#Capital Punishment

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

[autistichalsin]

Some of you are literally watching the right wing continuously try to expand the definition of "pedophilia" to include "existing around a child while queer," and then agreeing with them when they say pedophiles deserve to be summarily executed.

Not only does this place innocent people in danger of political executions, it also puts children in danger, as most children who are sexually abused have this done by someone close to them, and feelings that they would be responsible for the death of their abuser if they reported leads to lower rates of reporting. It also leads to higher rates of abusers murdering their victims when they're found out because the punishment will be the same anyway.

Part of being on the left is realizing that it's better to let 100 guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one. Another part of being on the left is realizing that one's life is never something others have the right to take away- even the most evil people alive. Yes, that includes mass murderers and rapists and pedophiles. Once you make one group acceptable to kill, you give others a vested interest in defining groups they have prejudice against into that group.

You have to start dealing with the fact that no crime makes one's life forfeit. Not even the worst most depraved and sadistic acts. The worst people alive have rights, and if you can't accept that they deserve them, at least try to accept that it is to your benefit that they retain rights no matter what they're accused of. And if you can't do even that, well... you just might be the kind of person who would cut off your nose to spite your face.

If you want to protect victims, if you want to protect minority groups, you have to realize that sex crimes, or any crimes at all, do not deserve the death penalty. Period.

[simplegenius042]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Safe Place 🏳‍🌈🏳‍🌈🏳‍🌈 (@fuck_homophobia__)

[rolandtowen]

In 11 days, Texas is set to execute a man for a crime that never happened

This is Robert Roberson. He has been sitting on Texas' death row for over twenty years after being convicted of murdering his daughter.

The problem? The murder never happened.

Robert was convicted based on the discredited and outdated diagnosis of "shaken baby syndrome", which argued that babies could die from shaking that doesn't leave signs of physical trauma. Robert is also autistic, and his mannerisms lead hospital staff to suspect abuse. There is no evidence that Robert murdered his daughter, Nikki. Killing Robert is not justice.

Please click the link above to sign a petition asking Gov. Greg Abbott to halt Robert's execution. I will also link below to a news article with further information about the case.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

From @theinnocenceproject:

This is it. We only have 48 HOURS to stop Missouri from executing #MarcellusWilliams, an innocent man.⁠

⁠

Every hour, every minute, every second is critical right now. And even though @GovParsonMO's office is closed today, we can’t let a single moment go by where we’re not urging him to take action. So today, we’re asking you to SHARE Marcellus’ story far and wide by creating your own post about him using the social media toolkit at the link in our bio, and include a call to action to sign our petition and call @GovParsonMO at 417-373-3400. ⁠

⁠

It is not too late for Gov. Parson to ensure that Missouri does not take an innocent man’s life.⁠

⁠

[odinsblog]

The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, who had sought to have the conviction overturned, said, “This outcome did not serve the interests of justice.”

“Marcellus Williams should be alive today,” Bell said in a statement. “There were multiple points in the timeline when decisions could have been made that would have spared him the death penalty. If there is even the shadow of a doubt of innocence, the death penalty should never be an option.”

Earlier efforts to halt the execution were denied Monday by the Missouri Supreme Court and Republican Gov. Mike Parson. His execution is the third in Missouri this year, and among five taking place nationwide across a seven-day span if the remaining three are carried out on schedule, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have granted the request to halt the execution.

“Tonight, Missouri will execute an innocent man,” said attorney Tricia Rojo Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project in a statement after the Supreme Court ruling.

“...The victim's family opposes his execution. Jurors, who originally sentenced him to death, now oppose his execution. The prosecutor's office that convicted and sentenced him to death has now admitted they were wrong and zealously fought to undo the conviction and save Mr. Williams' life.”

“That is not justice. And we must all question any system that would allow this to occur,” Bushnell said.

—Missouri executes Marcellus Williams despite questions over evidence

[cheerfullycatholic]

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on the federal death penalty Jan. 20, among the first actions of his second term, directing the attorney general to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” prompting statements of concern from Catholic opponents of the practice.

...

