Michigan Votes Forum

not every person who was executed was innocent, as the opponents would have you believe, but EVERY victim of murder is an innocent that was executed.

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine today signed into law a legislative bill that repeals that state’s death penalty. The measure was passed last week by both the NJ Senate and state Assembly. Legislation to abolish capital punishment in New Jersey was introduced after a legislature-mandated commission completed its study of the state’s death penalty and issued its final report and recommendations in early 2007. The 13-member commission received testimony from nearly 70 witnesses in five public hearings between July and November 2006, in addition to other information, and overwhelmingly adopted the following conclusions and recommendations: (1) There is no compelling evidence that the New Jersey death penalty rationally serves a legitimate penological intent. (2) The costs of the death penalty are greater than the costs of life in prison without parole, but it is not possible to measure these costs with any degree of precision. (3) There is increasing evidence that the death penalty is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency. (4) The available data do not support a finding of invidious racial bias in the application of the death penalty in New Jersey. (5) Abolition of the death penalty will eliminate the risk of disproportionality in capital sentencing. (6) The penological interest in executing a small number of persons guilty of murder is not sufficiently compelling to justify the risk of making an irreversible mistake. (7) The alternative of life imprisonment in a maximum security institution without the possibility of parole would sufficiently ensure public safety and address other legitimate social and penological interests, including the interests of the families of murder victims. (8) Sufficient funds should be dedicated to ensure adequate services and advocacy for the families of murder victims. After a quarter century of experience with its death penalty system, New Jersey’s legislature concluded that it could not make capital punishment work to the benefit of the state’s citizens. And so, they wisely gave it up. Why would Michigan legislators even begin to think they could do better?

have recieved the death penalty have never commited another crime.

that idea? did you make that one up yourself? look at patrick selepack. he was mistakenly released after committing another crime, only to murder multiple times.

(1) There is no compelling evidence that the New Jersey death penalty rationally serves a legitimate penological intent. [of course there isn't. it hasn't been used since the 1960's.] (2) The costs of the death penalty are greater than the costs of life in prison without parole, but it is not possible to measure these costs with any degree of precision. [oh? why not? it seems that the state was mighty satisfied with the precision of those costs when it voted to abolish the death penalty. why is it NOW impossible to accurately measure those costs? could it be because they are not actually any higher?] (3) There is increasing evidence that the death penalty is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency. [how has decency 'evolved'? what is right and decent today is basically the same as what was right and decent during the time of christ. what has 'evolved' is the liberal's love of murderers.] (4) The available data do not support a finding of invidious racial bias in the application of the death penalty in New Jersey. [that's because new jersey hasn't executed anyone in almost fifty years.] (5) Abolition of the death penalty will eliminate the risk of disproportionality in capital sentencing. [but it will not eliminate the possibility that an innocent will die in custody under life sentence. it will also not bring justice to the families of the victims. it will also not stop the murderer from murdering again. it will also not lower the cost of incarcerating murderers in new jersey, as murderers have been kept in the general population for fifty years now. so what was accomplished by this move?] (6) The penological interest in executing a small number of persons guilty of murder is not sufficiently compelling to justify the risk of making an irreversible mistake. [but the penological interest in incarcerating a murderer for life without parole IS???] (7) The alternative of life imprisonment in a maximum security institution without the possibility of parole would sufficiently ensure public safety and address other legitimate social and penological interests, including the interests of the families of murder victims. [okay, so who is going to be jailed for life if an inmate ever escapes? who is going to be jailed for life if a murderer kills a guard? who is going to be jailed for life if a murderer is ever 'accidentally released'? life without parole doesn't address those interests either.] (8) Sufficient funds should be dedicated to ensure adequate services and advocacy for the families of murder victims. [taken from where? new jersey doesn't have the funds to feed it's inmates, much less ensure adequate services and advocacy for the families of murder victims. besides, what if the only advocacy the victims desire is the death of the murderer? who will provide THAT advocacy?] After a quarter century of experience with its death penalty system, New Jersey’s legislature concluded that it could not make capital punishment work to the benefit of the state’s citizens. And so, they wisely gave it up. Why would Michigan legislators even begin to think they could do better? [after a half a century of NOT executing inmates, by their choice, i wouldn't say that they have experience with capital punishment. as not one inmate has been capitally punished in that long. where did this 'experience' come from? probably the same place that the bogus figures came from. tell me, are prison costs in new jersey going to come down from all this 'cost savings' or not?]

murderers in new jersey will be rehabilitated? i wonder how many will be mistakenly released? i wonder how many have already killed again in jail? i wonder how many will kill again? i wonder what new jersey does has anything to do with michigan? michigan has about as much 'capital punishment experience' as new jersey. it DOES have two cities in the top ten for murder rates. pretty soon, new jersey will too.

jersey i'd be mad as hell at my legislators for allowing BILLIONS OF MY TAX DOLLARS TO BE SPENT FOR NOTHING. for fifty years, the citizens of new jersey have been paying for a capital punishment system that has executed no one. police officers apprehended murderers, citizens sat on juries and convicted, judges passed sentence, supreme courts upheld that sentence, but the state refused to carry out the punishment after billing the taxpayers for the service. i wonder who will win the next election in new jersey? the people who perpetrated this? or the people the voters will choose to REPLACE THEM?

