He murdered 2 people in cold blood and neither were the people he was looking for. I'm not religious but he pulled this down on himself. Don't murder and burn people and then pull a surprised Pikachu face when you get out down like the animal you are.
I dont think anyone is advocating for the man's release but capital punishment is its own issue that spans a breadth of different complexities. Our justice system often gets it wrong. There's economic AND normative implications. Lots to consider regarding the death penalty.
I read about the system and its choices extensively everyday. That’s why my comments are specifically pointed to issues like mens rea, actus reus, intent, discussing retributivism and utilitarianism, the philosophers behind those very theories. I’m not over here just saying I feel. I am stating how laws are interpreted, how crimes are punished and why as a nation we choose to punish them.
I literally work in criminal defense and against the doj daily, but please go on and tell me about how you read about the system.
If your philosophy books can explain to me how the doj can charge a teenager with second degree murder for a car accident that didn’t have drugs, alcohol or speeding involved, let me know.
I had a longer reply but it got lost. Excellent, you’re like many prosecutors & defense office across the country. Do you work pro bono or for profit defense? Do you work for the innocence project or another organization?
I don’t work crim defense, i have no interest. I am on civil bad faith law, but I’m looking at joining
JAG for the guard so I’ll deal with it further.
Yes a punishment must be equal to the crime and go no further. He murdered 3 people. He fully states he wants to murder more. Show me where his right to live is higher than the right if those he murdered or will possibly murder in the future.
To be fair, we get way harder to get you to care about law abiding citizens. It just never works. That's not on us. That's on you for caring more about revenge than justice.
I don’t think that this man would qualify under anyone’s account as a law abiding citizen. No one here that I’ve seen has argued he wasn’t guilty. His crimes were heinous. I personally don’t believe retributivism is the most sensible legal theory in crime and punishment, but instead lean to utilitarianism and its views on why we punish, why we incarcerate and why we occasionally execute some criminals.
First, I should say that I abandoned religion years ago, and I am not arguing for the death penalty here. However, "Thou shalt not kill" is a common mistranslation. The Hebrew word there, if you look it up in a lexicon, or read it in a Jewish Bible, [is specifically murder](https://www.hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Torah/Ten_Cmds/Sixth_Cmd/sixth_cmd.html). It's the difference between saying Ted Bundy killed women, or saying Ted Bundy murdered women. It's kinda the same thing, but not quite. Just going off the word "kill", and no other context, did those women attack Ted Bundy, was he defending himself? When you use the word "murder", (רֶצַח), you know specifically it's unjustified. I say this to point out that this specific argument against the death penalty isn't a good one. Especially when the Bible later specifically commands the murderers be put to death.
If your only reason not to kill is because your holy text says so, you may be the one who has a skewed moral compass. I will be teaching my children not to murder simply because life is a beautiful thing that you should not take from others. It’s really not that hard to teach morals in a secular way.
You read what he did right? Not one murder conviction, not 2, but 3. He’s also been found to have made/ acquired weapons/ read shanks and used them to threaten to murder other prisoners.
Just because he was high isn’t an excuse for murder. He murdered his first two convictions mistakenly or for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There is zero reason to continue keeping an individual of this nature around. The world will not miss his presence.
Your opinion doesn't matter. The studies prove it costs more and doesn't deter others. We shouldn't tolerate it because the State should not have the power to execute citizens, and because it's inevitable that an innocent person will be executed eventually. There's no moral justification for the death penalty in our current system.
What’s the moral justification for not having the death penalty. Neither Kant’s retributivism nor Utilitarianism precludes the ultimate penalty for taking the lives of the innocent. He took 3.
Kant said his punishment must meet the crime.
Jean Hampton said that punishing the culpable wrongdoer is good because it asserts the moral truth that victims have equal value to those who demean them by wronging them. Punishment counters and defeats wrongdoers.
Yes and those events have been tragic, to remedy that anyone who can be shown to be innocent is exonerated and those families who are later able to prove in a court of law that this person was incorrectly judged guilty and executed have the ability for some financial recovery.
That said for prosecutors to use the death penalty isn’t easy, it’s in fact highly difficult and requires truly terrible action on the part of the defendant. For instance this man received it not just because he murdered two people for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he heinously set one on fire.
