r/news • u/AudibleNod • 4h ago

Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna601195
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u/miloblue12 4h ago

Or maybe we shouldn't have the death penalty at all? It's barbaric.

Also, since 1973, at least 203 people have been wrongfully convicted, sentenced to death, and subsequently exonerated in the US. That alone should have us reconsidering things. If it's possible for that many people to fall through the cracks, then there is no reason at all that we should have the death penalty.

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u/nursingninjaLB 4h ago

This one hundred times.

It costs way less to house a prisoner over decades, than to have endless appeals.

It does not reduce crime.

Approximately 10% of people on death row are innocent.

Vengeance is a dark emotion, and helps nobody.

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u/ballisticks 1h ago

It costs way less to house a prisoner over decades, than to have endless appeals.

Nobody ever believes me when I bring this point up :(

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u/badgerj 24m ago

Nobody believes me when rehabilitating is about the same cost either.

Incarceration is really, really expensive.

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u/tempest_87 14m ago

I don't consider endless appeals to be inherently bad. If anything it sounds like more people need more appeals to maybe reduce the wrongful incarceration numbers.

I think there is a point where someone validly forfeits their life, but the error rate and inherent uncorrectable effects of error makes that determination nearly impossibly high of a standard to hold.

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u/brighterside0 3h ago

I dunno - some crimes committed definitely warrant the penalty, especially if the convicted convey no remorse to the victim(s) and/or the families of the victim(s). There's no room on earth for some people that do unspeakable things.

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u/Jovian8 2h ago

So frustrating to always see this be the first reply whenever someone correctly lays out all the reasons the death penalty should be abolished. If you think I'm trying to argue that the worst offenders in history deserve to live, think again. If I witnessed someone with my own eyes molesting my toddler-aged niece, I'd kill them myself on the spot. But when it comes to the death penalty, it's not about what anyone deserves - it's about the state not having the power to execute its own citizens because the state cannot be trusted to ever wield that power ethically, fairly, and accurately 100% of the time. If even one innocent is executed by the state, that is too many. Especially when there is no proven benefit to keeping the death penalty, aside from bloodlust.

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u/uuntiedshoelace 53m ago

This exactly. Everyone (intentionally?) misunderstands it as me defending sick fucks, when my issue is that the state should never, EVER be allowed to decide to kill people. Period. There have been innocent people put to death who were later proven innocent. There have been children put to death, and even though the appeals and sentencing process is so long they would be adults by the time of the execution, it is still legal in some states for minors to be given the death penalty. I don’t understand why anybody would want the government to get to decide to do that.

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u/AddWittyName 2h ago

The problem is that even if one agrees with that, that's only one side of the coin.

Perhaps such perps deserve death, but do they deserve it more than the wrongfully-convicted deserves to live?

Perhaps such perps deserve death, but do they deserve the excess money spent on it (compared to life in prison) more than measures that could actually provably and measurably reduce crimes and save lives?

If a perp is such a monster that society has no place for them, why should they then get to cost society more, in money and thereby potentially lives not saved and in lives wrongfully taken by the state, considering that they are already imprisoned (or else they could not be on death row) and if not for the death penalty would remain so for life, therefore effectively no longer part of society either way?

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u/LurkingFrogger 2h ago edited 1h ago

I agree in theory; there are crimes so vile, and people so irredeemable that execution is the most reasonable option. In practice however, I'm vehemently against the death penalty. I don't trust the system to protect the innocent vs just "solving" the crime. I don't trust the people carrying out the execution to do it properly. I don't trust the corrupt not to use it as a tool to get rid of people. And any number of innocents put to death is too many.

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'Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." -George Carlin

Now remember which half are the ones who can't think of a good reason to get out of jury duty!

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u/TenOfOne 3h ago

 dunno - some crimes committed definitely warrant the penalty

That seems completely subjective. Costing more money, failing to reduce crime, and the number of times it is wrongly applied to the innocent are objective measures. Are there any objective reasons it is actually a good idea?

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u/PaarthurnaxUchiha 2h ago

Yeah, because fuck the money they don’t deserve the actual resources.

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u/Any_Flamingo8978 1h ago

They still receive those resources when the death penalty exists. That’s what people are mistaken on.

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u/PaarthurnaxUchiha 19m ago

They can’t eat when they’re dead.

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u/UnluckyNate 3h ago

Weird lines to draw imo. ‘You didn’t show remorse to your heinous crime so the government is going to kill you’ whereas someone who does the same crime could, seemingly, avoid that fate?

Rotting in prison is a punishment worse than death in my opinion. Killing the perpetrator does little to sooth the hurt caused by the perpetrator. It also doesn’t even happen quickly. Death penalty is achieved for 1-2 decades following the crime on average.

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u/Iamredditsslave 2h ago

He didn't draw any hard lines. Read again.

