...devout Catholic, he is staunchly pro-life and anti death penalty. However, I've heard him get carried away by some heinous criminal acts and wish the perpetrator would be eliminated.
Also, O'Reilly doesn't show off that he went for ashes on Ash Wednesday like others I've seen on TV.
At one time I was in complete agreement death penalty was justified for many murderers,
rapes by force, and all adult, child raping molesters, as long as they were found guilty beyond any shadow of doubt.
After reading of numerous innocent people incarcerated for years on end, on trumped up charges, some on death row, I've changed my mind.
Now I feel substantiated, thoroughly verified DNA evidence, or numerous credible, non criminal witnesses, must be presented, without any shadow of doubt of guilt, before snuffing out a cold blooded murderer, a forceful rapist or adult, child rapist molester's life.
I would like to see laws stipulating any prosecutor/ mayor/LE who knowingly allows an innocent person to go to prison for a crime they did not commit, serve the same amount of time the innocent person was forced to endure.
Cases like the one below have caused me to soften my view on the death penalty.
How about you?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/21/conviction-reversed-witness-recants/19351961/
Google, Bing or Baidu : innocent man freed thirty nine years
-- Modified on 4/15/2015 10:41:16 AM
It has nothing to do with sympathy for killers. My ideology is conservative/libertarian and I know the Constitution protects the individual from the state,not the other way around. We have one of the best criminal justice systems in the world but it's impossible to be perfect. Innocent people have been convicted. If they are dead it is too late.
I mean this in refernce to both capital and non-capital cases. Out of over 400 criminal cases that i have had, I think that there were 10 that I had questions about, and 3 that I thought the client was innocent. (On was a 3-defendant case where they were convicted of murder and i think all three were innocent, but only one was my client.)
95% of cases that are reversed are not reversed because of "innocence." The fact that the jury got an incorectly worded instruction does not mean the defendant was innocent. Likewise, the fact that evidence was improperly admitted doesn't equate with innocence. (In fact, when the subject of a search is incorrectly admitted, it actually proves guilt, but the conviction is reversed for other reasons.)
In CA with the resources given to capital defendants, the odds of an innocent person being executed are too small to calculate.
Exonerations and counting. That is mainly over the last 20 years. Care to extrapolate that number over the last 100 years?
I have always supported the death penalty when the guilt of certain offenders is not in question, and that position of mine has not changed.
I also have objected to the death penalty when it's possible the person "proven" guilty beyond a reasonable doubt could in fact be innocent. That position of mine has not changed either.
Every social policy can cause accidental death. Raise the speed limit 5 MPH and people will die. Hell, allow cars and 50,000 per year will die
The number of innocents killed because of the death penalty pale in comparison to the numbers of innocents who die beause repeat murderers are allowed to kill again;. (I have had 6 of them, 4 of whom killed people in prison, but were innocent in terms of being murdered.)
But the thing that convinced me to most was how I see how totally non-repentant any of the murderers I ever met have been. The number who feel sorry for having killed someone's son or mother is so low I can't estimate it. And they will live 50 years at tax payer expense.