The death penalty order was among those Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and head of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, called “deeply troubling” in a Jan. 22 statement about Trump’s first batch of executive orders in his second term.

...

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that advocates for the abolition of capital punishment in line with Catholic teaching, said in a statement Trump’s executive order on the death penalty “makes no sense." “What we know about the death penalty is that it does not deter crime or make communities safer,” Vaillancourt Murphy said. “It’s immoral, flawed and risky, arbitrary and unfair, cruel and dehumanizing. Both the state and federal death penalty systems are broken beyond repair, and emblematic of a throwaway culture.”

...

The Catholic Church’s official magisterium opposes the use of the death penalty as inconsistent with the inherent sanctity of human life, and advocates for the abolition of the practice worldwide. In his 2020 encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis addressed the moral problem of capital punishment by citing St. John Paul II, writing that his predecessor “stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice.”

“There can be no stepping back from this position,” Pope Francis wrote. Echoing the teaching he clarified in his 2018 revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the pontiff said, “Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide.”

Pope Francis on Jan. 9 in his annual audience for members of the diplomatic corps, also said the death penalty “finds no justification today among the instruments capable of restoring justice.”

[fromkenari]

Emmanuel Littlejohn will be executed tomorrow, Thursday, September 26th, 2024, in Oklahoma, though there is strong doubt about his guilty verdict, and the Parole Board has recommended clemency.

Call and tell Governor J. Kevin Stitt to stop this execution

Sign the petition for Governor J. Kevin Stitt to stop this execution (You do not have to be from the United States!)

This is the third innocent man of color who will be executed in the United States in the past week.

[lostmementomemori]

Joseph 'Joe' Arridy (April 29, 1915 - January 6, 1939) was wrongfully convicted and executed for the murder of Dorthy Drain, at the time 15 years old, in Pueblo, Colorado, his natal city. He was mentally disabled, and the police manipulated him to make a false confession. He was only 23 years old at the time. due to his mental disabilities, he didn't understand the concept of death or being executed, which had to be explained to him several times in different ways. He was executed by gas chamber. Joe only received a full and unconditional posthumous pardon by Colorado Governor Bill Ritter 72 years after his death.

[blackpearlblast]

(U.S.) two people are being put to death this month

thomas creech in idaho and ivan cantu in taxes are both scheduled to be executed by the state on february 28, 2024. if you are so inclined, please sign these petitions asking for clemency for them.

[thoughtportal]

I think it's very important to remember that the United States waffles on human rights all the time and backslides more often than not. like for example, the death penalty which was abolished in the US from 1972 to 1976

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[autistichalsin]

And again:

The death penalty should not exist.

Not just because of the risk of innocent people being killed wrongfully, though yes, that is a part of it. But guilty people shouldn't die either.

Yes, that includes those ones. The ones who did the worst crimes imaginable, who harmed children, who killed innocent people- them, too.

Why?

Because no one has the right to kill another human being, and two wrongs don't make a right.

Because the instant you give a government entity the authority to determine who is and isn't worthy of life, you have already handed them the framework to get rid of undesirables. As we're seeing now the "pedophiles deserve the death penalty -> LGBT people existing next to children is pedophilia" pipeline.

Because if your government can kill you, they already have too much power over you.

Because the death penalty does nothing to actually deter crimes, and some studies suggest it might actually make the rates of violent crime increase.

Because our tax dollars shouldn't go to depriving people of their lives.

Because the only method of execution that comes close to being humane is lethal injection, and even that has a high failure rates as well as requiring medical professionals to break their respective ethical codes; in fact, pharmacists have started refusing to provide various DOJs with murder euthanasia cocktails precisely precisely because this goes against the principles of "do no harm."

Because it usually takes 20 years from sentencing to execution, and that constitutes psychological warfare/torture on prisoners.

Because there is nothing a death sentence will "accomplish" that can't also be done by a life sentence, minus the ultimate cruelty and power-trip for government officials and cops/wardens/etc. If the goal is punishment, deprivation of freedom already does that, let alone the rest of the mistreatment prisoners face. If the goal is sequestering from society, that is literally the definition of imprisonment.