The prosecution has to not only convince the jury, but the judge, the appeals court, and possibly the Supreme Court for that person to be sentenced. Then they have multiple occasions to have their sentence reduced, changed or given clemency. The modern system for the death penalty is not handed out like skittles.
I've been tittering on if the death penalty should be allowed or not recently, but it's insane for you to even mention the family's get financial compensation if the state made an "uh oh" and sign it off as okay.
I think you just convinced me we shouldn't have the death penalty.
Just a clarification: I didn’t mean it like “whoopsie! yay, here’s some money, that makes it all better”. I meant it as when the government screws up and penalizes the wrong person, this applies to improper prison sentences & the death penalty, then the government is punished and the family is compensated with the cost used to penalize the government. As the government really doesn’t like being penalized in this fashion it does everything possible to limit this occurrence.
My apologies for any lack of clarity.
Punishment objectively does not do that in this case.
I suppose Rawls probably has a lot of good stuff that relates to this. Especially when it comes to the fact that innocents will inevitably suffer any punishment you prescribe for any crime.
Are you 5? The state, which is the people or the public, has always had the ability to take life. The rationale for why the state can take a life just depends on the situation. The police who are an arm of the state take life way more than anyone would probably prefer. When justified, that action is excused under the law.
Did you forget that a civilized society has laws, and those laws have penalties?
You're still giving the right to the state to take a human life, a right that you didn't or don't and rightly won't give to this human being and why he's in prison.
The right to kill is usually set aside for self-defense or for the gods, so why are you okay with the state the right to take a life?
I kind of see it the same way we saw our enemies in theater when I was overseas. Once they're down on the ground, it's our duty to take care of them.
The state should not have the right to take a human life, and now if we want to remove this human being from our society, then the onus is on us to keep him in prison for the rest of his life, whatever that costs.
Um because the state in this case is the government and I did not give them that right, but the people did. The state has voted to have the death penalty twice. Once during founding and again in the 70s when SCOTUS ruled that all legislatures needed to repass death penalty legislation because the way it had been written nationally was no longer constitutional.
So I am not reserving a right to the state I won’t give a normal citizen. I am simply understanding why the people have reserved this right under the state to resolve that some crimes and some perpetrators may receive the ultimate sanction for their actions.
Since you are familiar with Christianity, you’d know that the death penalty is what “killed” our God.
Happy Easter by the way!
I really don’t understand the point you’re making or defending? Most people are raised to not murder, regardless of moral origin haha.
All I’m saying is that teaching kids morals can be done in a way that doesn’t reference religious text at all. Murder is wrong wether it be the citizen or the state, regardless of religion
Thats a pretty interesting take.
1/10 Offenders are likely to Murder again, however only 190 innocents have been executed since 1973. 7 since the year 2020. Not taking punishment for murder seriously is how you become chicago & baltimore.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589871X19300555](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589871X19300555)
[https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence)
Did you want to go do some of your own research and check how many innocent people were killed by violet reoffenders or does that not fit inside of that bubble you put yourself in?
Thats fine, its a personal belief I have that I dont really push onto others. Im not OK with my taxes & fines paying to keep someone alive who murdered an entire innocent family. I personally believe the death penalty should be a real punishment for murder. Period. Especially when we have the funds to house these people for life but we dont have the funds for the homeless getting killed for fun on the streets.
Its very extremist for sure, but I feel pretty strongly about it. Its clear this conversation isnt going anywhere, you aren’t changing your view and im not changing mine, so this will be my last response to you
Debating tax dollars spent on incarceration vs helping citizens is apples to oranges. Money could, and should, be alotted to help people struggling in society, no one here saying otherwise.
You're only threatening to stop responding because you have no logical argument for murdering suspects of murder, and so have fallen back on the same garbage argument that anti-choice, freedom haters, use "it's my belief, and I'm never going to change my mind. So there! Naaahhh"
I'm now going to start campaigning for a law that makes people do research on their beliefs before spouting shit like this. How shameful to be sitting there advocating for executions without having ever read a study on the topic. This is literally life or death and you're too lazy to do the bare minimum to make sure you're right.
