Do the owners of myspace know that you are glorifying killers on their service? I wonder what would happen if people started complaining about all of this.. I took a look just now at some of the sites and from a Pro's point of view, they are absolutely disgusting. I'm not trying to start a war but you people tend to go way overboard, are there no limits to your morals? I understand the website ideas, you want to have memorials etc. But to show the outpouring of love for MURDERERS, it does cross the boundaries of what's right and what's wrong. And after all is said and done, appeals exhausted and inmates executed, why continue with the innocent statements, how offensive that is! These killers had their YEARS in court, they had every opportunity and then some to prove they were innocent, of course the courts saw thru the nonsense and executed them. please... Show some restraint and stop with the nonsense. JMO and the opinion of MANY others across the globe.
because of this honey,
A matter of life, death and social standing
By MIKE LACKEY
419-993-2092
09/25/2005
mlackey@limanews.com
Mike Lackey
Michael Lenza sounds like a reluctant opponent of the death penalty.
“I wish I could say the death penalty is fair, the worst people get it; if it’s a crime of passion, we’re not executing them; we’re not executing children; we’re not executing somebody that’s mentally retarded or has severe mental disabilities,” he said. “But we can’t say that. We just can’t.”
Lenza has the facts and figures to back up what he says. The Bluffton University sociologist spent 6½ years analyzing 19 years of capital murder cases in Missouri.
He concluded that when it comes to sentencing in death penalty cases, “almost everything matters except the crime.” What matters most, his findings suggest, is the relative value society places on the defendant and on the victim.
Lenza’s presentation Friday was based his doctoral dissertation, a study of the death penalty in Missouri from 1978 to 1996.
He examined 9,857 homicides which resulted in 152 death sentences. He found that defendants were more likely to be sentenced to death if they were young, poor, black or had a previous criminal record.
He found a black defendant who killed a white victim was three times as likely to receive the death penalty as a white defendant with a black victim.
Lenza’s findings track with numerous other studies. A California study published last week suggested the race of the victim could be the most telling factor: A death sentence was most likely when the victim was white, far less so when the victim was black or Hispanic.
“When the jurors decide guilt or innocence, they’re looking at the case. Then the trial stops. Then they have a new (sentencing) trial, and it’s about the social relationships and the social standing of the defendant,” Lenza said.
“Now more than any time in American history, we’re seeing evidence that it’s not the offense, it’s the social standing of the defendant that determines who’s getting executed. Which is a complete turnaround of due process.”
Based on his research, Lenza says he can predict the outcome of Missouri death penalty cases with 80 percent accuracy, without knowing anything about the circumstances of the crime.
Lenza believes American attitudes toward capital punishment are significantly shaped by our country’s racial history. He said that since the death penalty was reinstituted in the 1970s, former slave states have accounted for 89 percent of all executions, 94 percent of executions of mentally retarded defendants, and 100 percent of executions for crimes committed by juveniles.
With regard to the death penalty and the justice system generally, Lenza said, “We’ve never had that really open discussion about slavery and about the impact on our institutions here. … We’ve dealt with personal racism to some degree, but not institutional racism.”
Lenza received his Ph.D. just last May. Already his research has had an impact. Findings from his study were cited in Roper v. Simmons, the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court last year barred capital punishment for crimes committed before age 18.
Now he would like to look more closely at how the mental capacity of the defendant affects application of the death penalty. Bluffton students may get involved in that research.
“My suspicion is that there’s a very strong correlation, … that someone who is mentally ill or has a low IQ would be much more likely to be executed,” he said.
Like most scholars, Lenza is skeptical of the death penalty’s deterrent effect. In Missouri, he said, homicides often spike after an execution — perhaps because the execution serves to validate violence as a means of solving problems.
Overall, Lenza doubts that capital punishment can ever be applied fairly and objectively.
“The majority of nations in the world have gotten rid of the death penalty because it always appears that it’s used disproportionately against minorities and the poor,” he said. “People of power, people of wealth are almost never executed.”
Lima News