Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: Who should prosecute capital crimes?

  1. #1
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Steven AB's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2019
    Posts
    277

    Who should prosecute capital crimes?

    If there is one country on this Earth that treasures local government, it is the United States of America.

    That’s why each county or equivalent elects its own prosecutor who makes its own policy choices that can differ from others in the same state, including on the death penalty. And contrary to the usual abolitionist propaganda, there is no constitutional issue over that. The Constitution indeed sanctifies such local decision-making with the Vicinage Clause.

    So, states are not required to have a statewide prosecution system, but they are also not prohibited to do so, and it has been proposed to transfer the prosecution of capital crimes to a statewide authority to provide a uniform enforcement of the death penalty.

    But it cannot be fair to give such a pocket veto on this matter to a single individual or group. That would indeed be worse, since there would be only one relevant authority in each state, while among the many local prosecutors there will always be some ready to apply the death penalty when warranted.

    The appropriate process to ensure both collegiality and a balance between local and statewide government would be to allow the attorney general to take over the case only when the local prosecutor does not seek the death penalty or charge a crime as capital one month after being requested to do so by the attorney general. And if the local prosecutor drop the death penalty-request or the capital charge, even as part of a plea agreement, that should allow the attorney general to take over the case to overrule such decision within one month (or less if the trial is ongoing).

    It would be mistaken to regard this proposed process as an unfair disadvantage to the defendant. Instead, that would be the counterpart to two rules existing only in capital cases and that are greatly advantageous to the defense: (1) The prohibition of mandatory death sentences; and (2) The prohibition on the court to impose the death penalty when the prosecution does not request it.

    Besides the prosecution method, the sentencing method has also its importance:

    http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...l=1#post132530
    Last edited by Steven AB; 08-30-2021 at 07:40 AM.
    "If ever there were a case for a referendum, this is one on which the people should be allowed to express their own views and not irresponsible votes in the House of Commons." — Winston Churchill, on the death penalty

    The self-styled "Death Penalty Information Center" is financed by the oligarchic European Union. — The Daily Signal

  2. #2
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Tennessee
    Posts
    7,318
    Here’s my take: If the victim’s family demands the death penalty, the prosecutor should be required to seek it. If they refuse, they get taken off the case. This is aimed at cowards like the Dallas DA who refuses to seek death for Billy Chemirmir despite all the families of the victims demanding it
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  3. #3
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Steven AB's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2019
    Posts
    277
    Death penalty opponents are bad losers, and convinced as were communists that they will conquer the entire world.

    To suggest that they have already won in the U.S., they insist on the states and counties that rarely have a death penalty case. As if it was necessary for capital punishment to serve its purposes in one jurisdiction, to have death sentences or executions every year. A contention already ridiculous for U.S. states, but even more for each of 3,243 U.S. counties, half of them having a population lesser than 26,000.

    If indeed that internal logic should be followed, of little value would be the states where the death penalty statute was repealed or nullified from 2007 to 2021, since they conducted lesser than one-tenth of all post-Furman executions.

    They also insist on real or imaginary moratoriums, but equating them to practical abolitionism overtly or not is contradicted by the fact that the pending death sentences remain executable in any future, and by their virulent reactions when it happens, the post-Furman history being full of such instances — not only in the United States indeed, but a relevant example is the 13 federal convicts who were executed by the Trump administration.

    Opponents will end up saying that no state is currently having the death penalty because even at the very date of the execution, the death penalty exists only during the very second of death, and not during the 86399 other seconds of the day, which are de facto abolitionist.

    And their insistence on rarity is in contradiction with their refusal to acknowledge opinions polls asking about rare crimes, where support for the death penalty is 86%.

    http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...998#post139998
    Last edited by Steven AB; 10-20-2023 at 07:25 AM.
    "If ever there were a case for a referendum, this is one on which the people should be allowed to express their own views and not irresponsible votes in the House of Commons." — Winston Churchill, on the death penalty

    The self-styled "Death Penalty Information Center" is financed by the oligarchic European Union. — The Daily Signal

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •