"However, Communications Director Julie Walburn at the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction says she's concerned that tweeting about an inmate's time of death may be considered in poor taste."
Twitter is a casual, frivolous, meaningless, and transient form of communication that has no business being used for "Hey, we just killed a dude who was, statistically, most likely both black and innocent!"
There are a very few countries who still commit the institutional barbaric crime of capital punishment. Of those, the USA is one. In the USA, any given victim of capital punishment is most likely both black *and* not guilty. Because the US "justice" system is institutionally racist and works hard to ensure that innocence is no defense in a capital prosecution.
Is that perfectly clear by now, or do you need more help?
What *the fuck* does some random dude executed in Utah have to do with prison officials in OHIO talking about using Twitter to announce future executions?
You brought this completely different case up and you seem to be pretending it's anything other than a distraction and a derailment that YOU YOURSELF brought up and that NOBODY BUT YOU IS TALKING ABOUT.
Okay, Utah executed a white dude once, yay. What the FUCK does that possibly have to do with the stats on capital punishment in general, or the idiots in Ohio today? Is this just your way of saying "some of my best friends are black"?
You know what? That actually makes a bit of sense, now, in that context.
In the context as I saw it, I'd just finished saying "most executed people are black and innocent", and you said "wrong on both counts!" while linking to a white guy who got executed. Whose article doesn't mention Twitter at all, and gives me no way to know anything other than I've just said "system is racist" and you've responded with "you're wrong, here's a white guy".
I was actually trying to figure out what had made you go completely crazy in the last 24 hours, because you never struck me that way before, y'know?
Look, you may think capital punishment is barbaric and wrong. I'd agree with you, but your statement that any given victim of capital punishment in the USA is most likely black and not guilty is both fatuous and wrong.
Blacks are on death row are a far higher RATE than they are in the population. They are, however, not even a plurality of the DEATH ROW population. And while negating either operand of a logical conjunction negates the conjunction, I'll point out that your claim that the victim of capital punishment is likely not guilty is similarly fucked up.
Since 1977 (the oldest year I can find data for at DPIC), the USA has executed 1217 people. 128 people had their convictions overturned in that timeframe. Even assuming that the overturn rate is low by a factor of 4, your claim would STILL be incorrect.
There is no need to overstate this to make your point.
First: Wikipedia actually has 129, although one of them was convicted of a different, later capital crime after being exonerated from the first one. I wonder why that guy doesn't get counter?
Second: In 2000, Illinois alone announced a 50% wrongful conviction rate in death penalty cases - 130 of the 260 cases given even superficial review. And given the state of the rest of the US system, I would suspect that 50% is *low* overall.
Third: even leaving aside the disproportionately incompetent defense available to non-white people and the disproportionate percentage of death-penalties sought against non-white people (leading to more wrongful convictions among non-white people), more than half of the people on death row are non-white.
Would you prefer "non-white and wrongfully convicted"? Because it's not quite as pithy as "black and not guilty", but it still describes the situation well.
You are cherrypicking ONE state in ONE year and claiming it as representative? Dude, come on. That is not how statistics works, and you damned well know it. You are better than that.
Actually, that's "every case in the state since they started having the death penalty" - one state, not one year - and not only do I have no problem believing that it might be representative, I'm also pointing out that the "exonerated" stats are *by definition* wrong - because Illinois *alone* found more than the total for all states combined. Which means that the 128/129 number has to be coming from somewhere crazy.
Or, as should be obvious -- they are counting different things.
DPIC's numbers are for those exonerated, using their definition: "For Inclusion on DPIC's Innocence List:
Defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either- a) their conviction was overturned AND
i) they were acquitted at re-trial or ii) all charges were dropped b) they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence. "
The Illinois number you are getting does not meet that standard -- not even close. It was a number uttered by Governor Ryan, and was not backed up by any sort of statistical evidence.
Please note, DPIC is a STAUNCH opponent of the death penalty.
first result http://social.jrank.org/pages/1344/Prisons-Death-Row-Demographics-Issues.html 2.1% disparity in inmates same time frame census results for the US http://censtats.census.gov/data/US/01000.pdf 75% white 12.5% black
Pretty significant disparity. Were I less busy, there are vastly more useful sources of info on the racial fail of our prison and how institutionalized racism leads to perpetuates these issues but I should be actually working instead of arguing on the internet.
Blacks and other minorities dominate death row and are significantly more likely to receive harsher sentences than whites.
but it is not so just racism, but also classism. Black people are more likely to be poor, and poor people get fucked by the law. The better off you are, the easier it is for you. But even wealthy black people receive harsher sentencing than comparable whites.
But the justice "system" is in general bullshit. And the death penalty IS unethical.
People who receive the death penalty are usually killers themselves. And so, to punish the people guilty of killing people we kill them? In what way does that make sense? How is that justice? What makes a murderer more worthy of death than the person they slew? What gives the executioner the privilege of killing another human being without the same consequences on them? The death penalty is completely illogical.
It costs a state more to kill a person than it does to just contain them. And killing someone because you "need the room" is absolutely barbaric. The prisons and jails are packed to the brim because our law enforcement is driven by PROFIT not justice. Incarceration = Money.
Death is not justice, it never has been, it never will be.
Justice without force is virtuous. Force without justice is tyranny.
Once again, nobody BUT YOU is talking about some random white guy.
Fuck random white guy. He's completely irrelevant. "Oh, hey, one of the explicitly white supremacist states executed a white guy, that TOTALLY disproves the statement that the system is racist".
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselking
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-27 08:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 01:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-27 08:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-27 08:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-27 11:21 pm (UTC)Gee, ya think?
I think I need an eyerolling icon.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-27 11:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 01:32 am (UTC)There are a very few countries who still commit the institutional barbaric crime of capital punishment. Of those, the USA is one. In the USA, any given victim of capital punishment is most likely both black *and* not guilty. Because the US "justice" system is institutionally racist and works hard to ensure that innocence is no defense in a capital prosecution.
Is that perfectly clear by now, or do you need more help?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 06:45 pm (UTC)You brought this completely different case up and you seem to be pretending it's anything other than a distraction and a derailment that YOU YOURSELF brought up and that NOBODY BUT YOU IS TALKING ABOUT.
Okay, Utah executed a white dude once, yay. What the FUCK does that possibly have to do with the stats on capital punishment in general, or the idiots in Ohio today? Is this just your way of saying "some of my best friends are black"?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 08:10 pm (UTC)In the context as I saw it, I'd just finished saying "most executed people are black and innocent", and you said "wrong on both counts!" while linking to a white guy who got executed. Whose article doesn't mention Twitter at all, and gives me no way to know anything other than I've just said "system is racist" and you've responded with "you're wrong, here's a white guy".
I was actually trying to figure out what had made you go completely crazy in the last 24 hours, because you never struck me that way before, y'know?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 12:12 pm (UTC)Look, you may think capital punishment is barbaric and wrong. I'd agree with you, but your statement that any given victim of capital punishment in the USA is most likely black and not guilty is both fatuous and wrong.
Blacks are on death row are a far higher RATE than they are in the population. They are, however, not even a plurality of the DEATH ROW population. And while negating either operand of a logical conjunction negates the conjunction, I'll point out that your claim that the victim of capital punishment is likely not guilty is similarly fucked up.
Since 1977 (the oldest year I can find data for at DPIC), the USA has executed 1217 people. 128 people had their convictions overturned in that timeframe. Even assuming that the overturn rate is low by a factor of 4, your claim would STILL be incorrect.
There is no need to overstate this to make your point.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 08:23 pm (UTC)Second: In 2000, Illinois alone announced a 50% wrongful conviction rate in death penalty cases - 130 of the 260 cases given even superficial review. And given the state of the rest of the US system, I would suspect that 50% is *low* overall.
Third: even leaving aside the disproportionately incompetent defense available to non-white people and the disproportionate percentage of death-penalties sought against non-white people (leading to more wrongful convictions among non-white people), more than half of the people on death row are non-white.
Would you prefer "non-white and wrongfully convicted"? Because it's not quite as pithy as "black and not guilty", but it still describes the situation well.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 09:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 09:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 10:23 pm (UTC)DPIC's numbers are for those exonerated, using their definition:
"For Inclusion on DPIC's Innocence List:
Defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either-
a) their conviction was overturned AND
i) they were acquitted at re-trial or
ii) all charges were dropped
b) they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence. "
The Illinois number you are getting does not meet that standard -- not even close. It was a number uttered by Governor Ryan, and was not backed up by any sort of statistical evidence.
Please note, DPIC is a STAUNCH opponent of the death penalty.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 01:33 am (UTC)http://social.jrank.org/pages/1344/Prisons-Death-Row-Demographics-Issues.html
2.1% disparity in inmates
same time frame census results for the US http://censtats.census.gov/data/US/01000.pdf
75% white
12.5% black
Pretty significant disparity.
Were I less busy, there are vastly more useful sources of info on the racial fail of our prison and how institutionalized racism leads to perpetuates these issues but I should be actually working instead of arguing on the internet.
Death Row
Date: 2010-06-28 06:35 pm (UTC)but it is not so just racism, but also classism. Black people are more likely to be poor, and poor people get fucked by the law. The better off you are, the easier it is for you. But even wealthy black people receive harsher sentencing than comparable whites.
But the justice "system" is in general bullshit.
And the death penalty IS unethical.
People who receive the death penalty are usually killers themselves. And so, to punish the people guilty of killing people we kill them? In what way does that make sense? How is that justice? What makes a murderer more worthy of death than the person they slew? What gives the executioner the privilege of killing another human being without the same consequences on them? The death penalty is completely illogical.
It costs a state more to kill a person than it does to just contain them. And killing someone because you "need the room" is absolutely barbaric. The prisons and jails are packed to the brim because our law enforcement is driven by PROFIT not justice. Incarceration = Money.
Death is not justice, it never has been, it never will be.
Justice without force is virtuous.
Force without justice is tyranny.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 02:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 02:48 am (UTC)They still use polygamy and white supremacy, too.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 06:49 pm (UTC)Fuck random white guy. He's completely irrelevant. "Oh, hey, one of the explicitly white supremacist states executed a white guy, that TOTALLY disproves the statement that the system is racist".
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 01:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 03:46 am (UTC)