We are about to execute another murderer tonight. Presumably we sometimes put to death innocent people — or so cases have shown.
As the site below indicates we are seventh behind not the most to be admired nations in this practice — the only democracy in the lot.
The only good thing we have accomplished is halting several years back executing juveniles. Our numbers are declining.
Bush as Governor of Texas presided over half our number one year — 37 of 74 with not one commutation by him.
Is it not about time we joined civilized nations in abolishing this practice?
It has been a hard day for me, so I am going to leave it here as a question for us to answer both together and individually.
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# 1 China: 470 executions
# 2 Iran: 317 executions
# 3 Saudi Arabia: 143 executions
# 4 Pakistan: 135 executions
# 5 Congo, Democratic Republic of the: 100 executions
# 6 Egypt: 48 executions
# 7 United States: 42 executions
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_exe-crime-executions
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“A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope.” (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
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Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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5 users commented in " Death Penalty in America "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackHow many countries do you think actually report these statistics accurately? It is very naive to think that we are actually 7th. I could name at least a dozen other countries that I guarantee executed scores more than the US did.
You always are the murderers advocate on here. I, for one, think we should execute more. It would help our economy to have fewer in prison getting three hots and a cot at taxpayers expense.
Ronald Williams…totally agree. The victims that cried out for their lives to be spared..pleaded and pleaded, to no avail. I for one, don’t want to show mercy for them. JMO
Eye for an eye.
A more meaningful comparison would be the executions per capita, which happens to be an option at the link you sited. An earlier commenter has already cast doubt on the data, but if they can be believed, by your measure countries like Somalia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria are more civilized than the U.S. I’ll take my chances in the U.S.
The execution to which you refer must be the one of the D.C. sniper — not exactly the most sympathetic of defendants. To say he should be allowed to beat the justice system in spite of what he put the nation through seems to me to be a case of compassion overwhelming common sense.
If you really want to help someone condemned to die, a much more worthwhile effort would be to help exonerate those who may have been wrongly convicted.
And finally, Bush may have been a visitor to Texas in 2007, the year for which the data purports to cover, but he was certainly not governor.
The fiancial costs of the death penalty are vastly greater than life imprisonment:
http://www.fnsa.org/v1n1/dieter1.html
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