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D.C. sniper mastermind set to be executed Tuesday

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Agnapostate

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The Associated Press: D.C. sniper mastermind set to be executed Tuesday

RICHMOND, Va. — Unless Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine steps in, sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad will be executed Tuesday for the attacks that terrorized the nation's capital region for three weeks in 2002.

Muhammad is set to die by injection at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. His attorneys have asked Kaine to commute his sentence to life in prison because they say he is mentally ill. The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Muhammad's final appeal Monday.

Muhammad was sentenced to death for killing Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas gas station during a spree that left 10 dead across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

He and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, also were suspected of fatal shootings in other states, including Louisiana, Alabama and Arizona.

For the families of those killed, the day is a long time coming.

[...]

It's upon us now. But I've made my own thoughts about retaliatory "justice" clear enough in that there's a lack of focus on general deterrence issues. :shrug:
 
The Associated Press: D.C. sniper mastermind set to be executed Tuesday



It's upon us now. But I've made my own thoughts about retaliatory "justice" clear enough in that there's a lack of focus on general deterrence issues. :shrug:

A deterrence would be executing him live on tv preferably right after the crime or putting his body out on display for everyone to see,not executed years later when everyone but the victim's loved ones have forgotten about him. I remember many years in my home town four people were shot execution style in a walk in fridge at a Lee's Famous Chicken,it took 14 years for their murderer to be executed.
 
A deterrence would be executing him live on tv preferably right after the crime or putting his body out on display for everyone to see,not executed years later when everyone but the victim's loved ones have forgotten about him. I remember many years in my home town four people were shot execution style in a walk in fridge at a Lee's Famous Chicken,it took 14 years for their murderer to be executed.

Pretty sure many studies show no deterrent effect for capital punishment. In fact, it seems to coincide with small increases in violence after the punishment. This could be because it legitimizes the use of lethal force against people who deserve it.

The problem with staying true to celerity (the least important of the factors in deterrence alongside the most important: certainty and 2nd: severity) in capital punishment is that is increases the risk of executing innocent people. I'm not sure how many innocent deaths at the hands of the goverment are acceptable to you.
 
Screw deterrence, it is called justice.
 
It's not about a deterrent. It's about removing "broken" genes from our gene pool and saving money keeping broken individuals alive. In this case, a few years and a 40 cent bullet would have saved the tax payers a helluva lot of money.
 
Pretty sure many studies show no deterrent effect for capital punishment.

That is probably due to the fact that in most cases by the time someone is executed which is at least a decade later that individual and his crimes are long forgotten by everyone except for the victim's loved ones.

In fact, it seems to coincide with small increases in violence after the punishment. This could be because it legitimizes the use of lethal force against people who deserve it.

The problem with staying true to celerity (the least important of the factors in deterrence alongside the most important: certainty and 2nd: severity) in capital punishment is that is increases the risk of executing innocent people. I'm not sure how many innocent deaths at the hands of the goverment are acceptable to you.

In this country we believe in innocent until proven guilty not innocent even long after he was proven guilty in a court of law. The fact that maybe an innocent person executed once in a blue moon does not negate the need for the death penalty, nor does it negate the need for lengthy prison sentences. I am not willing to want the death penalty or prison removed just because a few innocent(assuming they are actually innocent, not let off due to a technicality or were in no way in any shape of form involved with the victim's death) or people may have gotten though the cracks. The death penalty is handed out as the ultimate punishment for commuting the most heinous of crimes. If anything should be improved it should be reducing the cost to tax payers and a reduction in the number of appeals based on the strength of the evidence used to convict someone so that it doesn't take several years or more to execute someone.
 
That is probably due to the fact that in most cases by the time someone is executed which is at least a decade later that individual and his crimes are long forgotten by everyone except for the victim's loved ones.

I don't really think that's true, though. Or else this execution wouldn't be news. Executions are always news where they occur, just not necessarily national news.

In this country we believe in innocent until proven guilty not innocent even long after he was proven guilty in a court of law. The fact that maybe an innocent person executed once in a blue moon does not negate the need for the death penalty, nor does it negate the need for lengthy prison sentences. I am not willing to want the death penalty or prison removed just because a few innocent(assuming they are actually innocent, not let off due to a technicality or were in no way in any shape of form involved with the victim's death) or people may have gotten though the cracks. The death penalty is handed out as the ultimate punishment for commuting the most heinous of crimes. If anything should be improved it should be reducing the cost to tax payers and a reduction in the number of appeals based on the strength of the evidence used to convict someone so that it doesn't take several years or more to execute someone.

