For Sal, bds, and seaoat

Sal wrote:

That's because you're an insecure coward.

Bob wrote:Murderer Provides Lesson To Liberals Soft On Crime
By GREGORY KANE,  The Baltimore Sun

Thank you, Leon Yukem Noel. Thank you. Sometimes the most eloquent argument for a particular belief comes from the most unexpected places. And this past Wednesday, Noel gave a chilling example of why violent criminals with a history of violence should be tossed behind bars and the doors welded shut.

If you didn't get to read Sun reporter Brenda Buote's article in the April 17 issue about Noel's exhilarating performance in front of Judge John Carroll Byrnes, I will inform you. First, let's be clear who Noel is, so that we don't overlook the most important people in this matter: the family and loved ones of the woman he was convicted of murdering for 52 cents.

It was Aug. 8, 1995, when Baltimoreans got the news. A woman walking with her husband in the 1300 block of Washington Blvd. had been shot. A robber demanded money and shot 44-year-old Denise Ann Cooke above her left eye, ending her life and leaving her husband, Stephen Cooke, and their two children to carry the pain of this despicable act with them the rest of their lives.

So we Baltimoreans were shocked by Denise Cooke's senseless and brutal murder, but deep down we wondered - did the perpetrator have a criminal record? Was he one of that career criminal element who, at the time of his crime, should have had his sorry butt in jail?

We got the answer in Byrnes' court Wednesday. Assistant State's Attorney Gary D. Schenker said the 24-year-old Noel has at least a 14-year history of criminality. Reporter Buote quoted Schenker as he read from a 22-page pre-sentencing report.

" . . . since the age of 10, Mr. Noel has had contact upon contact with the juvenile and adult correctional system - including at least six offenses that were violent in nature.

"But time and time again, Mr. Noel was put back out on the street, and his response has been to hurt other members of our community. He is a man incapable of rehabilitation. We are asking that the state essentially warehouse Mr. Noel until he dies, so that he is not able to go out and harm another person."

When Byrne sentenced Noel to life without parole plus 25 years, the miscreant shouted to the judge, "I'll see you in hell." Then Noel suggested that Byrnes do something to improve his sex life. Then he uttered a stream of invective and curses. The incident has to make you feel empathy for the correctional officers - and even other prison inmates - who'll have to deal with this guy.

But Noel did do one positive thing: He proved violent career criminals belong behind bars for as long as we can legally keep them there. Noel and his criminal history are a testament to the belief of those meanies among us that slapping murderers, thieves, rapists and other reprobates in jail at the very least keeps them the hell away from the rest of us.

The tragedy is that we didn't do that before Noel murdered Denise Cooke. As Schenker indicated, we had our chances. But we kept turning Noel loose. We listened to those squishy-soft-on-crime liberals one time too many, and it's Stephen Cooke and his children who had to pay for the liberals' lack of backbone on crime.

An example equally tragic and egregious comes out of Chicago, where earlier this month an ex-convict confessed to beating and raping the 9-year-old known only as Girl X. According to Chicago police, Patrick Sykes, who served a two-year prison term in the early 1990s for attempted criminal sexual assault, confessed to knocking the girl unconscious, raping her and pouring "a gasoline-type substance down her throat," according to an Associated Press story.

Our prison system apparently failed to rehabilitate Sykes. Having failed to rehabilitate him, the least it could have done was to have kept him there.

"Three strikes and out" is racist, liberal black politicians and leadership howl, as though the law was directed against them personally and not meant to protect the hundreds of thousands of their constituents who live in fear of violent criminals. I'd like to see liberal black politicians and leaders - who continue to put criminals first and the rest of us last - utter such nonsense to Stephen Cooke or the parents of Girl X. Because the sad pathetic truth is that had "three strikes and out" been the law some years ago, Denise Ann Cooke might still be alive today.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1997-04-20/news/7901010664_1_noel-schenker-correctional-officers

PkrBum wrote:It's not just that they're soft on crime and punishment... they also want laws that limit our ability to defend ourselves.

Bob wrote:And if you want me to apply this to the incident I brought up in this thread and explain to you why it's just more evidence of how you liberals are soft on violent crime,  I will be happy to do that for you.

The animals in this carjacking and rape and multiple murders of innocent children need to be executed.  But you liberals have fought that at every turn.
A California study revealed that California taxpayers pay $90,000 more per death row prisoner each year than is spent on prisoners in regular confinement.   That's because you liberals and the liberal lawyers you're allied with have made capital punishment into a mockery.

othershoe1030 wrote: Stop trying to equate liberals with crime. It makes a good bumper sticker but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

othershoe1030 wrote:

Bob wrote:And if you want me to apply this to the incident I brought up in this thread and explain to you why it's just more evidence of how you liberals are soft on violent crime,  I will be happy to do that for you.

The animals in this carjacking and rape and multiple murders of innocent children need to be executed.  But you liberals have fought that at every turn.
A California study revealed that California taxpayers pay $90,000 more per death row prisoner each year than is spent on prisoners in regular confinement.   That's because you liberals and the liberal lawyers you're allied with have made capital punishment into a mockery.

