I suppose it depends how you define "second chance." I believe he should have spent the remainder of his life behind bars. As the greatest English judge in history once said, "We can sentence a person to life, but we cannot sentence a person to death."
Anti-death penalty? Of course I am. Why?
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Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty
1. Abolitionist and retentionist countries
Over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
Amnesty International's latest information shows that:
86 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes;
11 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes;
25 countries can be considered abolitionist in practice: they retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions,
making a total of 122 countries which have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
74 other countries and territories retain and use the death penalty, but the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller.
2. Progress towards worldwide abolition
Over 40 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes since 1990. They include countries in Africa (recent examples include Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal), the Americas (Canada, Paraguay, Mexico), Asia and the Pacific (Bhutan. Samoa, Turkmenistan) and Europe and the South Caucasus (Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey).
3. Moves to reintroduce the death penalty
Once abolished, the death penalty is seldom reintroduced. Since 1985, over 50 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or, having previously abolished it for ordinary crimes, have gone on to abolish it for all crimes. During the same period only four abolitionist countries reintroduced the death penalty. One of them - Nepal - has since abolished the death penalty again; one, the Philippines, resumed executions but later stopped. There have been no executions in the other two (Gambia, Papua New Guinea).
4. Death sentences and executions
During 2004, at least 3,797 people were executed in 25 countries and at least 7,395 people were sentenced to death in 64 countries. These were only minimum figures; the true figures were certainly higher.
In 2004, 97 per cent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Viet Nam and the USA.
Based on public reports available, Amnesty International estimated that at least 3,400 people were executed in China during the year, although the true figures were believed to be much higher. In March 2004 a delegate at the National People's Congress said that "nearly 10,000" people are executed per year in China.
Iran executed at least 159 people, and Viet Nam at least 64. There were 59 executions in the USA, down from 65 in 2003.
5. Methods of execution
Executions have been carried out by the following methods since 2000:
- Beheading (in Saudi Arabia, Iraq)
- Electrocution (in USA)
- Hanging (in Egypt, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, Singapore and other countries)
- Lethal injection (in China, Guatemala, Philippines, Thailand, USA)
- Shooting (in Belarus, China, Somalia, Taiwan, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam and other countries)
- Stoning (in Afghanistan, Iran)
6. Use of the death penalty against child offenders
International human rights treaties prohibit anyone under 18 years old at the time of the crime being sentenced to death or executed. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the American Convention on Human Rights all have provisions to this effect. More than 110 countries whose laws still provide for the death penalty for at least some offences have laws specifically excluding the execution of child offenders or may be presumed to exclude such executions by being parties to one or another of the above treaties. A small number of countries, however, continue to execute child offenders.
Eight countries since 1990 are known to have executed prisoners who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime – China, Congo (Democratic Republic), Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, USA and Yemen. China, Pakistan and Yemen have raised the minimum age to 18 in law, and Iran is reportedly in the process of doing so. The USA executed more child offenders than any other country (19 between 1990 and 2003).
Amnesty International recorded four executions of child offenders in 2004 - one in China and three in Iran.
Eight child offenders have been executed in Iran since January 2005.
7. The deterrence argument
Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments. The most recent survey of research findings on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates, conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002, concluded: ". . .it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment."
(Reference: Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective, Oxford, Clarendon Press, third edition, 2002, p. 230)
8. Effect of abolition on crime rates
Reviewing the evidence on the relation between changes in the use of the death penalty and homicide rates, a study conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002 stated: "The fact that the statistics continue to point in the same direction is persuasive evidence that countries need not fear sudden and serious changes in the curve of crime if they reduce their reliance upon the death penalty".
Recent crime figures from abolitionist countries fail to show that abolition has harmful effects. In Canada, for example, the homicide rate per 100,000 population fell from a peak of 3.09 in 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty for murder, to 2.41 in 1980, and since then it has declined further. In 2003, 27 years after abolition, the homicide rate was 1.73 per 100,000 population, 44 per cent lower than in 1975 and the lowest rate in three decades.