Well it's innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond any doubt, and we use laymen juries. Juries are highly impressionable and inconsistent, hence appeals. Some will convict on confessions alone, and false confessions are not uncommon.

I see the death penalty as mostly stooping to their level, and efforts to make it less expensive do increase the risk of killing innocents.

What I would recommend, and I think you'll agree, is that we force inmates to work their asses off for even basic privileges and to make prisons less expensive for taxpayers.
 
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It's not about a deterrent. It's about removing "broken" genes from our gene pool and saving money keeping broken individuals alive. In this case, a few years and a 40 cent bullet would have saved the tax payers a helluva lot of money.

lol, I don't think it accomplishes that. Idiots still reproduce more, and murder is not a common crime. Besides, in order to remove them from the gene pool you'd have to execute them before they have kids, and many of them already did produce kids.
 
I hope he suffers some.
 
Pretty sure many studies show no deterrent effect for capital punishment.

There are studies showing precisely the opposite.
The Deterrent Effect of the Death Penalty

Federal, state, and local officials need to recognize that the death penalty saves lives. How capital punishment affects murder rates can be explained through general deterrence theory, which supposes that increasing the risk of apprehension and punishment for crime deters individuals from committing crime. Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker's seminal 1968 study of the economics of crime assumed that individuals respond to the costs and benefits of committing crime.[10]


According to deterrence theory, criminals are no different from law-abiding people. Criminals "rationally maximize their own self-interest (utility) subject to constraints (prices, incomes) that they face in the marketplace and elsewhere."[11] Individuals make their decisions based on the net costs and benefits of each alternative. Thus, deterrence theory provides a basis for analyzing how capital punishment should influence murder rates. Over the years, several studies have demonstrated a link between executions and decreases in murder rates. In fact, studies done in recent years, using sophisticated panel data methods, consistently demonstrate a strong link between executions and reduced murder incidents.


Early Research. The rigorous examination of the deterrent effect of capital punishment began with research in the 1970s by Isaac Ehrlich, currently a University of Buffalo Distinguished Professor of Economics.[12] Professor Ehrlich's research found that the death penalty had a strong deterrent effect. While his research was debated by other scholars,[13] additional research by Professor Ehrlich reconfirmed his original findings.[14] In addition, research by Professor Stephen K. Layson of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro strongly reconfirmed Ehrlich's previous findings.[15]


Recent Research. Numerous studies published over the past few years, using panel data sets and sophisticated social science techniques, are demonstrating that the death penalty saves lives.[16] Panel studies observe multiple units over several periods. The addition of multiple data collection points gives the results of capital punishment panel studies substantially more credibility than the results of studies that have only single before-and-after intervention measures. Further, the longitudinal nature of the panel data allows researchers to analyze the impact of the death penalty over time that cross-sectional data sets cannot address.


Using a panel data set of over 3,000 counties from 1977 to 1996, Professors Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul R. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd of Emory University found that each execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders.[17] Using state-level panel data from 1960 to 2000, Professors Dezhbakhsh and Shepherd were able to compare the relationship between executions and murder incidents before, during, and after the U.S. Supreme Court's death penalty moratorium.[18] They found that executions had a highly significant negative relationship with murder incidents. Additionally, the implementation of state moratoria is associated with the increased incidence of murders.


Separately, Professor Shepherd's analysis of monthly data from 1977 to 1999 found three important findings.[19]


First, each execution, on average, is associated with three fewer murders. The deterred murders included both crimes of passion and murders by intimates.


Second, executions deter the murder of whites and African–Americans. Each execution prevents the murder of one white person, 1.5 African–Americans, and 0.5 persons of other races.


Third, shorter waits on death row are associated with increased deterrence. For each additional 2.75-year reduction in the death row wait until execution, one murder is deterred.