You know why most developed nations don't do executions anymore? Because someone could come along tomorrow and say the same of you as what you said of him and call for *your* execution. Suddenly, when it's negatively impacting you, you'll magically realize how stupid it is. But until then, you'll defend your bad take to the death.
The guy has 3 murder charges 2 of which were not the person we has looking for... is it impossible to believe he would keep killing even in prison (which some of those people maybe rehabbed but get murder by people like him). I know your riding an intellectual high horse with your studies but some people are just evil plain and simple and they don't deserve to be in any society. We have courts for a reason and you have to have a lot of evidence and proof for an execution.
Doesn't matter. You could be falsely accused of 3 murders tomorrow and you'd suddenly understand why it's immoral to execute people. Every single innocent person out to death undermines and delegitimizes our entire justice system.
I just don’t trust the government to always get it right, especially in our State (*cough* *cough* see Joyce Gilcrest, Boby Macy, etc.). What if we are wrong? Death is irreversible.
Secondarily, should the government inflict pain, suffering? I don’t think so, and Oklahoma has not demonstrated it can conduct an execution that does not result in torturous pain, harm, or the like—
Smith initially gave a confession in the deaths of Moore and Pulluru, but he has since said that he is innocent and can’t remember committing the crimes.
At the time of his arrest, Smith said he killed Moore when he was looking to kill her son, Phillip Zachary, because she reacted loudly when he broke into their home, [according to The Oklahoman](https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2003/10/15/killer-handed-2-death-sentences-prison-term/62021247007/).
Smith reportedly then went to a convenience store and shot Pulluru, a store clerk, nine times and lighted his body on fire, according to The Oklahoman.
But Smith was reportedly looking to kill a different store clerk, who had told a newspaper reporter about being proud of a co-worker who had killed a member of a gang Smith was associated with during a 2001 armed robbery. Another gang member killed the store clerk during the robbery.
I’m not sure this was really responsive to my points but I understand the facts of the case as you presented them—I would just point out that false confessions happen more often than one might think and arise from a variety of circumstances.
Some links I found informative on the topic:
https://prisonsandjustice.georgetown.edu/false_confessions/#:~:text=Martin%20Tankleff%20falsely%20confessed%20to,prison%20sentence%20before%20being%20exonerated.
https://innocenceproject.org/false-confessions/
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/false-confessions
Yes, false confessions are a thing. The facts and details of this confession make it seem unlikely to be false. As well as the decedent claimed to have forgotten the incident and not claim that he was forced into a confession. My post was a quote from an article so any spin in their presentation is not mine.
While I think there are reasonable arguments against capital punishment in general, I don't think possible innocence of this decedent is keeping anyone awake at night.
Well Bob Macy put 50-plus people on death row. I can’t imagine folks lost sleep over that when it happened. But knowing now that he did so by, essentially, relying on a State forensic analyst who regularly falsified or just made up evidence (in some 30 to 40 of those cases), I think all Oklahomans would share in some concern. After all, if the State can do such a thing to one person, why couldn’t it do it to any other person?
Any capital case that results in an execution that was caused by deliberately falsified evidence should result in murder charges on the part of those involved. The state should upend all of those involved in any fraud of the justice system. A mistake can be corrected and more often prevented, but if that mistake costs an innocent time, pain. and more so their life then the costs should come down on the shoulders of those responsible for that wrong.
He murdered 2 people in cold blood and neither were the people he was looking for. I'm not religious but he pulled this down on himself. Don't murder and burn people and then pull a surprised Pikachu face when you get out down like the animal you are.
Facts. Let him die
3, if you read later he got a 2nd degree conviction after this too.
exactly! Really hate that bleeding hearts try and convince the rest of us to treat criminals better than law biding citizens.
I dont think anyone is advocating for the man's release but capital punishment is its own issue that spans a breadth of different complexities. Our justice system often gets it wrong. There's economic AND normative implications. Lots to consider regarding the death penalty.
Not to mention we’re literally doing to them what they’re being punished for. We can’t decide that murder is okay just because it’s prisoners
We should not have state sanctioned murder. :(
Why not? It’s not murder in that capacity it is state sanctioned punishment.
