TLM == NSF discussion forums for now

[That Annoying Kid]

what up yall?

The NSF are still MIA so once again TLM gets to make due.

I've been following the Scott Peterson case cause 1) it was local 2) it was interesting and it's culminated with him being put to death for the murder of his pregnant wife and kid. If you do not know the background of this case google it and you will find loads.

I could care less if he is put to death, he probably is guilty as sin. However the part that I find disturbing is that they are putting him to death with no direct evidence whatsoever. I think that it sets a bad precedent. First off, if you have no concrete evidence how are you going to prove beyong a resonable doubt that he did it, and is there enough evidence to warrant putting him to death? He did get pretty villanized by the tabloids and the papers, enough to change the venue once, it would be hard to be in the jury and avoid coming to your own conclusion or do you own reasearch. One of the jurors got dismissed for researching the case on her own.

Still, the point that I want to discuss is putting someone [regardless of guilt] to death with no 110% reasonable doubt shattering direct evidence. I think that he should get life in prison because the implications of death with no direct link is startling and should be overrulled.

your thoughts?

almost forgot, when you in this thread, your inside the NS discussion forum. Same rules, same regulations, argue with your heart but be prepared prove it with your head.

[Vinegar Ninja]

I heard that at least one juror said it was cause the guy was so cold hearted. No emotion at all for the death of his wife that was carrying his child. I say that death is far too good for him, put him in prision. Prision is far worse, as you go through hell daily for the rest of your life. Thats the way to mess someone up, not by killing them.

[Diablus]

If they have no evidence, even if he is guilty and cold hearted. It gives him no right to recieve the death penalty. Now im all for the death penalty, but if theres no physical evidence there is always that possiblility that he is innocent, and is being put to death for it.

[SwiftSpear]

It is the job of the defence to cast doubt on the case the prosecution presents and it is the job of the jury to find a man guilty ONLY if there is no reasonble doubt of his guilt.  Say what you will, but who are you to say that a conviction was is not valid or that it should not be precident setting.  If it was legal for the prosecutors to ask for the death sentance then the jury is within thier right to recommend it.  I didn't follow the case, but I still think it isn't for people who didn't acctually sit in that courtroom to decide weather or not his guilt was legitimate or his sentance was fair.

[A Boojum Snark]

It is the job of the defence to cast doubt on the case the prosecution presents and it is the job of the jury to find a man guilty ONLY if there is no reasonble doubt of his guilt.

[snapback]36658[/snapback]

Except for that little thing courts seem to forget quite often now days... innocent until proven guilty.

Not saying anything about this case, I did not follow it, rather stating in general and in response to swift.

[duherman]

They don't have a right I think. Even though he's cold hearted, plus they have no evidence. But you know how the system works. The public will win either way.

[Dark]

i say send him to texas since we will kill him first and ask questions later muhahahaha :ph34r:

j/k though i'm sure he does deserve the death penalty.  most juries do take into account the demeaner of the defendent when choosing the death penalty so since he showed no remorse the jury gave him what he deserves.

[@gentOrange]

What actually interests me here is how things like this are lately becoming "double homicide" because he's killing an unborn baby. Sorry but imo it's not a person yet. Mine may be a bleak view but it's not even breathing air on it's own, thus it's not it's own being yet.

It's still aweful but the media has such a lovely way of spinning this to make it seem all the more extreme.

[Reasa]

At the risk of adding some conflict to the discussion, do you think he would have gotten the death penalty if he was black and everything else about the case was the same?

More on topic, I don’t believe he deserved the “death penalty” which in California is a joke; he basically got a 30 year sentence then, maybe, a death penalty.
From what I saw they don’t have enough evidence worthy of killing him, which is odd for me to say because I believe life in prison is a far worse punishment then death.
Also I fear some of the jurors may have given him the death penalty simply because they didn’t like his “attitude” I’m not sure what they we’re looking for but you can’t, or your not supposed to judge someone by how they look in court. That alone warrants an appeal, which their will be many of I’m sure.

This is no open and shut case, he may very well die of natural causes before the state takes him.

[esuna]

Personally i think he should just get life in prison with no chance of parole and not the death penalty.

I'm opposed to capital punishment as a whole, it's just so wrong, nobody (Barring the Boondock Saints) has the right to take the life of someone else, which applies both in the case of taking a life through murder, or taking a life through a decision to issue the death penalty.