Professors H. Naci Mocan and R. Kaj Gittings of the University of Colorado at Denver have published two studies confirming the deterrent effect of capital punishment. The first study used state-level data from 1977 to 1997 to analyze the influence of executions, commutations, and removals from death row on the incidence of murder.[20] For each additional execution, on average, about five murders were deterred. Alternatively, for each additional commutation, on average, five additional murders resulted. A removal from death row by either state courts or the U.S. Supreme Court is associated with an increase of one additional murder. Addressing criticism of their work,[21] Professors Mocan and Gittings conducted additional analyses and found that their original findings provided robust support for the deterrent effect of capital punishment.[22]



Two studies by Paul R. Zimmerman, a Federal Communications Commission economist, also support the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Using state-level data from 1978 to 1997, Zimmerman found that each additional execution, on average, results in 14 fewer murders.[23] Zimmerman's second study, using similar data, found that executions conducted by electrocution are the most effective at providing deterrence.[24]



Using a small state-level data set from 1995 to 1999, Professor Robert B. Ekelund of Auburn University and his colleagues analyzed the effect that executions have on single incidents of murder and multiple incidents of murder.[25] They found that executions reduced single murder rates, while there was no effect on multiple murder rates.

In summary, the recent studies using panel data techniques have confirmed what we learned decades ago: Capital punishment does, in fact, save lives. Each additional execution appears to deter between three and 18 murders. While opponents of capital punishment allege that it is unfairly used against African–Americans, each additional execution deters the murder of 1.5 African–Americans. Further moratoria, commuted sentences, and death row removals appear to increase the incidence of murder.


The strength of these findings has caused some legal scholars, originally opposed to the death penalty on moral grounds, to rethink their case. In particular, Professor Cass R. Sunstein of the University of Chicago has commented:


If the recent evidence of deterrence is shown to be correct, then opponents of capital punishment will face an uphill struggle on moral grounds. If each execution is saving lives, the harms of capital punishment would have to be very great to justify its abolition, far greater than most critics have heretofore alleged.[26]


Conclusion

Americans support capital punishment for two good reasons. First, there is little evidence to suggest that minorities are treated unfairly. Second, capital punishment produces a strong deterrent effect that saves lives.

David B. Muhlhausen, Ph.D., is Senior Policy Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.
The Death Penalty Deters Crime and Saves Lives
 
They haven't thrown the switch yet?
 
The amount execution costs the taxpayer is ludicrous. You can keep him rotting in a cell on his own forever for cheaper.
 
The amount execution costs the taxpayer is ludicrous. You can keep him rotting in a cell on his own forever for cheaper.

Exactly. He just appealed to the Supreme Court to stay his execution. Yes, our tax dollars were spent on this wasted appeal. This is the main reason I am against the death penalty. Additionally, rotting in jail for the rest of one's life is worse than being executed.
 
Pretty much, Aps. Don't make a martyr out of him. Make a withering, pathetic mess of a man living in isolation and surviving on bread and water.
 
I hope he suffers some.

Some??

He is one of those few cases where those who advocated death by slow torture might have a point.
 
The government should not be in the business of execution.

Only God should decide when a person dies.
 
Anyone other than me think it is absurd to characterize these people as snipers?
 
Pretty much, Aps. Don't make a martyr out of him. Make a withering, pathetic mess of a man living in isolation and surviving on bread and water.

Unfortunately the prison system is not ran by people who think like me .So unfortunately life in prison simply means libraries,tv, 3 square meals a day, free medical care, air conditioning and other luxuries that law abiding citizens in 3rd world countries only dream about. Life in prison today doesn't mean a actual punishment.
 
Unfortunately the prison system is not ran by people who think like me .So unfortunately life in prison simply means libraries,tv, 3 square meals a day, free medical care, air conditioning and other luxuries that law abiding citizens in 3rd world countries only dream about. Life in prison today doesn't mean a actual punishment.

Such high-profile people do. They have isolation centres in prison for these people these days that basically cuts them off from the outside world.
 
There are studies showing precisely the opposite.

The Death Penalty Deters Crime and Saves Lives

Not so sure I trust the Heritage Foundation, but I do wish I could see the actual journal articles that it cites. Little suspicious that they established causation but the article doesn't explicate the methods of the studies in enough detail so I can't be sure.

Though I think what makes me most suspicious is the notion that deterrence can have an effect upon crimes of passion, which cannot fall under hedonistic calculus.
 
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I doubt highly that God would be in the business of government execution.
Because...?
Seems to me there's at least a few examples of that in the OT.
 
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