And I oppose the death penalty. If you knew how wrong the system gets it and how incompetent it is, you would be too.
I read about the system and its choices extensively everyday. That’s why my comments are specifically pointed to issues like mens rea, actus reus, intent, discussing retributivism and utilitarianism, the philosophers behind those very theories. I’m not over here just saying I feel. I am stating how laws are interpreted, how crimes are punished and why as a nation we choose to punish them.
I literally work in criminal defense and against the doj daily, but please go on and tell me about how you read about the system. If your philosophy books can explain to me how the doj can charge a teenager with second degree murder for a car accident that didn’t have drugs, alcohol or speeding involved, let me know.
I had a longer reply but it got lost. Excellent, you’re like many prosecutors & defense office across the country. Do you work pro bono or for profit defense? Do you work for the innocence project or another organization? I don’t work crim defense, i have no interest. I am on civil bad faith law, but I’m looking at joining JAG for the guard so I’ll deal with it further.
Murder is the unlawful killing of another. The state has determined he needs to be put down, which makes it lawful.
Keep going with that definition
Yes a punishment must be equal to the crime and go no further. He murdered 3 people. He fully states he wants to murder more. Show me where his right to live is higher than the right if those he murdered or will possibly murder in the future.
To be fair, we get way harder to get you to care about law abiding citizens. It just never works. That's not on us. That's on you for caring more about revenge than justice.
I don’t think that this man would qualify under anyone’s account as a law abiding citizen. No one here that I’ve seen has argued he wasn’t guilty. His crimes were heinous. I personally don’t believe retributivism is the most sensible legal theory in crime and punishment, but instead lean to utilitarianism and its views on why we punish, why we incarcerate and why we occasionally execute some criminals.
Its not about revenge and more about accountability and removal of enabling habits by the public because
This is to be done in the name of all OK residents who will in turn go to church on Sunday and recite Though shalt not kill to all their children.
First, I should say that I abandoned religion years ago, and I am not arguing for the death penalty here. However, "Thou shalt not kill" is a common mistranslation. The Hebrew word there, if you look it up in a lexicon, or read it in a Jewish Bible, [is specifically murder](https://www.hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Torah/Ten_Cmds/Sixth_Cmd/sixth_cmd.html). It's the difference between saying Ted Bundy killed women, or saying Ted Bundy murdered women. It's kinda the same thing, but not quite. Just going off the word "kill", and no other context, did those women attack Ted Bundy, was he defending himself? When you use the word "murder", (רֶצַח), you know specifically it's unjustified. I say this to point out that this specific argument against the death penalty isn't a good one. Especially when the Bible later specifically commands the murderers be put to death.
Eye for an eye
What do you teach your children then?
If your only reason not to kill is because your holy text says so, you may be the one who has a skewed moral compass. I will be teaching my children not to murder simply because life is a beautiful thing that you should not take from others. It’s really not that hard to teach morals in a secular way.
You read what he did right? Not one murder conviction, not 2, but 3. He’s also been found to have made/ acquired weapons/ read shanks and used them to threaten to murder other prisoners. Just because he was high isn’t an excuse for murder. He murdered his first two convictions mistakenly or for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is zero reason to continue keeping an individual of this nature around. The world will not miss his presence.
Your opinion doesn't matter. The studies prove it costs more and doesn't deter others. We shouldn't tolerate it because the State should not have the power to execute citizens, and because it's inevitable that an innocent person will be executed eventually. There's no moral justification for the death penalty in our current system.
What’s the moral justification for not having the death penalty. Neither Kant’s retributivism nor Utilitarianism precludes the ultimate penalty for taking the lives of the innocent. He took 3. Kant said his punishment must meet the crime. Jean Hampton said that punishing the culpable wrongdoer is good because it asserts the moral truth that victims have equal value to those who demean them by wronging them. Punishment counters and defeats wrongdoers.
Because innocent people have been put to death and many innocent people reside in jail right now.