(Reference: Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective, Oxford, Clarendon Press, third edition, 2002, p. 214)
9. International agreements to abolish the death penalty
One of the most important developments in recent years has been the adoption of international treaties whereby states commit themselves to not having the death penalty. Four such treaties now exist:
The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has been ratified by 56 states. Eight other states have signed the Protocol, indicating their intention to become parties to it at a later date.
The Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty, which has been ratified by eight states and signed by one other in the Americas.
Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), which has been ratified by 45 European states and signed by one other.
Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), which has been ratified by 33 European states and signed by 10 others.
Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights is an agreement to abolish the death penalty in peacetime. The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights provide for the total abolition of the death penalty but allow states wishing to do so to retain the death penalty in wartime as an exception. Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights provides for the total abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances.
10. Execution of the innocent
As long as the death penalty is maintained, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated.
Since 1973, 122 prisoners have been released in the USA after evidence emerged of their innocence of the crimes for which they were sentenced to death. There were six such cases in 2004 and three up to December 2005. Some prisoners had come close to execution after spending many years under sentence of death. Recurring features in their cases include prosecutorial or police misconduct; the use of unreliable witness testimony, physical evidence, or confessions; and inadequate defence representation. Other US prisoners have gone to their deaths despite serious doubts over their guilt.
The then Governor of the US state of Illinois, George Ryan, declared a moratorium on executions in January 2000. His decision followed the exoneration of the 13th death row prisoner found to have been wrongfully convicted in the state since the USA reinstated the death penalty in 1977. During the same period, 12 other Illinois prisoners had been executed. In January 2003 Governor Ryan pardoned four death row prisoners and commuted all 167 other death sentences in Illinois.
11. The death penalty in the USA
59 prisoners were executed in the USA in 2004, bringing the year-end total to 944 executed since the use of the death penalty was resumed in 1977.
Over 3,400 prisoners were under sentence of death as of 1 January 2005.
38 of the 50 US states provide for the death penalty in law. The death penalty is also provided under US federal military and civilian law.
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I suppose it depends how you define "second chance." I believe he should have spent the remainder of his life behind bars. As the greatest English judge in history once said, "We can sentence a person to life, but we cannot sentence a person to death."
Anti-death penalty? Of course I am. Why?
Didnt want to quote all the stats you quoted, but seems to me the whole point of that was "We should abolish the death penalty because all these other people have." Seems to me we should bring back the ol' west days, when the judge sentenced ya' you got to watch them build the gallows from your jail cell, then got to try it out. I think it would greatly cut down on crime.
Wow, this many relies in just like an hour, thanks for replying guys.
As I said it was simply my opinion, I like many other people believe he is reformed. Yeah it was horrible what he did, but he actually made an attempt to go and reach children who were crips and other young children who may have had ,joining gangs, in their minds. There are child rapists and killers out there who get like 7 years+ for their crimes. Yet when they are free, they go and do it again. At least Williams went and did something, even though it can never replace the lives of those he has taken.
I just believe they should have kept him in jail for the remainder of his life at least.
Anyhow thanks guys for your opinions
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After watching her longtime friend die, Barbara Becnel told the crowd of hundreds gathered outside prison gates that she would prove Williams' innocence and that Schwarzenegger was a "cold-blooded murderer."
Uh huh. Executing someone who started one of the most violent gangs in existance, who according to prison officials still maintained ties to the gang, and who murdered 4 innocent people. Yeah, that austrian is real cold blooded.
Whatever luck Williams found on the streets avoiding the law ended in 1979 after four people were killed in a pair of armed robberies that were connected to him and his pump-action shotgun.
Williams' case became one of the nation's biggest death-row cause celebres in decades, with Hollywood stars and capital punishment foes arguing that Williams' sentence should be commuted to life in prison because he had made amends by writing children's books about the dangers of gangs and violence.
