Scott Peterson gets death

[Cowperson]

This case has been discussed on this board before so an update - jury just announced they want Scott Peterson dead.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-1...-peterson_x.htm

Cowperson

[habernac]

good.

[dirk diggler]

The legal system is a joke, he deserves death??, yet OJ Simpson for example is somehow innocent? i think with a lot of killers much worse than Peterson sitting in a cell, this is a bad call. The one thing Peterson had going against him is he couldnt play the race card or say he was abused...

[Patek23]

Who cares? One thing I hate about the press is that every year they latch onto a case and make it a big drama, Murder cases go on almost everyday stuff like this just glamorizes it.

[FlamesAddiction]

With the number of people on death row in California, and at the rate they are executing people, chancesare he will die of a natural death in prison anyway.

[Kjesse]

I've followed this in the media since his wife went missing. At first I didn't think he did it but I changed my mind about 3/4 of the way through the evidence, just before the prosecution rested.

This is a great decision. If ever somebody deserves to die, it is someone who has murded his pregnant wife.

The OJ case is precedent for nothing -- an example of what can go wrong.

This shows that most often the jury will get it right.

[Kjesse]

Originally posted by dirk diggler@Dec 13 2004, 03:59 PM
The legal system is a joke, he deserves death??, yet OJ Simpson for example is somehow innocent? i think with a lot of killers much worse than Peterson sitting in a cell, this is a bad call. The one thing Peterson had going against him is he couldnt play the race card or say he was abused...

Other than a serial killer, what is worse than this?

He didn't have a harsh or traumatic upbringing. He had everything going for him. He was an average middle class guy with everything one could hope for. Great wife. Everyone's healthy. Nice home. Paying his bills. Supportive family. A kid on the way.

So he kills her, weighs her down and tosses her in the bay?

I'm fully for the death penalty in cases like this.

I think that's worse than even a random killing.

[FlamesAddiction]

I'm against the death penalty in principle, mainly because I don't think it is applied evenly or fairly, and aslo that I do not believe that executing even one wrongly convicted person is worth the revenge of killing truely guilty people.

Having said that, I'm not going to worry about this case in particular. The guy is a scumbag.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally posted by FlamesAddiction@Dec 13 2004, 03:10 PM
With the number of people on death row in California, and at the rate they are executing people, chancesare he will die of a natural death in prison anyway.

Watching some talking head the other day he said "Scott Peterson may be better off with a death sentence because if he is put into the regular population of a maximum security prison he will be raped and other terrible things will happen to him but on death row he gets his own cell and doesn't mingle and he might be there for more than 30 years".

Despite the rather glum circumstances, death row might be the best possible outcome for this guy. I doubt he'd last 30 years in the regular prison and it would be considerably more unpleasant out there while he did last.

[Looger]

the only way i would fully support the death penalty is if the judge and jury get sentenced to death upon new evidence entered proving the dead defendent innocent.

too many mistakes, if the rightful conviction rate even approached 100% i would be all for it.

but this legal system, you've gotta be kidding me.

one example is too many, the one that sticks out for me is the guy in ontario wrongly jailed for 23 years, and 10 of those years after DNA evidence had cleared him.

if he spends 10 years in the can for no reason but the horrendous legal system, then i see no reason to extend the power of life and death to such a disastrous gong show.

edited for more sarcasm

[Mike F]

IMO, the jury system just isn't reliable enough to allow 12 people to order the death of another.

I don't think that letting a bunch of true murderers rot in prison is that bad a tradeoff to ensure that wrongly convicted people aren't put to death.

[JiriHrdina]

I'm fully against the death penalty.

1. I think its an easy way out for the convicted. I'd rather them have to spend 50 years rotting in jail.
2. Society simply should not have the right to kill someone.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by Mike F@Dec 13 2004, 11:37 PM
IMO, the jury system just isn't reliable enough to allow 12 people to order the death of another.

I don't think that letting a bunch of true murderers rot in prison is that bad a tradeoff to ensure that wrongly convicted people aren't put to death.

I'm in favour of the death penalty but, honestly, I'm surprised it was applied to a case like this where the prosecution case is virtually entirely circumstantial.

