What does everyone think about Stanley "tookie" Williams getting executed tonight?

Oh, well in that case, give em his piece and kick him out on the street...

Anyone who says killing a killer is no better than the crime they committed, tell that to the father, mother, and daughter that they CAUGHT him for. Oh, wait, you can't. They are dead. And those are just the people who he was caught for killing.

normally i think capital punishment is not a good way to fix the problem. But I dont think this guy can ever get back on the street, and I dont want to pay for his healthcare. I hate life w/o parole. worst money drain ever.

Actually it is typically more expensive to execute someone than it is to house them for life since there are numerous appeals presented constantly in a death case.

"Radelet said the cost of executing a prisoner in Florida averages about $3.2 million, mostly in trial costs. Keeping that same person in prison for life costs only about $600,000, and the millions of dollars spent on executing prisoners could be put to much better use, he said."

fromhttp://www.napa.ufl.edu/oldnews/death1.htm

"Every dollar we spend on a capital case is a dollar we can't spend anywhere else.... We have to let the public know what it costs [to pursue a capital case.]"

- John M. Bailey, Chief State's Attorney, Connecticut

Costs more to execute someone than give them life:
http://www.fguide.org/Bulletin/cappun.htm

I still think they should have to do hard labor to pay for their own bills. Sending them to a resort is less of a deterant then sending them to a jobsite....

Well if everyone is so worried about cost then let's just skip paying the cops since they take a big chunk of tax money. Also, instead of lethal injection (exotic chemicals) and electrocution (too much electricity) let's just use some $0.25 9mm bullets on sale from Wally World. Heck, let's just find a few bloods. They'd would do Tookie for free and wouldn't charge a dime. Fry him, inject him, or shoot him. Either way is fine by me and his victims.

Yeah because its not vengance....its justice? While I'm not strongly against the death penalty, I do not feel that many of the arguments for it bear out. It has not proved to be a deterrant, nor a cost saving measure, so what's the main reason for it? We're sure not killing enough off to say its to reduce prison crowding, especially when you consider the fact that most of them spend at least 20 years in prison before their last night on this earthly plane. So again, can someone explain to me what we're accomplishing here? And your smarmy comments are talking about pennies whereas the real issue is over hundreds of thousands of dollars, not quite apples to apples.

Which is better justfied of the following two choices:

1. Spend 3 million dollars on a capital case and 1 million on programs to help prevent future crimes.

2. Spend 500,000 dollars on a life in prison plea bargain and 3.5 million on crime prevention programs.

It seems like vengance blinds us to the real issue. Spend money to give the kids a life before they grow up to be criminals because they're too poor, ignorant or angry to find anything else. But I mean my only real experience was working in a literacy program for inner city kids, so what do I know?

Tookie doesn't need any literacy programs. He can read and even write children's books. He's even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize a few times all while he's been serving time. Pretty nice considering he was on death row the whole time. That's nice and all but he hasn't done jack to stop the crips, which he created, or even apologize to the victim's family for crimes that "he didn't do." He also didn't apologize for creating the crips. It doesn't hurt my feelings a bit but to the victims of his crimes or any crime committed by the crips that is some cold shit.

You're not even making a valid argument. People are saying that it costs more money to sentence someone to death, so why would we do it? What is your argument about cops? Because they take more money than...?

The justice system does have a monetary cost but that is no reason to choose one form of punishment over another. Letting a criminal on death row live because of "cost" is stupid. Justice should be served fairly and the driving force behind it should not be cost. That is why cops are paid. They don't produce any real product but their service is worth every penny that they are paid. Tookie was sentenced to death row and that is what he gets for starting the bloodiest street gang in history and killing the victims that we caught him for. If he didn't want to die, he shouldn't have killed those people. Crimes still do have punishments. Tookie just happened to choose a high crime which carries a high punishment.

Side note: The most cost effective thing right now at this very moment in time would be to put Tookie to death since he already wasted all the money in appeals.

The real cost comes from letting these people sit on death row for twenty years. Once every appeal has been exhausted, let justice be served and execute these people. Executing an innocent person is not justice, but the evidence indicates "Tookie" is guilty. If he can't get an appeal in the 9th Circuit, he must be guilty.

So then... your argument would be... that it is justice to kill someone who murdered someone, correct?

No, someone, who is, and always will be a menace to society.

FIB, are my comments the smarmy ones? What I said, is prisons should be utilizing the strong physically competent work force they have, instead of letting be just as big of drain on society as they were on the outside. Tell me FIB, do you think that everyone is inherrently good or something. I hear so many people say that kind of crap, but I happen to believe that if they are shit, they are shit. No amount of "outreach" will help them. There might be a small percentage of fence sitters out there that it might help, but the majority will be what they are going to be...

Yes, kill murderers, rape rapists, etc. I think that would be fair if they are guilty.

[side note] Statutory rape: you can't rape the willing.