmative. It is not simply that this Court has allowed vague aggravating circumstances to be employed, see, for example, Arave v. Creech, (1993), relevant mitigating evidence to be disregarded, see, for example, Johnson v. Texas, (1993), and vital judicial review to be blocked, see, for example, Coleman v. Thompson, (1991). The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal, and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent, and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.

It is the decision to sentence a defendant to death—not merely the decision to make a defendant eligible for death—that may not be arbitrary. While one might hope that providing the sentencer with as much relevant mitigating evidence as possible will lead to more rational and consistent sentences, experience has taught otherwise. It seems that the decision whether a human being should live or die is so inherently subjective—rife with all of life’s understandings, experiences, prejudices, and passion—that it inevitably defies the rationality and consistency required by the Constitution.

Perhaps one day this Court will develop procedural rules or verbal formulas that actually will provide consistency, fairness, and reliability in a capital-sentencing scheme. I am not optimistic that such a day will come. I am more optimistic, though, that this Court eventually will conclude that the effort to eliminate arbitrariness while preserving fairness "in the infliction of is so plainly doomed to failure that it—and the death penalty—must be abandoned altogether." Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 442 (1980) (Marshall, J., concurring in the judgment). I may not live to see that day, but I have faith that eventually it will arrive. The path the Court has chosen lessens us all. I dissent.

I don't know that Kerry's thinking about the death penalty is informed by Blackmun's. If it were, it wouldn't be the only instance of Blackmun's influence.

People of good conscience should question the value of moral absolutism vs. judiciousness, when judiciousness leads to good being done, or ethical decisions being made.

When you vote in November, you may find a candidate on the ballot who takes an absolute moral position on the death penalty. You may find more than one, in fact, as I believe Bush's position to be absolutist. So you can be an absolutist, or you can be judicious and vote for John Kerry. Only one of these choices will hasten the demise of a barbaric system of punishment. Choose wisely, and choose well.

[arewethereyet]

18. there's only one candidate left

[genius]

19. The three best ones are left. There will be three until the convention.

The right wing news media doesn't like Kucinich and Sharpton because they speak more of the truth than the other candidates (current and past) would dare to speak. However, intead of giving in to the right wing media, it is important that we act like Democrats and stand up for democracy. One fact of democracy is that the race isn't over til it's over. No candidate has the votes to win the nomination. The nominating process won't take place until the convention. To pretend candidates don't exist is to simply quit and to let the Bush administration win.

[redqueen]

20. I just kicked my 'case for supporting Kucinich' thread

Maybe every time someone displays confusion about the fact that that we're still in the primary process, someone might bump it as a reminder, please?

[genius]

21. I like the conclusion the writers came to that Cooper needs to be freed

The evidence of his innocence is so strong and it is so evident from the changes in the evidence that it was doctored with that further testing will likely only reveal further doctoring. The writers make a good point that enough of Cooper's life has been wasted for a crime he did not commit.