Does this piece of trash deserve more rights?!

shyshira

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 1:05 am

Cheiny wrote:

I can’t relate, because if I believe enough in having a spiritual advisor with me, I’d never consider doing the crime in my wildest dreams....can’t have it both ways in my opinion.... if you’re religious, you don’t commit that type of heinous crime, and if you commit that heinous crime you’re not religious and deserve, as a consequence to your despicable crime, to have your right to suddenly find religion, to be taken away... he should be treated with the same level of compassion as he extended to his victim.

He is being executed. What level of compassion is that?

Miri7

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 1:42 am

Fox wrote:

I'm gonna out-liberal the liberals here and say that I find it hard to concentrate on the issue of the chaplain because I am so opposed to the death penalty as it is currently administered.

While the Torah mandates a death sentence for various crimes, we're also told that a Sandhedrin that puts to death more than a single person in 70 years is bloodthirsty.

I certainly haven't researched the specifics of this case, and this gentleman probably wasn't arrested, tried, and convicted because he was at home, reading his Quaran, at the time of the crime.

That said, there have been so many cases where there have found to have been serious prosecutorial misconduct; false jailhouse confessions; mistaken identities, etc. It seems like every month or two, I read about someone here in Illinois who has been freed from a long sentence not on a technicality, but because exculpatory evidence was suppressed or something similar.

Assuming he's going to be executed, though, I find it a little hard to understand why the prison warden can't simply appoint a Muslim chaplain. I am sure there would be plenty of Muslim organizations willing to bear any costs associated.

It makes my day when I find myself in total agreement with Fox.

Mayflower

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 3:29 am

Miri7 wrote:

It makes my day when I find myself in total agreement with Fox.

My thoughts exactly!

ETA: In my opinion, to support modern day death penalty is completely contrary to Torah outlook. I find it very strange that a lot of American Jews who oppose abortion, for example, on the grounds of Torah, seem to support death penalty.

Last edited by Mayflower on Thu, Jan 31 2019, 6:28 am; edited 1 time in total

shirachadasha

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 6:12 am

Cheiny wrote:

In yahadus we believe in the possibility of teshuva until a person's last breath.

mommy3b2c

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 7:05 am

Ravenclaw wrote:

I agree with Fox here. People say that the Torah supports capital punishment, but not at all the way it is done in America.
An example: Reuven runs into a room with a knife yelling “ I am going to kill you, Shimon!”. Levi is witnessing this and hears yelling, then Reuven comes out with a bloody knife and Shimon is dead.
According to Halacha if Reuven denies it, that is still not enough evidence to give him the death penalty.

This. There needs to be at least two kosher witnesses and warning according to Halacha. The death penalty in America is horrible. Countless innocent people have been killed.

leah233

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 7:43 am

To all those who are saying that the Torah would not approve of the American death penalty, Rav Moshe Feinstein paskened otherwise.

There is a famous letter (printed in the Igros Moshe) which he wrote to NYS Governor Hugh Carey who had asked him how the Torah views a secular court system giving the death penalty for murder. Rav Moshe answered that the Torah obligates non-Jews to have a justice system and recognizes their rights to give the death penalty for a crime like murder but it does not require them to administer it.

He doesn't say anything about them needing two witnesses etc.

Ravenclaw

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 8:43 am

leah233 wrote:

But they don’t have to. And considering how many innocent people have been executed ... I have the right to oppose it. Rav Moshe Feinstein never said it’s a good idea, just that it’s within their rights.

leah233

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 9:05 am

Ravenclaw wrote:

Point is that Rav Moshe writes the Torah does not oppose capital punishment being given
in the USA.

If someone believes that innocent people are executed etc. that is exclusively a political opinion . Issues of how and when Sanhedrin would have given the death penalty are not relevant to the conversation.

moonstone

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 9:53 am

Raisin wrote:

I don't understand how a frum person can call a person who was created by Hashem a piece of trash, whatever his crimes.
.

Really? That bothers you? I think the OP was too kind. I consider someone who commits this kind of crime a subhuman piece of ****, and I really couldn't care less if his religious rights are ignored while he's rightly being put to death. He should have gotten religious a minute before he stabbed that poor girl to death. What about her right to live, to not be murdered?

Amarante

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 10:12 am

Cheiny wrote:

How utterly pathetic. The subject here is a religious leader with him at the time of death, not kosher food. Oy. Can't Believe It

You lack understanding of how constitutional law - and hence rights are determined.

