{"id":70,"date":"2005-12-13T07:56:06","date_gmt":"2005-12-13T14:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=70"},"modified":"2005-12-13T07:56:06","modified_gmt":"2005-12-13T14:56:06","slug":"death-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=70","title":{"rendered":"Death Penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the matter of Stanley “Tookie” Williams<\/a>, Crips street gang co-founder and convicted murderer who was executed in California early this morning, I look into my soul and can’t find an ounce of outrage. Simply put, I’m not opposed to the death penalty. I’m not opposed to retribution.<\/p>\n

I’m not opposed, that is, so long as the people we kill are guilty of the crimes they’re charged with. Far too often, they aren’t<\/a>. I agree with Max Sawicky at MaxSpeak, You Listen!<\/a>, who says<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The ability of the state to effectively determine guilt or innocence, to a degree of certainty allowing the use of capital punishment, that’s a whole different story. The ability of government, which is nothing but a highly imperfect extension of popular will, to fairly apportion punishment without regard to race, national origin, and other extraneous factors, let’s face it, it’s a joke . . . Capital punishment should be shut down until a) the machinery can be refined so that mistakes are not made and penalties are apportioned fairly; and b) if the public still favors it. If it can’t be refined, then it should be abolished.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A stunning case of capital punishment gone wrong is the impending execution, in Missippi, of Cory Maye<\/a>, whose case is being closely followed by Radley Balko at The Agitator<\/a>. For what little it’s worth, I add my voice to his in calling for a retrial.<\/p>\n

But Tookie? Dude, you shouldn’t have killed those four people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the matter of Stanley “Tookie” Williams, Crips street gang co-founder and convicted murderer who was executed in California early this morning, I look into my soul and can’t find an ounce of outrage. Simply put, I’m not opposed to the death penalty. I’m not opposed to retribution. I’m not opposed, that is, so long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-current-events","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}