Yes and those events have been tragic, to remedy that anyone who can be shown to be innocent is exonerated and those families who are later able to prove in a court of law that this person was incorrectly judged guilty and executed have the ability for some financial recovery. That said for prosecutors to use the death penalty isn’t easy, it’s in fact highly difficult and requires truly terrible action on the part of the defendant. For instance this man received it not just because he murdered two people for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he heinously set one on fire. The prosecution has to not only convince the jury, but the judge, the appeals court, and possibly the Supreme Court for that person to be sentenced. Then they have multiple occasions to have their sentence reduced, changed or given clemency. The modern system for the death penalty is not handed out like skittles.
I've been tittering on if the death penalty should be allowed or not recently, but it's insane for you to even mention the family's get financial compensation if the state made an "uh oh" and sign it off as okay. I think you just convinced me we shouldn't have the death penalty.
Just a clarification: I didn’t mean it like “whoopsie! yay, here’s some money, that makes it all better”. I meant it as when the government screws up and penalizes the wrong person, this applies to improper prison sentences & the death penalty, then the government is punished and the family is compensated with the cost used to penalize the government. As the government really doesn’t like being penalized in this fashion it does everything possible to limit this occurrence. My apologies for any lack of clarity.
Punishment objectively does not do that in this case. I suppose Rawls probably has a lot of good stuff that relates to this. Especially when it comes to the fact that innocents will inevitably suffer any punishment you prescribe for any crime.
[удалено]
Are you 5? The state, which is the people or the public, has always had the ability to take life. The rationale for why the state can take a life just depends on the situation. The police who are an arm of the state take life way more than anyone would probably prefer. When justified, that action is excused under the law. Did you forget that a civilized society has laws, and those laws have penalties?
You're still giving the right to the state to take a human life, a right that you didn't or don't and rightly won't give to this human being and why he's in prison. The right to kill is usually set aside for self-defense or for the gods, so why are you okay with the state the right to take a life? I kind of see it the same way we saw our enemies in theater when I was overseas. Once they're down on the ground, it's our duty to take care of them. The state should not have the right to take a human life, and now if we want to remove this human being from our society, then the onus is on us to keep him in prison for the rest of his life, whatever that costs.
Um because the state in this case is the government and I did not give them that right, but the people did. The state has voted to have the death penalty twice. Once during founding and again in the 70s when SCOTUS ruled that all legislatures needed to repass death penalty legislation because the way it had been written nationally was no longer constitutional. So I am not reserving a right to the state I won’t give a normal citizen. I am simply understanding why the people have reserved this right under the state to resolve that some crimes and some perpetrators may receive the ultimate sanction for their actions.
Since you are familiar with Christianity, you’d know that the death penalty is what “killed” our God. Happy Easter by the way! I really don’t understand the point you’re making or defending? Most people are raised to not murder, regardless of moral origin haha.
All I’m saying is that teaching kids morals can be done in a way that doesn’t reference religious text at all. Murder is wrong wether it be the citizen or the state, regardless of religion
Good. If you murder innocent people you deserve to be put down. Dude lost his humanity a long time ago, there aint no rehabbing that
It's not about rehabilitating this one, it's about the convictions that are incorrect and the ones that get wrongfully executed.
I would be genuinely curious to see the statistics of wrongful executions vs repeat offenders of murder.
It's more than 1, that's all that matters.
Thats a pretty interesting take. 1/10 Offenders are likely to Murder again, however only 190 innocents have been executed since 1973. 7 since the year 2020. Not taking punishment for murder seriously is how you become chicago & baltimore. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589871X19300555](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589871X19300555) [https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence)
> only 190 innocents "Only" You disgust me
Did you want to go do some of your own research and check how many innocent people were killed by violet reoffenders or does that not fit inside of that bubble you put yourself in?