Yep. He really "made ammends" there. I guess writing a couple of childrens books and having a "spiritual awakening" is more than enough to make amends for killing 4 people. I just wish they could make amends for their horrendous crimes of being on the wrong end of his shotgun.
Lora Owens, Owens' stepmother, watched Williams die. In the days before the execution, she was one of the outspoken advocates who believed the execution should go forward. She said her stepson was shot twice in the back, even though he begged Williams for his life.
In the days leading up to the execution, state and federal courts refused to reopen his case. Monday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied Williams' request for clemency, suggesting that his supposed change of heart was not genuine because he had not shown any real remorse for the killings committed by the Crips.
Can someone, anyone at all can explain to me why this person should have had his case reopened, or clemency granted, when he killed a man who BEGGED FOR HIS LIFE, for probably less then he could have made in a months work as a productive member of society?
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"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think."
--Jean de la Bruyere
When someone commits a crime as heinous as he did, we should not have to pay to keep him in prison for life. It's your tax dollars guys.
What would you say about a habitual rapist who doesn't kill the victims? I'd be fine giving my tax money to keep them in prison for life. So what is so different about keeping a convicted multiple murderer in for life?
Once you put someone to death there aren't any do-overs or take-backs. I think that if you are going to give a sentence that is so final once it is carried out, you better have a legal system that is equally as sure about to whom it is giving that sentence. Unfortunately, since that is impossible, maybe the death penalty is worth reconsidering.
For me personally, if I were to be convicted of a crime of the severity mentioned here, the much harsher punishment would be to be locked in a small cell knowing that I would never have my freedom again. But that's just me.
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"7. The deterrence argument
Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments. The most recent survey of research findings on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates, conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002, concluded: ". . .it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment."
Of course the death penalty is not effective as a deterent for the population at large. Executions take place behind closed doors, and except for high profile cases, like this one, very few people are even aware they occur. For the death penalty to be a general deterent, the execution should be very public, even televised during prime time (talk about reality TV).
Although the death penalty, as now practiced, is not a general deterent, it certainly IS a deterent with regard to the subject being put to death, who WILL NEVER commit another homicide. Housing murders, for the rest of their lives, in a prision population also poses a threat to other prisoner, who are guilty of lesser crimes, since imprisioned murderers have nothing to lose by committing additional murders in prison.
All this brings me to the very best arguement AGAINST the death penalty and that is the incompetence of our legal system and the likelyhood that many innocent defendants are likely to be wrongfully put to death simply because of corruption on the part of procecutor and police eager to close open cases or because of incompetence on the part of defense attorneys.
They released the numbers for all the books he wrote..
Published 8 books, sold less that 300 copies of each, 3 still in print
As for the kids he spoke with by phone from jail, the warden estimated no more than 3 or 4 per year.
As for reforming, many are estimating that he still ran (or associated) with the crips for years and was continuing to recieve money from them, where most inmates get $10 or $20 per month, he was getting $500 - $1000 per month.
Anyway, all of that crap aside. People that recieve the death penality for their actions deserve to actually get it... I didn't shed a tear for Tookie, and I will not spare one for Scott Peterson... (may it come ever so soon with a rusty needle)
The anti-death crowd should be heard from prior to sentencing, and if the judge and jury swing to approve life, then so be it. A bunch of Hollywood jackasses preaching to spare the life of a murdering dirtbag does nothing but cause people to minimalize their cause.
Personally, the death sentence needs to be accellerated, no more than 5 years from sentence to execution... Fasttrack them. And add all the sexual predators, 3 time DUIs, and double murderers to that list. Skip the needle, go straight to the firing squad, It will be much easier for someone to find a vein then. The incinerator is an alternative, but I'd hate to waste the heating oil on them.
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and as for the argument for "Death isn't a deterrent", I'd like to point out that is much more difficult for an executed person to commit another violent crime.
The boat is full and there isn't room for everyone.
You are the weakest link, good-bye.
Sometimes, you have to winnow the herd.
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"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
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