I don't have a big problem with the conviction because I THINK he did it . . . . . but this could be one of those cases where someone else comes out of the woodwork and says they did it 20 years later. Sending him to prison is one thing but I'd feel a lot better about the death penalty if there were witnesses, fingerprints on a murder weapon, etc, something that definitively says: "There's no doubt about it. This guy did it." Then I'm all for the death penalty in this case. But that element is missing. In fact, I was a little surprised he was even convicted.

There were about 16,000 murders in the USA in 2002.

Cowperson

[RougeUnderoos]

Just saw on the news that there are nearly 700 people on death row in California and 10 have been executed since 1978.

I'm not sure if it's a "first come first served" kind of arrangement but I'd say by the time they finally throw the switch on this guy none of us will even know he is.

The real threat on death row isn't the executioner either. More people (probably a lot more though it didn't say) have died by suicide or natural causes than have been executed since 1978.

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm with Cow on this one, I'm all for the death penalty when there is no doubt whatsoever. Clifford Olson, Paul Bernardo, Homolka, and several others are prime examples of people who should have ridden ol lightning straight to hell.

This one was strange because there was nothing really solid as far as evidence that slammed the door on SP, however my mind is pretty sure that he did it. This one was all about the Jury being swayed by the crime itself and not the evidence.


I'm pretty sure that there is a huge appeal for turnover on conviction being written up right now. The Prosecution was given a lot of lee way on this case

[Mike F]

Originally posted by Cowperson@Dec 13 2004, 05:23 PM
I'm in favour of the death penalty but, honestly, I'm surprised it was applied to a case like this where the prosecution case is virtually entirely circumstantial.

I don't have a big problem with the conviction because I THINK he did it . . . . . but this could be one of those cases where someone else comes out of the woodwork and says they did it 20 years later. Sending him to prison is one thing but I'd feel a lot better about the death penalty if there were witnesses, fingerprints on a murder weapon, etc, something that definitively says: "There's no doubt about it. This guy did it." Then I'm all for the death penalty in this case. But that element is missing. In fact, I was a little surprised he was even convicted.

There were about 16,000 murders in the USA in 2002.

Cowperson

I completely agree... to a point :P

I have no problem putting murderers to death, but the fact is that juries are soooo bad about actually applying the "truth beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. Too often juries make an early judgement about the accused, interpret the evidence to try to justify that judgement, and then convict unless the defense can prove to them that they were wrong.

That just happens way too often for me to feel comfortable when people are executed, since the vast majority of the time you don't know whether there was DNA evidence or just some suspicious circumstances.

I'm for a death penalty, but only if I get to see the evidence and decide whether it's conclusive enough B)

[Dirty Mr. Clean]

The topic is a little misleading since he has yet to be sentenced. The Jury just recommend the death penalty.

[Mike F]

I just watched some clips of interviews with 3 jurors from the trial, and it just reinforced my beliefs.

They spent a lot of time talking about how Peterson didn't show any emotion, and how he never got on the stand to defend himself, all of which points to a jury looking for Peterson to prove himself innocent.

[Reaper]

Originally posted by Mike F@Dec 14 2004, 12:11 PM
I just watched some clips of interviews with 3 jurors from the trial, and it just reinforced my beliefs.

They spent a lot of time talking about how Peterson didn't show any emotion, and how he never got on the stand to defend himself, all of which points to a jury looking for Peterson to prove himself innocent.

Unfortunately, I think that in a great deal of jury trials there are juries whose makeup includes a majority of people who expect the accused to prove he/she is innocent rather than the burden of proof being on the prosecution to prove guilt.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally posted by Mike F@Dec 14 2004, 11:11 AM
I just watched some clips of interviews with 3 jurors from the trial, and it just reinforced my beliefs.

They spent a lot of time talking about how Peterson didn't show any emotion, and how he never got on the stand to defend himself, all of which points to a jury looking for Peterson to prove himself innocent.

They were talking to a banished juror on CNN yesterday and he said "we (jurors) talked about our book deals and who would play us in the movie" and even better "we didn't want to come out of this like the OJ jury with everyone mad at us".

They had a hankerin' for a hangin' before they even got there.

Now that's justice!