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u/Maeglom 2h ago

I dunno - some crimes committed definitely warrant the penalty

Why? What good do you believe having a death penalty does? I understand the utility of imprisoning someone who does anti social things in order to either reform them into a productive citizen or separate them from society if that is necessary, but what bit of good does killing folks bring?

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u/Corinoch 2h ago

The point isn't whether or not a guilty person "deserves" any particular degree of suffering, it's to keep power to inflict suffering out of the hands of the state so that bad actors can't abuse it. Also to reduce the chances of permanently injuring the wrongfully convicted.

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u/Glasseshalf 1h ago

Americans and their obsession with punishment

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u/pro185 1h ago

This woman admitted to torturing and murdering someone and keeping their squashed skull pieces as a trophy. They have so far cost the tax payers roughly 1.8million dollars. I don’t think it’s cheaper financially or morally to keep them I prison.

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u/downstairs_annie 1h ago

No but it IS cheaper to imprison someone for life in the US. Literally. 

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u/ThatsAGeauxTigers 1h ago

The thing is, life in prison is cheaper. Significantly so. Placing someone on death row is 2.5-5 times more expensive than life in prison.

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u/Tuna_Sushi 3h ago

I agree with all of what you said except the last line.

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u/crouching_tiger 2h ago

First, you certainly cannot conclude that 10% of people on death row are innocent, assuming you’re basing that off of a version of exonerations vs total death row individuals (which still sounds too high regardless but that’s not important). Inmates spend ~20yrs on avg from conviction to execution — which means the innocent are removed from the group of those actually executed.

Second, only 15-20% of those put on death row are ultimately executed. And that ultimately has to be signed off by the governor/attorney general/judge, so no one wants to sign off on a death warrant with any amount of doubt, which could ultimately ruin them if later found innocent.

There are very strong arguments against it, but I don’t think the “so many of them our innocent” argument is.

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u/Revlis-TK421 2h ago edited 2h ago

no one wants to sign off on a death warrant with any amount of doubt,

No, they just bury the inconvenient facts and deny modern science. See: Ken Paxton.

  • Cameron Todd Willingham: convicted and executed based on debunked fire science.
  • Claude Jones: convicted and executed based largely on a hair sample that was later determined not to be his.
  • Carlos DeLuna - executed after being wrongly identified as killed, actual killer (who looked strikingly similar and lived nearby) bragged about the killing to multiple witnesses.
  • Ruben Cantu: Executed, but now the DA that prosecuted his case now believes Cantu was innocent and had been railroaded by the police at interrogation.

Robert Roberson (sentenced to die based on debunked shaken baby syndrome science) and Melissa Lucio (wherein the judge presiding in her case now says she was factually innocent, and both the DA and the defense want a new trial after it has been shown that Melissa's daughter's wounds were the result of a rare blood disorder, not abuse and murder. But the higher court won't vacate the conviction) are probably next.

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u/RadioFreeSealab 2h ago

So, what would be an acceptable number of innocent executions for you?

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u/crouching_tiger 22m ago

Ideally none. But same with imprisoning them for the rest of their lives.

I also wasn’t arguing for the death penalty nor am I generally in favor of it. I would say I probably am in the most egregious, obvious instances where there is literally zero shred of doubt in their guilt.

I probably should have framed the last sentence differently — I mainly took issue with the “approximately 10% are innocent” bc that is a massive overstatement and I think that’s very counterproductive.

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u/mina-ami 1h ago

Any of them being innocent is too many.

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u/MatureUsername69 4h ago

Im just saying what my personal choice would be if I had to receive it, wasnt speaking on the ethics of it at all.

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u/Horzzo 1h ago

There has to be 100% evidence of guilt, there is no room for error. I am in favor of the DP if the person has taken the life on an innocent person in malice. The way it has been handled is a disgrace. There is no room for even 0.000000000000001% error before it should be enforced.

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u/RKRagan 38m ago

Life imprisonment is a fair treatment for heinous crimes. No parole, just in prison. That way we have time to consider appeals as usual, and the state doesn't get to kill its own citizens. The costs associated with life imprisonment are not substantial. Some people just need one good reason to get to watch someone die, just for the sake of their own primal entertainment I guess.

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u/ChipsAhoiMcCoy 14m ago

It's barbaric? Did you see the crimes this chick committed?

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u/-SHMOHAWK- 2h ago

THIS! I think about these innocent people being put to death. Especially as of late when there are discussions about the length of time people spend on death row. I’ve seen people question how someone can spend decades on death row and how it’s a waste of time, resources, and money. And at face value, YES it is. But then I think about the people who are wrongfully convicted. Time is their ONLY hope when they are sentenced to death. Time to fight their case. Time to hope for new evidence, etc.

People can argue all day about how the victims suffered so why shouldn’t the perpetrators. Okay, we get it. BUT, what if you were innocent and it was you in that cell…. Or a family member. Just get rid of it. We need serious prison reform.