Mr Chalmers

I agree that his timing lacks any finesse. But the fact is that some folks do expect a death penalty. At least in the few places where it is still legal.
Many can’t see the need to spend the money on housing, guarding and feeding some criminals. Others, myself included, see the death penalty as an escape from the misery of prison. Although we hear of guys getting so used to being locked up after 25-30 years that they don’t want to be released
We had a case in Dallas a couple of years back where a divorced dad who had visitation rights called his ex and shot their two daughter’s, both under 7, while she listened.
Just about everybody knows of a particularly gruesome case that all but begs for the offender to be put to death. Or suffer from endless torture. Neither are all that civilized.
Still, the civilized thing is to abolish the death penalty and go with life without parole.

Australians expect executions, says PM - October 13, 2007: “AUSTRALIANS would feel “let down” if the Bali bombers on death row were not executed, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday. He said a shift from capital punishment had “been festering” for some time in Indonesia, where a legal challenge to the death penalty was under way. “I think there would be a sense of letdown if that was the sentence delivered, but not carried out,” Mr Howard said on the anniversary of the 2002 bombings, in which 88 Australians were killed….” http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/aussies-expect-executions/2007/10/12/1191696179077.html

This is SICK, really sick!!! And just before this creep sets the date for a federal election in Australia, uhh. A real bottom-trawling sleazy opportunist. But then, he and Blair were Bush’s buddies in calling for the invasion of Iraq, too (the three red-faced monkeys!).

I will kill you if you kill!!!!! Killing is so wrong!!!! The definition of mental illness is that a peron or persons do something repeatedly expecting a result different than what they have been getting each time.
Could this be the Death Penalty?

It is true that the death penalty is more a revenge factor than a determent to crime.
Texas has had way too many inmates released because of innocence. Innocence proven after a trial that convicted them.
Odds are that some innocent men have been put to death.
As to the revenge angle, it puts the condemned out of their misery, whereas Life insures misery on some level.
In Texas, it isn’t unusual for a person to be on Death Row for 5 years or longer, while all appeals wend their way through a crowded Court system.
Shrub, as “Governor”, refused to commute a female to Life, but now he wants to save a Mexican because an World Court ruled that the inmate wasn’t told that he could ask the Mexican Consulate for help.
This from a person who has steadfastly refused to be swayed by others.
Cynical me thinks that is his way of trying to win friends (for the GOP) among Latino voter’s after the Immigration mess.
Still, doing away with the Death Penalty would be a good thing in the long run.

Just to help wind the clock back again, Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard today “...says it would be a major injustice if the Bali bombers were not executed. Mr Howard has reaffirmed his stance on the issue as Indonesia’s death penalty laws are being challenged in the country’s Constitutional Court….”. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/10/2055654.htm

And that is despite people in Indonesia camapigning against the death penalty. Of course, that couldn’t be his usual bottom-scraping opportunism just before an election, now could it? And, hypocritically, he only wants the death penalty for people in other countries, not in Australia and not Australian citizens arrested for crimes in other countries.

That is, of course, also putting the Australians already tried in Indonesia for drug smuggling at further risk as their lawyers appeal the death penalty. As uncaringly and duplicitously as usual, PM Howard denies this reality to his own domestic voters. That could hardly have anything to do with the fact that those who received the death penalty (instead of life imprisonment) were of Asian ethnic orgin??? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali_Nine

The death penalty, particularly as practiced in the US, has nothing to do with justice, very little to do with punishment, and is ineffective as a deterrent.

This leaves revenge as the sole motive for it. The US is, both domestically and internationally, the most vindictive nation on earth. Americans individually are the most vindictive people on earth, as witnessed by their penchant for lawsuits and revenge crimes.

For those who can’t get by the “eye for an eye” analogy, cosider the fact that most death row residents
are poor, black, Hispanic, convicted by circumstantial evidence, and/or convicted by a jury of non-peers. Even eye witness testimony is colored by racism, uncertaintly, and presjudice. The rich rarely get convicted or, if they do, get the death panalty. If you’re looking at the alternative cost numbers, it probably costs less to imprison for life than the money, time, and resources of constant appeals.

So whether you consider justice, fairness, a potential for innocent victims, or cost, the death penalty doesn’t meet the bill.