Constitutionally there is no difference under the First Amendment between requiring someone to have a Xtian minister present rather than the religious figure of their preference (or none) and forcing a Jew to eat treif.

There is absolutely no Constitutional difference between the two and from a Constitutional perspective, the only thing that protects a Jew from being required to eat treif is the whim of the legislative body.

The Bill of Rights is intended (among other things) to protect the rights of the MINORITY against the will of the majority.

If one ceases to protect minority rights, one loses the ability legally to argue that such rights should be protected for other groups. At the time the Bill of Rights was written, this country was almost exclusively white Protestant (excluding of course native people) and a soupçon of Hugenots.. The Founding Fathers were exclusively Xtian - and yet having viewed the ills of the Old World they DELIBERATELY created protections for all religions.

I realize this post is a waste of time but it's early morning - I have a nice cup of Nespresso and so I took a stab. LOL

I just wanted to add that one of the reasons Jews have historically been supportive of Civil Rights is because they realize that erosion of Civil Rights for what is an unpopular minority is dangerous to their own Civil Rights -aside of course from what I view as a particular ethos. We have recognized that the rights of everyone are stronger when the rights of unpopular minorities are protected. The right to wear a yarmulke exists because the rights to wear a turban exist. And often the more unpalatable and unpopular the minority or the claimant, the more important it is to protect those rights because majority rights really need NO protection under the Constitution.

Last edited by Amarante on Thu, Jan 31 2019, 12:18 pm; edited 2 times in total

SixOfWands

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 10:27 am

Ravenclaw wrote:

As Jews, we should all remember Ethel Rosenberg. Its is at least arguable that Julius Rosenberg was guilty, but pretty certain that Ethel was not, and was only prosecuted to force Julius to confess.

Watch The Thin Blue Line, a documentary about a man on death row. The filmmaker was able to prove that he could not have committed the murder; he was subsequently released.

I believe that the death penalty is morally wrong. But even if I didn't, the fact that any judicial system can make mistakes is enough to make me say that it shouldn't exist.

Chayalle

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 10:34 am

Fox wrote:

Fox, I heard that a certain NY State Governor once asked R' Yaakov Kaminetsky about his stance on the death penalty, and R' Yaakov said he was opposed, for the very reasons you mention.

FranticFrummie

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 10:35 am

SixOfWands wrote:

Thinking about my earlier post, I'm going to have to agree with you. I've seen a lot of documentaries about people getting railroaded by the system, either through corruption or incompetence. There's no coming back from the death penalty, but if you get life you can at least have the hope of being exonerated at some point.

I still wonder though, about criminals who openly brag about all their crimes, and lead investigators to the bodies. Should they be given a shadow of a doubt? What about the ones who beg for the death penalty? Maybe life in prison is enough torture for them. Solitary confinement, not general population. Or is that cruel and unusual? Ugh. So conflicted.

Back to the original OP. If the convicted states that he wants no chaplain at all, I don't see why that is a problem. He's not asking for something special, he's asking for something to be taken away. It seems very reasonable to me.

Ravenclaw

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 10:41 am

FranticFrummie wrote:

And that is the very moral dilemma in The Bet by Anton Chekhov Confused

leah233

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 10:42 am

SixOfWands wrote:

Ethel Rosenberg being Jewish doesn't sway my opinion at all. I already got yelled at enough for saying my opinion about her.

Based on the argument of some innocent people will get the death penalty then how can you justify any criminal punishment?

The amount of evidence needed to sentence a murderer to the death penalty is way more than the amount of evidence needed to punish people for most other crimes.

The death penalty may be irrevocable but very few convicted people get exonerated afterwards in the light of new evidence. What happens much more frequently is that murderers don't get the death penalty get out on some technicality and go on to murder even more innocent people

SixOfWands

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 10:57 am

FranticFrummie wrote:

I've no problem with a life sentence without parole.

The death penalty probably is not a deterrent. I suppose that there is always a risk of a prisoner killing another prisoner, but other than that, there is almost no risk of repeated murder in prison.

And I agree with your last point.

SixOfWands

Thu, Jan 31 2019, 11:02 am

leah233 wrote:

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/I.....h-row lists 164 people since 1973 who were convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either- a. acquitted of all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row, or b. Had all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row dismissed by the prosecution or the courts, or c. Been granted a complete pardon based on evidence of innocence.

That's 164 too many.

And yes, it would be terrible to spend time in prison for a crime you didn't commit. But at least you can get out, and have something of a life. Dead is dead.