Excellent point.

If we just had them in prison on "life with no chance of parole" or multiple life sentences plus 1,000 years or something like that the cost would be much lower.

Save money and get rid of the death penalty, keep murders off the street and behind bars, save money, keep people safe. It would be so easy!

PkrBum wrote:It's not just that they're soft on crime and punishment... they also want laws that limit our ability to defend ourselves.

othershoe1030 wrote:Excellent point.

If we just had them in prison on "life with no chance of parole" or multiple life sentences plus 1,000 years or something like that the cost would be much lower.

Save money and get rid of the death penalty, keep murders off the street and behind bars, save money, keep people safe. It would be so easy!

No the real point is that we could save a helluva lot more money by ACTUALLY executing them. Not by keeping them on death row for the rest of their worthless lives.

No. On this point you are absolutely totally completely wrong. It costs A LOT more to have a death penalty trial and to carry out a death sentence than it does to just lock someone up forever.  There is more information at the link listing other savings/costs related to death penalty vs life without parole.

If you like the death penalty you will have to argue for it on some basis other than cost because it IS more expensive than LWOP.

California

Assessment of Costs by Judge Arthur Alarcon and Prof. Paula Mitchell (2011, updated 2012)

The authors concluded that the cost of the death penalty in California has totaled over $4 billion since 1978:

$1.94 billion--Pre-Trial and Trial Costs
$925 million--Automatic Appeals and State Habeas Corpus Petitions
$775 million--Federal Habeas Corpus Appeals
$1 billion--Costs of Incarceration
The authors calculated that, if the Governor commuted the sentences of those remaining on death row to life without parole, it would result in an immediate savings of $170 million per year, with a savings of $5 billion over the next 20 years.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty

Floridatexan wrote:Absolutely agree, Boards.  

othershoe1030 wrote:

Floridatexan wrote:Absolutely agree, Boards.  

How is this topic any more futile than anything else discussed on this forum? This is a real situation that exists. It is expensive and unnecessary to execute people. Keeping the death penalty on the books is not good use of our tax money. Why do we do this? Because no one wants to be accused of being soft on crime I guess?

And that makes no sense, but of course it has nothing to do with sense and everything to do with the emotional reaction of people who think they are taking a stand or some such re violent crime. In reality it is just ineffective to say nothing of those on death row who have been cleared of the crime they were convicted of committing.

Floridatexan wrote:
Having trouble with the edit function...I just read that the FBI was reviewing cases and found 16 incidences of wrongful conviction due to faulty forensic evidence, before they stopped their review.  Didn't we have a forensic guy locally who was falsifying evidence?  We've seen quite a few released from prison after years because of the advent of DNA...but that doesn't mean it's being properly applied.  Because of our drug laws, police had an incentive to take property from a suspect; hopefully, that will decline.  Then there's the problem of plea bargaining, corruption by police, attorneys and sometimes judges...and private prisons with quotas.  

I think what Boards was referencing is the foregone conclusion by some that liberals are soft on crime.  

othershoe1030 wrote:

Floridatexan wrote:
Having trouble with the edit function...I just read that the FBI was reviewing cases and found 16 incidences of wrongful conviction due to faulty forensic evidence, before they stopped their review.  Didn't we have a forensic guy locally who was falsifying evidence?  We've seen quite a few released from prison after years because of the advent of DNA...but that doesn't mean it's being properly applied.  Because of our drug laws, police had an incentive to take property from a suspect; hopefully, that will decline.  Then there's the problem of plea bargaining, corruption by police, attorneys and sometimes judges...and private prisons with quotas.  

I think what Boards was referencing is the foregone conclusion by some that liberals are soft on crime.  

No minds will be changed among those who post opinions here but it is always nice to blow a reality hole through some of the wingers well worn catch phrases!

One might ask: soft on WHAT KIND OF CRIME? Those behind bars are more representative of the lower classes than the upper ones. This is due to expensive lawyers that the poor and middle class don't have access to and also the fact that those who do the most damage slip through loopholes and never see the inside of a courtroom much less a jail cell.

Bob wrote:I ditto that Amen.   It's time the poor and the oppressed get a break from being labeled criminals.  When they rape and plunder and steal,  all they're doing is trying to get what's owed them.  They didn't have the prvileges of those old white geezers who won't give up their belongings out of pure greed and selfishness.
So it's high time the poor start taking what is rightfully theirs.  And if those old geezers get in the way then they need to be neutralized.

Bob wrote:I ditto that Amen.   It's time the poor and the oppressed get a break from being labeled criminals.  When they rape and plunder and steal,  all they're doing is trying to get what's owed them.  They didn't have the prvileges of those old white geezers who won't give up their belongings out of pure greed and selfishness.
So it's high time the poor start taking what is rightfully theirs.  And if those old geezers get in the way then they need to be neutralized.