Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket.

  • MagicShel@programming.dev
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    10 months ago

    I think it’s that guys like this one aren’t a hill anyone is eager to die on. Like, it’s bad, but let’s not make this guy the poster boy for ending the practice. There are other cases I’m much happier to cite in arguments opposing the death penalty.

    • teamevil@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Perhaps one of the many innocent folks on death row, which includes a not insignificant amount of African Americans too.

      But this guy can fuck right off, I am not losing a second of sleep to his suffering.

      • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I am never worried about guilty people on death row. I am worried about those that kill them, those that help kill them, those that witness the killing, and those who believe falsely that this form of justice will heal anyone from harms or prevent future harms.

        • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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          10 months ago

          You forgot to worry about those who are raised in a society where it’s okay to kill people for any reason other than preventing another person from being harmed.

    • Nobody@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Even a single innocent person getting murdered by the state makes the practice barbaric. The state is imperfect. It should not have a license to murder.

      • LanternEverywhere@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        We’re all in agreement, but as OP said, this
        particular person isn’t the time to make your stand on. We’ve all been vocally against the death penalty for a long time, but this specific person is not the one to make an especially strong “this is the line, no further” kind of stand for. I’m against him being killed like I’m against all cases of the government killing prisoners, but I’m also not doing any extra standing up for this particular person.

        • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          So you only stand by your views as long as it’s convenient and easy?

          I guess the right of attorneys is important but if the state violates his rights to that in this trial then you are not gonna have an issue with that either?

          • ickplant@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            He is standing by his views. Just not going out of his way to defend this person. Let’s see you go to the courtroom and protest this particular guy’s death penalty if you are so dedicated.

            • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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              10 months ago

              If I lived there, I would. Not protesting this shows that you’re actually okay with the death penalty, and your typical admonishment of it doesn’t reflect your true beliefs.

        • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          this particular person isn’t the time to make your stand on.

          Those of us who are vehemently against the death penalty tend to be vocal about it every time it comes up, not just when it’s happening to awful people. It’s important to make it clear that even in cases like this, the death penalty should not be a thing, because otherwise we tacitly agree that sometimes, the death penalty is a good thing.

          This particular person is absolutely the time to make our stand against the death penalty, because if we don’t, then we don’t stand against it at all.

      • DontMakeMoreBabies@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        I’d rather society focus on something besides saving the 0.5% of folks wrongly convicted and sentenced to death.

        Huge waste of resources to spend on a population (criminals) that seems generally comprised of antisocial morons.

        But what about that innocent dude? Rounding error. 😐

        Edit: Also ‘it’s not perfect so we can’t’ is the dumbest fucking argument.

        • FlordaMan@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          ‘it’s not perfect so we can’t’ is absolutely not the ‘dumbest fucking’ argument if we are talking about actual human lives.

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Something tells me you wouldn’t be espousing this “it’s fine for the state to murder innocent people from time to time” if it were you, your partner, or your child on death row.

          What a disgustingly callous attitude.

      • Moira_Mayhem@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        The root of all of a state’s power is the right to employ violence. It is a barbaric practice but to be fair we are a barbaric species.

        Some people should not be allowed to curse the earth with their existence.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I have a friend who went to protest outside the federal prison when Timothy McVeigh was executed. He had no love for McVeigh. He thought McVeigh was a monster. That wasn’t the point. The point was that capital punishment is always wrong. The state should not have the power of life and death over its citizenry.

      And I have great respect for him for doing so. Protesting capital punishment in cases like this are just as important as in lesser cases because the reason for the punishment isn’t at issue.

    • Coasting0942@reddthat.com
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      10 months ago

      I’ll be glad when death penalty is abolished. But we’ve still got time till then, and this guy live streaming himself doing the murders doesn’t leave much in the way of wiggle room for innocence.

      Gonna be tragic when we learn it was secretly racist nano robots controlling his whole body by time traveling confederates.

    • eatthecake@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I used to be against the death penalty. Read an article once about why it’s racist. Don’t remember them saying why it was racist but eventually they got to what the guy had done. He cut open a pregnant woman to steal her baby for his junkie girlfriend. I have been pro death penalty ever since.

      • nomous@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        You were manipulated to support the death penalty by a story you don’t even remember lol.

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        10 months ago

        I used to be pro death penalty. The thing that convinced me was that it was so much more expensive to kill someone then jail them for life. Can you tell I grew up a good little republican? Of course the usual right-wing response is just take them out back and shoot them and while I might’ve given that some lip service, I knew then justice was imperfect. Appeals and last minute clemency were getting people off of death row all the time (or at least it seemed so).

        Eventually I came to learn of people who’d been executed (no clemency, no appeal, no last minute heroics) and there was no solid evidence a crime had even been committed much less that they were guilty. And the math doesn’t lie that it’s extremely racist, and if racial bias exists then clearly justice isn’t being served. I’m firmly against the death penalty for moral reasons now, but we all have our journey, right?

      • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        Sure, 1-5% of people executed by the state were either innocent or their guilt was under extreme doubt, but it’s worth it if it means killing violent people, right? I mean, I would gladly accept a wrongful death penalty if it means that someone who’s violent gets to be tortured to death with me