If someone's done something that ultimately :Ded up, also, what's the point in just killing them. Sure, they're not leeching taxpayer money for the rest of their lives, but at least you have the comfort in knowing that for the rest of their life they will be in a living hell, and for murder, they deserve that far more than the "easy way out" of capital punishment. It's one of the cases where i would say that "death is too good for them".

But as for the lack of solid evidence, yeah, that's a tad worrying. You can have character witnesses or assumptions up to the arse, but without solid proof, you can't just sentence someone like that, but at least from what i read, the process of working through the backlog of death row where he is will take some decades, and if any evidence proving his innocence does crop up, he's got a long as hell time to prove it, it's not like they're taking him outside the courtroom and killing him there.

[CForrester]

What actually interests me here is how things like this are lately becoming "double homicide" because he's killing an unborn baby. Sorry but imo it's not a person yet. Mine may be a bleak view but it's not even breathing air on it's own, thus it's not it's own being yet.

[snapback]36666[/snapback]

I actually have a similar question...

If he killed his unborn baby and that's considered homicide, why is a doctor performing an abortion on a baby that will LIVE if you remove it from the womb NOT homicide? (My best friend was born at five months.)

[Reasa]

Base the severity of punishment on the severity of the crime.  If there's evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, punish.  If there isn't, do not punish.  It is a perversion of justice to sentence an accused to any punishment without having provided evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, no matter how light the punishment.  Lowering the severity of the punishment does not lower the burden of proof.

[snapback]36691[/snapback]

I didn't state one way or the other how I feel about this case; because I really have no opinion ether way and I think the whole thing got far too much media time over much more important issues like Ukraine’s elections for example.

What I meant was, while in this particular case it means little given the situation in California, this sets a bad precedent. I don' think they have enough evidence to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt, and if such a case were to take place in a state with a much faster system (Texas, Florida) someone could be executed before all the evidence is found. At least if they are in prison they have a chance if they are innocent. If not, then prison for life is far worse then a quick death IMO.

[SwiftSpear]

Base the severity of punishment on the severity of the crime.  If there's evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, punish.  If there isn't, do not punish.  It is a perversion of justice to sentence an accused to any punishment without having provided evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, no matter how light the punishment.  Lowering the severity of the punishment does not lower the burden of proof.

[snapback]36691[/snapback]

I didn't state one way or the other how I feel about this case; because I really have no opinion ether way and I think the whole thing got far too much media time over much more important issues like Ukraine’s elections for example.

What I meant was, while in this particular case it means little given the situation in California, this sets a bad precedent. I don' think they have enough evidence to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt, and if such a case were to take place in a state with a much faster system (Texas, Florida) someone could be executed before all the evidence is found. At least if they are in prison they have a chance if they are innocent. If not, then prison for life is far worse then a quick death IMO.

[snapback]36707[/snapback]

If it could not be proven beyond reasonble doubt that he was not guilty, he really shouldn't have even been tried.  I can't tell you for sure that were I a jury member in that particular case that I would have found him guilty, but I can tell you that often the evidence that the media proclaims the prosecution is presenting in a case and the evidence that is acctually being presented in the case is a fair bit different.

At this point I want to congradulate scoot.  He is absolutly correct, the severity of the punishment for a crime must not be linked to the reasonability to of the evidence in any way if we intend to keep integrady in the system whatsoever.  Crimes must be punished appropriately due to the severity of the crime, not the convincingness of the evidence.  A man is either set free because he may be innocent, or he is convicted guilty and must suffer the full punishment for the crimes he commited.

I'm not saying that he IS guilty, I'm just saying that he was FOUND guilty, and thus we now must prosume his guilt until it can be proven otherwize.  If there was resonable doubt in the case, then he should not have been found guilty, thus since he was found guilty, there should be no reasonble doubt found in the case.  I understand that jourys can make mistakes, but no one here is prepared to speculate as to the aptitued of the joury in this case, because other than the verdict, none of us acctually saw it in action, and none of us can confirm the virdict is even reasonbly questionable.  Keep in mind, these people didn't just sit down in a room and pick yes no votes out of a hat until all of them had a yes, they deliberated until it came to the point that none of them questioned the guilt of the man in question.

ABS, my point still stands there...  I court is called to proove or disprove the guilt of a man, therefore if they find him guilty then he is NOT INNOCENT.  'Innocent until proven guilty' as a term refers to the right of any man to not be punished in any way for a crime he has not yet been legally convicted of, it doesn't mean that courts can't rule guilty in a case.