“A day after New Jersey banned executions, newly released figures show that capital punishment dropped this year to a 13-year low. “Forty-two people have been put to death this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a Washington-based group that opposes the practice. That figure is down 57 percent from what it was in 1999, when 98 inmates were executed. “Next year's figures are expected to drop further. The Supreme Court is to hold oral arguments January 7 about whether lethal injection protocols in 36 of the 37 states with the death penalty are constitutional. … “ Now is not the time for any state to consider adding capital punishment to its arsenal of force to be used against citizens.

"now is not the time for any state to consider adding capital punishment to its arsenal of force to be used against citizens." You make it sound like they kill you for no reason. I don't consider murderers citizens. This would be a great time to add this tool in our fight.

the TRUE executed innocents keep on being killed by the murderers the liberals love so much. detroit's murder rate is the highest in the country, soon new jersey's will be almost as high. maybe the opponents should start thinking about that too.

"Now is not the time for any state to consider adding capital punishment to its arsenal of force to be used against citizens." the only citizens this is used against is the murdering kind. i guess we have to do everything we can to 'protect' those citizens from society instead of protecting society from them.

shall we? “Forty-two people have been put to death this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a Washington-based group that opposes the practice. That figure is down 57 percent from what it was in 1999, when 98 inmates were executed." four hundred and eighteen people have been put to death this year in detroit alone, according to the national institute of justice (NIJ) a washington-based group that keeps track of such things. that is up 6.28% from the previous year, when 398 innocent people were executed. shall we take a look at flint's murder rate? it's up too.

after they banned executions in 1963 or 2007? they haven't had any executions since 1963. i wonder where all those billions of dollars they DIDN'T SPEND ON EXECUTIONS WENT? i can't wait to see how much money this move DOESN'T SAVE. we'll be watching. if it doesn't save new jersey any money, it doesn't cost that much. now is the time to 'prove the pudding'. let's see how they do.

the left wants government to do everything for them, except put murderers to death. they don't mind putting innocent souls to death by murderers, or by abortion, but capital punishment is definately verboten. this move, and those who applaud it, only serve to expose those who TRULY LOVE MURDERERS. there is no other reason to preserve the murderer's lives at all costs.

"THOU SHALT NOT KILL" only applies to murderers. it's okay to kill innocent victims. it's okay to kill innocent babies in the womb. but it's DEFINATELY NOT OKAY TO KILL HEINOUS MURDERERS.

Hello! I'm MikeDoe! Check out my site!

Hello! I'm MikeDoe! Check out my site!

Hi! I'm John Strass and i like your site! Thank you!

Hi! I'm John Strass and i like your site! Thank you!

to add the death penalty to the arsenal of force used against it's criminal element. the supreme court is looking at the constitutionality of lethal injections on people who habitually abused drugs for decades, 'blowing out' all the veins and arteries in their bodies to feed their habits. this allows many states to drop lethal injections totally in favor of other methods that HAVE passed constitutional muster, such as the electric chair, hanging, firing squads and the gas chamber. lethal injection was an attempt by the left to 'humanize' the death penalty by taking away any hint of pain, in other words, it was a 'feel good' measure on both ends. the problem is, it didn't work as planned. putting someone to death rarely does. now, i'm not adverse to new and different methods being tried to relieve the suffering of convicted murderers, but i'm also quite fond of the deterrent effect of the guillotine. i believe that murder rates will drop if executions are televised. look at what happened after sadam was hung. you don't see anyone lining up to be the next despot in charge, do you? no. you can never stop each and every murder, but you can stop every murderer who you execute from ever murdering again. our opponents have bleated repeatedly about "WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN INNOCENT MAN IS EXECUTED?" i wouldn't know. it hasn't happened yet. they can't show me where it has, after two hundred years of executing convicted murderers. they say they don't want to take the 'chance' of executing an innocent man, but they don't mind keeping an innocent man in prison for the rest of his life. that doesn't bother them a bit. the murderer still ends up dead, but we have to pay over a hundred dollars a day to keep him fat, dumb, and happy till he dies of old age. that's not counting his geriatric drugs and all those doctor visits we have to pay for. now, the opponents will also bleat "the cost of executions is too high." but they cannot show a reliable source for their information. no state budget information covers that issue specifically. texas charges much less than we do per inmate per day, and they still manage to maintain the most prolific capital punishment system in the country. imagine that. direct proof that the opponents are lying. the states that have recently recinded capital punishment didn't do so because the people called for it, they hid their decision behind economics. the truth is that they don't have the stomach for it. michigan never did. michigan DOES have two cities in the top ten murder list. in fact, detroit and flint were two of the top three. i say that people in those cities murder because they know that, even with the worst case scenario, they will be coddled for the rest of their lives. i don't call that punishment.

executed a SINGLE murderer since 1963. they have payed BILLIONS, or at least they SAY they have payed billions, to keep murderers alive and well at our expense. next, they CLAIM that it is horribly MORE expensive to keep a murderer alive than it is to keep a run-of-the-mill criminal alive. they would have us believe this, even though they have not executed a single inmate in forty plus years. they have BILKED the state for all this money, and kept the inmates just like they keep the other inmates. now, jersey has gotten rid of the death penalty. have they SAVED MONEY? the savings should have started from day one. no. they have not saved their taxpayers a dime. now that the supreme court has ruled that lethal injection IS constitutional, i hope that executions can start to take place once again. let's give these murderers a sense that JUSTICE WILL SEEK THEM OUT AND FIND THEM.

people REALLY want the death penalty. let's put it up for a vote in the presidential election. of course, opponents don't want to do that, it would end up showing them that they are wrong.