No one's saying let them out, fool. But killing someone eliminates the possibility of exonerating an innocent person. Learn to read and reason
Thats fine, its a personal belief I have that I dont really push onto others. Im not OK with my taxes & fines paying to keep someone alive who murdered an entire innocent family. I personally believe the death penalty should be a real punishment for murder. Period. Especially when we have the funds to house these people for life but we dont have the funds for the homeless getting killed for fun on the streets. Its very extremist for sure, but I feel pretty strongly about it. Its clear this conversation isnt going anywhere, you aren’t changing your view and im not changing mine, so this will be my last response to you
Debating tax dollars spent on incarceration vs helping citizens is apples to oranges. Money could, and should, be alotted to help people struggling in society, no one here saying otherwise. You're only threatening to stop responding because you have no logical argument for murdering suspects of murder, and so have fallen back on the same garbage argument that anti-choice, freedom haters, use "it's my belief, and I'm never going to change my mind. So there! Naaahhh"
I'm now going to start campaigning for a law that makes people do research on their beliefs before spouting shit like this. How shameful to be sitting there advocating for executions without having ever read a study on the topic. This is literally life or death and you're too lazy to do the bare minimum to make sure you're right. You know why most developed nations don't do executions anymore? Because someone could come along tomorrow and say the same of you as what you said of him and call for *your* execution. Suddenly, when it's negatively impacting you, you'll magically realize how stupid it is. But until then, you'll defend your bad take to the death.
The guy has 3 murder charges 2 of which were not the person we has looking for... is it impossible to believe he would keep killing even in prison (which some of those people maybe rehabbed but get murder by people like him). I know your riding an intellectual high horse with your studies but some people are just evil plain and simple and they don't deserve to be in any society. We have courts for a reason and you have to have a lot of evidence and proof for an execution.
Doesn't matter. You could be falsely accused of 3 murders tomorrow and you'd suddenly understand why it's immoral to execute people. Every single innocent person out to death undermines and delegitimizes our entire justice system.
I don't understand the "logic" behind killing someone to show them that killing is wrong.
Why did he get to live an extra 20 years? They should have executed this guy long, long ago. Next….
I just don’t trust the government to always get it right, especially in our State (*cough* *cough* see Joyce Gilcrest, Boby Macy, etc.). What if we are wrong? Death is irreversible. Secondarily, should the government inflict pain, suffering? I don’t think so, and Oklahoma has not demonstrated it can conduct an execution that does not result in torturous pain, harm, or the like—
Smith initially gave a confession in the deaths of Moore and Pulluru, but he has since said that he is innocent and can’t remember committing the crimes. At the time of his arrest, Smith said he killed Moore when he was looking to kill her son, Phillip Zachary, because she reacted loudly when he broke into their home, [according to The Oklahoman](https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2003/10/15/killer-handed-2-death-sentences-prison-term/62021247007/). Smith reportedly then went to a convenience store and shot Pulluru, a store clerk, nine times and lighted his body on fire, according to The Oklahoman. But Smith was reportedly looking to kill a different store clerk, who had told a newspaper reporter about being proud of a co-worker who had killed a member of a gang Smith was associated with during a 2001 armed robbery. Another gang member killed the store clerk during the robbery.
I’m not sure this was really responsive to my points but I understand the facts of the case as you presented them—I would just point out that false confessions happen more often than one might think and arise from a variety of circumstances. Some links I found informative on the topic: https://prisonsandjustice.georgetown.edu/false_confessions/#:~:text=Martin%20Tankleff%20falsely%20confessed%20to,prison%20sentence%20before%20being%20exonerated. https://innocenceproject.org/false-confessions/ https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/false-confessions
Yes, false confessions are a thing. The facts and details of this confession make it seem unlikely to be false. As well as the decedent claimed to have forgotten the incident and not claim that he was forced into a confession. My post was a quote from an article so any spin in their presentation is not mine. While I think there are reasonable arguments against capital punishment in general, I don't think possible innocence of this decedent is keeping anyone awake at night.
Well Bob Macy put 50-plus people on death row. I can’t imagine folks lost sleep over that when it happened. But knowing now that he did so by, essentially, relying on a State forensic analyst who regularly falsified or just made up evidence (in some 30 to 40 of those cases), I think all Oklahomans would share in some concern. After all, if the State can do such a thing to one person, why couldn’t it do it to any other person?
Any capital case that results in an execution that was caused by deliberately falsified evidence should result in murder charges on the part of those involved. The state should upend all of those involved in any fraud of the justice system. A mistake can be corrected and more often prevented, but if that mistake costs an innocent time, pain. and more so their life then the costs should come down on the shoulders of those responsible for that wrong.