[Black Mage]

the difference between death row and life:

with death row, you know the day

[DiscoZombie]

I've utterly stopped caring what happens in this country.  there's no morality left.  I just have to hope I'm not the next person my country decides to kill.

[LowCrawler]

Base the severity of punishment on the severity of the crime.  If there's evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, punish.  If there isn't, do not punish.  It is a perversion of justice to sentence an accused to any punishment without having provided evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, no matter how light the punishment.  Lowering the severity of the punishment does not lower the burden of proof.

[snapback]36691[/snapback]

I didn't state one way or the other how I feel about this case; because I really have no opinion ether way and I think the whole thing got far too much media time over much more important issues like Ukraine’s elections for example.

What I meant was, while in this particular case it means little given the situation in California, this sets a bad precedent. I don' think they have enough evidence to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt, and if such a case were to take place in a state with a much faster system (Texas, Florida) someone could be executed before all the evidence is found. At least if they are in prison they have a chance if they are innocent. If not, then prison for life is far worse then a quick death IMO.

[snapback]36707[/snapback]

If it could not be proven beyond reasonble doubt that he was not guilty, he really shouldn't have even been tried.  I can't tell you for sure that were I a jury member in that particular case that I would have found him guilty, but I can tell you that often the evidence that the media proclaims the prosecution is presenting in a case and the evidence that is acctually being presented in the case is a fair bit different.

At this point I want to congradulate scoot.  He is absolutly correct, the severity of the punishment for a crime must not be linked to the reasonability to of the evidence in any way if we intend to keep integrady in the system whatsoever.  Crimes must be punished appropriately due to the severity of the crime, not the convincingness of the evidence.  A man is either set free because he may be innocent, or he is convicted guilty and must suffer the full punishment for the crimes he commited.

I'm not saying that he IS guilty, I'm just saying that he was FOUND guilty, and thus we now must prosume his guilt until it can be proven otherwize.  If there was resonable doubt in the case, then he should not have been found guilty, thus since he was found guilty, there should be no reasonble doubt found in the case.  I understand that jourys can make mistakes, but no one here is prepared to speculate as to the aptitued of the joury in this case, because other than the verdict, none of us acctually saw it in action, and none of us can confirm the virdict is even reasonbly questionable.  Keep in mind, these people didn't just sit down in a room and pick yes no votes out of a hat until all of them had a yes, they deliberated until it came to the point that none of them questioned the guilt of the man in question.

ABS, my point still stands there...  I court is called to proove or disprove the guilt of a man, therefore if they find him guilty then he is NOT INNOCENT.  'Innocent until proven guilty' as a term refers to the right of any man to not be punished in any way for a crime he has not yet been legally convicted of, it doesn't mean that courts can't rule guilty in a case.

[snapback]36727[/snapback]

i had decided long ago not to vocalize my view on this, and i live in Texas so i suppose the whole idea of execution isnt such a big deal to me... don't kill anyone and you dont have to worry about it.(yeah but you can be found guilty when youre not... blah blah i dont care.) Anyhow i completely agree with scooter and you swiftspear

PS. Spellcheck is win friend.

[Vinegar Ninja]

I like how lowcrawler just said
"I dont care if your innocent if your put on death row"
christ man, thats messed up.

[SwiftSpear]

I like how lowcrawler just said
"I dont care if your innocent if your put on death row"
christ man, thats messed up.

[snapback]36924[/snapback]

Hey man, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I think the system we have is perfect or that there aren't things that shouldn't change.  I'm just saying, guilty and innocent should be kept compleatly different entities from the punishment of a crime.

I personally don't agree with the concept of exectuting people for thier crimes in any context, but if that is the punishment that is being issued for that crime then that is the punishment that is being issued for that crime.  If he is found guilty he must be punished fairly for the crime that he has committed.  If there was not enough evidence to warrent the severity of the punishment, then he should not have been found guilty at all.

He either killed someone or he didn't, we shouldn't be giving him a limited consequence for maby.

[LowCrawler]

I like how lowcrawler just said
"I dont care if your innocent if your put on death row"
christ man, thats messed up.

[snapback]36924[/snapback]

yeah...well... thats me. I'm not known for being a sympathetic guy... ask my lady. Most people know me as a rude, obnoxious b**tard.
   again.