Sorry I Mis-read.
But I just can't stand you cheating on me and debating with others. Its not fair!

Just kidding

-Demosthenes

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"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Nothing I have said has anything to do with letting guilty people go free. I never said anything of the sort. That is an assumption you made. If you think the only option besides the death penalty is setting people free, then maybe you aren't thinking critically. You told me to admit that guilty people go free and innocent people are put to death. I gladly admitted it. It turned out that it did support my claim that our system is too imperfect for the death penalty right now. That doesn't mean I took anything our of context. You asked me to admit something, and I did.

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lambaste me not

This would be a lot funnier if it didn't make me feel so creepy.

Usually people frame a discussion by giving a problem and offering their solution.

Exactly what do you expect us to do to have fewer prisoners wrongly accused AND fewer new victims created by the criminals we have alread caught and subsequently released?

If your solution is to just make fewer mistakes, then I hope you are joking. Its a matter of tradeoffs. Its not always about picking the ideal situation over the flawed reality. Sometimes you have to pick between two bad choices.

So, whats your solution that protects prisoners and prevents the creation of additional victims?

I am not as interested in protecting prisoners, as I am in protecting innocent people from being put to death, especially innocent people that are too poor to afford a lawyer to properly defend them. There is a difference. If making fewer mistakes is not possible, then do not inflict undo-able sentences. That corrupts society more than you think. Its the kind of mental corruption that supposes that killing a few innocent people is ok as long as we kill the bad guys too. It's when we start thinking of innocent tax paying citizens as sacrificial statistics that we start becoming jaded and losing touch. Right now the solution is putting a mandate on the death penalty until we can figure out why this is happening.

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lambaste me not

So its OK to put an innocent person in jail for life, but we cross the line when we kill that person? As solutions go, this one needs some work. Any better ideas?

You have the nasty habit of putting words in people's mouth. I never said it is ok to put innocent people in jail for life. But it is better than killing them. Remember Ruben "The Hurricane" Carter? He was innocent and spent a long time in jail, but he did go free and is living a happy life now. Had he been put to death, his life would have been tragically short.

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lambaste me not

[quote="powergrid";p="39420"]In your mind, the line is drawn at not killing them.

In my mind, a life sentence can lead to some mitigating factor that can lead to early release.

I understand you are advocating prisoner rights in a flawed system, but my sympathy remains with the public who depend upon the same flawed system for protection. If I have to make an unpleasant choice, then I want the one that does not put innocent women and children so far into harms way.

You say your sympathy remains with the public. So does mine. Innocent people are part of that public, and men's lives are just as valuable as women's and children's lives.

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lambaste me not

Future victims of murder, rape and abuse at the hands of convicted violent criminals on one hand and guys who have been convicted of violent crimes in a system whose flaws make it possible that the convictions were sometimes unjust on the other hand.

Hmmmmmmmmm

I see where you are coming from, but I gotta disagree. They just don't seem like the same thing to me.