There are a couple of things we need to get in the open today and they all have to do with the criminal justice system here in America. I know you all have opinions about where we are going wrong and opinions about what we are doing right. I´d like to hear them, but first I want to share with you some basic but not readily known information.
It seems to me the first order of business is to clearly define what type of system we currently have here in the United States and then discuss what we would like the system to become or not become.
Currently the United States of American operates within a pineal justice system that is designed as a rehabilitative system. In other words the correctional services system used throughout the United States is solely designed to rehabilitate all individuals that find themselves within the correctional system of any state. If you do a bad thing, our system is designed to help you not to do that bad thing again – once you are in prison, there is a system designed to help rehabilitate you.
Which makes the entire concept of a death row and a death sentence perplexing, but I digress.
So here we have a horse thief, I use a horse thief as an example because when this system was designed, the majority of the inhabitants were chicken, horse, cow or bull thieves. And yes, with the exception of a few upgrades and modifications our penal system – as it currently stands - goes back that far.
But back to our horse thief – he steals your horse, from your farm. It is a work horse, not a riding or carriage horse. This horse thief is your neighbor – and lives about 5 miles down the road. There was a time you and your other neighbors could go identify that work horse was yours and you would shoot or hang on site the horse thief (an early form of capital punishment). Even while this form of "instant justice" was being performed – it was illegal. Yet it was common practice – especially as the west was being developed.
Why is this important? Because the farmers form of justice was based upon their own personal opinion that they had the right to stop anyone from interfering with their ability to provide for their family – to work, in their own pursuit happiness. Also they strongly believed in physiology like "you can not change a horse thief" – even if it was a neighbor. Subsequently there would be no attempt to bring to that individual to the local law have them arrested and place into jail – for trail, sentencing and rehabilitation.
Fast forward 150 years. We are still debating this issue – can you change a horse thief? Can you rehabilitate a child molester, like Richard Allen Davis?
http://judicial-inc.biz/9_9_just_how_many_did_he_kill_and_mo.htm To date there are questions surrounding just how many children he raped molested and killed. What about a member of a gang, like Tookie Williams, charged with murderous felonies, yet throughout his years of incarceration he wrote award winning children´s books. Did he not rehabilitate – did the system not stop him from doing bad things?
Which brings me to my latest – I don´t get it moment - on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the death penalty is unconstitutional for the rape of a child. This decision instantly overturned the death penalty laws in Louisiana – where two men had been sentenced to death for the rape of a child. Because of this decision, these men will now be given life without the possibility of parole. If you don´t deserve the death penalty when your actions as an adult cause the violent death of a child, who does deserve the death penalty the horse thief?
Or maybe – just maybe - the Supreme Court come to this decision because these men were not rehabilitative?
Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy who wrote the decision for the majority said there was a distinction between intentional first degree murder and non-homicide crimes against individuals´ persons, including even divesting crimes like the rape of a child. Really? Would any of you reading this agree with that?
In California the latest argument is that the death penalty system is dysfunctional and ready to collapse. Currently California has 670 inmates on death row - that is the largest amount of inmates on death row in the nation.
If you just look at the history of capital punishment in the State of California and the penal judicial system – you soon see why the system is failing so devastatingly. Since the death penalty was reinstated in California in 1978 - 98 convictions sentences were overturned; 38 inmates died of natural causes; 14 inmates committed suicide and 13 were actually executed.
Let me help you with the math on this one: in the past 20 years 163 men have been sentenced to die and sent to San Quintin Prison in Northern California.
Of that 163 men – that a jury of their peers found non-rehabilitative (because remember, we have a rehabilitative penal system) 13 of them were actually put to death.
California spends three times the amount of money, in ligation, after a death penalty trial then it does for the trial itself. All of this information was just released in a report by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
Keeping with my state as an example of a system in need of repair - California Correctional Department has the worst delays in the nation for the completion of and execution of death row inmates. In California it takes 20 years from the time of sentience for a death row inmate to actually be put to death. The national average is 12 years.
Again, according to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, California could save $100 million a year by making one simple adjustment to its penal judicial system. That adjustment – get rid of the death penalty and hold any level of crime that would fit the criteria for the death penalty to a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
What do we know about our systems? Well it is obvious the system is broken and close to bankrupt. It is also obvious that the death penalty only stops one individual from committing a crime – the individual that is put to death.
The death penalty or public hangings from 150 years ago were never a deterrent to crime. The death penalty is not a national deterrent to crime as the supporters of the death penalty would like the broader public to believe. If that was the case, simple put, if the death penalty was a deterrent to heinous or murderous crimes, there would not have been a murder committed in the State of California since 1978 when the death penalty was reinstated. Which is clearly not the case as California has more inmates on death row then any other State?
So if the death penalty is not a deterrent and we are spending millions to fight death penalty cases, is it not time we all start to think logically and unemotionally about your penal system. Is it not time to redefine the rehabilitation aspect of our system strengthen it in the early levels of Joinville courts.
Or do we want a system of rehabilitation that works to the satisfaction of the community it is designed to protect and the community it is designed to rehabilitate. Or do we want to continue to fill court rooms with attorneys fighting a death penalty case at the ever increasing cost to you and me.