Because, this bears repeating, if the government can kill you, they already have too much power over you.

Because forensic science is nowhere near as perfect as people want you to believe.

Because even when it is proven that there is sufficient cause to release an innocent person, those in power still will (as we saw today with Marcellus Williams) do everything in their power to murder them anyway for the sheer power-high.

Because it is better to let 100 guilty men go free than it is to convict one innocent one.

Because there are huge inequities in who gets the death penalty. Racism is baked into the entire "criminal justice" structure, and capital punishment is no different.

Because, by definition, anyone willing to execute another person is the last person who should be given the power to do so.

Because, it bears repeating, once you introduce a framework to remove undesirables from society, it will be expanded at the first opportunity.

Because the death penalty is, by definition, cruel and unusual punishment.

Because the death penalty is often carried out on innocent people (like Marcellus Williams) who have been wrongfully convicted as a way of silencing them and ensuring they can't file a wrongful imprisonment suit against the state.

Because the existence of a death penalty gives people who committed a single violent crime a motive to do more; if they're already going to die, why not take more people out with them?

Because the entire mindset of death being an acceptable punishment filters down into day-to-day life and encourages proliferation of distancing, dehumanizing language against people some don't dislike, which is part of the reason why so many teenagers have no problem saying "kill yourself" to others.

Because there is no accountability in the prison system for how those on death row are treated, and any abuse inflicted on these prisoners in their last days will never come to light.

Because it is wrong. If a private citizen can't kill another person, who can a private citizen employed by and acting on behalf of the government do it?

Because, it bears repeating, if your government has the power to kill you, they already have too much power.

There are zero good reasons to support the death penalty, and hundreds of good reasons not to.

[brettdoesdiscourse]

A big argument with the pro death penalty crowd is, "well what about the people who actually are guilty?" And the answer is always, "well what about the people who are actually innocent?"

I would rather spare the lives of a 100 guilty people rather than execute 1 innocent person.

And functionally, the death penalty doesn't really do anything.

There's no evidence to suggest that states that have the death penalty see a decrease in crime, so it isn't a deterrent. The only thing it functionally does is attempt to make people feel better.

A life sentence will functionally accomplish the same thing a death penalty does, it will keep that person away from the public.

With life sentences, an innocent person has the opportunity to be found innocent and released. You can't bring an innocent person back to life if you find out after their execution that they're actually innocent.

*Stop tagging this post as pro life. I'm pro abortion, this post is pro abortion. If you like and/or reblog this post, you're pro abortion too*

[saggernooseai]

[yetisidelblog]

Yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Like many anti-death penalty groups this week, we at SCADP are sharing a resource from the Equal Justice Initiative, which describes Dr. King's opposition to the death penalty. Dr. King recognized the death penalty for what it is: an extension of the racial terror lynchings that were all too common in his youth. His faith also led him to believe the death penalty was "against the better judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God." Wherever you are, we hope you are using yesterday's holiday to promote anti-racism and restorative justice this week!

Yesterday was also a reminder that we have less than two weeks to advocate for #JusticeForMarionBowman. We are asking Governor McMaster to use all the powers afforded to him by his office and halt the execution. If you are someone who missed our Digital Organizing Toolkit Launch, you can click here to view the video! It's less than 30 minutes, but it's got everything you need to know!

And if you haven't done so yet, will you share Marion's petition with three friends? The more signatures we have, the more we will show Gov. McMaster that the death penalty does not belong in South Carolina! As with all of our petitions, we plan on presenting the petition to the Governor before Marion's execution date. We will be finalizing details and sending those out to you by the end of the week. If you would like to share the petition on social media, you can use the social media photos within our digital organizing toolkit! 

Share Marion Bowman's Petition!

@upontheshelfreviews

@greenwingspino

@one-time-i-dreamt

@tenaflyviper

@akron-squirrel

@ifihadaworldofmyown

@justice-for-jacob-marley

@voicetalentbrendan

@thebigdeepcheatsy

@what-is-my-aesthetic

@ravenlynclemens

@thegreatallie

@writerofweird

@anon-lephant

@mentally-quiet-spycrab