It seems to me the first order of business is to clearly define what type of system we currently have here in the United States and then discuss what we would like the system to become or not become.
Currently the United States of American operates within a pineal justice system that is designed as a rehabilitative system. In other words the correctional services system used throughout the United States is solely designed to rehabilitate all individuals that find themselves within the correctional system of any state. If you do a bad thing, our system is designed to help you not to do that bad thing again – once you are in prison, there is a system designed to help rehabilitate you.
Which makes the entire concept of a death row and a death sentence perplexing, but I digress.
So here we have a horse thief, I use a horse thief as an example because when this system was designed, the majority of the inhabitants were chicken, horse, cow or bull thieves. And yes, with the exception of a few upgrades and modifications our penal system – as it currently stands - goes back that far.
But back to our horse thief – he steals your horse, from your farm. It is a work horse, not a riding or carriage horse. This horse thief is your neighbor – and lives about 5 miles down the road. There was a time you and your other neighbors could go identify that work horse was yours and you would shoot or hang on site the horse thief (an early form of capital punishment). Even while this form of "instant justice" was being performed – it was illegal. Yet it was common practice – especially as the west was being developed.
Why is this important? Because the farmers form of justice was based upon their own personal opinion that they had the right to stop anyone from interfering with their ability to provide for their family – to work, in their own pursuit happiness. Also they strongly believed in physiology like "you can not change a horse thief" – even if it was a neighbor. Subsequently there would be no attempt to bring to that individual to the local law have them arrested and place into jail – for trail, sentencing and rehabilitation.
Fast forward 150 years. We are still debating this issue – can you change a horse thief? Can you rehabilitate a child molester, like Richard Allen Davis?
http://judicial-inc.biz/9_9_just_how_many_did_he_kill_and_mo.htm To date there are questions surrounding just how many children he raped molested and killed. What about a member of a gang, like Tookie Williams, charged with murderous felonies, yet throughout his years of incarceration he wrote award winning children´s books. Did he not rehabilitate – did the system not stop him from doing bad things?
Which brings me to my latest – I don´t get it moment - on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the death penalty is unconstitutional for the rape of a child. This decision instantly overturned the death penalty laws in Louisiana – where two men had been sentenced to death for the rape of a child. Because of this decision, these men will now be given life without the possibility of parole. If you don´t deserve the death penalty when your actions as an adult cause the violent death of a child, who does deserve the death penalty the horse thief?
Or maybe – just maybe - the Supreme Court come to this decision because these men were not rehabilitative?
Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy who wrote the decision for the majority said there was a distinction between intentional first degree murder and non-homicide crimes against individuals´ persons, including even divesting crimes like the rape of a child. Really? Would any of you reading this agree with that?
In California the latest argument is that the death penalty system is dysfunctional and ready to collapse. Currently California has 670 inmates on death row - that is the largest amount of inmates on death row in the nation.
If you just look at the history of capital punishment in the State of California and the penal judicial system – you soon see why the system is failing so devastatingly. Since the death penalty was reinstated in California in 1978 - 98 convictions sentences were overturned; 38 inmates died of natural causes; 14 inmates committed suicide and 13 were actually executed.
Let me help you with the math on this one: in the past 20 years 163 men have been sentenced to die and sent to San Quintin Prison in Northern California.
Of that 163 men – that a jury of their peers found non-rehabilitative (because remember, we have a rehabilitative penal system) 13 of them were actually put to death.
California spends three times the amount of money, in ligation, after a death penalty trial then it does for the trial itself. All of this information was just released in a report by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
Keeping with my state as an example of a system in need of repair - California Correctional Department has the worst delays in the nation for the completion of and execution of death row inmates. In California it takes 20 years from the time of sentience for a death row inmate to actually be put to death. The national average is 12 years.
Again, according to the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, California could save $100 million a year by making one simple adjustment to its penal judicial system. That adjustment – get rid of the death penalty and hold any level of crime that would fit the criteria for the death penalty to a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
What do we know about our systems? Well it is obvious the system is broken and close to bankrupt. It is also obvious that the death penalty only stops one individual from committing a crime – the individual that is put to death.
The death penalty or public hangings from 150 years ago were never a deterrent to crime. The death penalty is not a national deterrent to crime as the supporters of the death penalty would like the broader public to believe. If that was the case, simple put, if the death penalty was a deterrent to heinous or murderous crimes, there would not have been a murder committed in the State of California since 1978 when the death penalty was reinstated. Which is clearly not the case as California has more inmates on death row then any other State?
So if the death penalty is not a deterrent and we are spending millions to fight death penalty cases, is it not time we all start to think logically and unemotionally about your penal system. Is it not time to redefine the rehabilitation aspect of our system strengthen it in the early levels of Joinville courts.
Or do we want a system of rehabilitation that works to the satisfaction of the community it is designed to protect and the community it is designed to rehabilitate. Or do we want to continue to fill court rooms with attorneys fighting a death penalty case at the ever increasing cost to you and me.
