Lethal landmark for America's death penalty

[T_i_B]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/29/wdeath29.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/11/29/ixportal.html

The modern era of capital punishment reaches a macabre milestone tomorrow with America's 1,000th execution since it reintroduced the death penalty in the 1970s.

Barring a miraculous last minute pardon, Robin Lovitt, 41, will be executed tomorrow for the crime of fatally stabbing a man with scissors in a Virginia pool hall robbery in 1998.

Were it not for the landmark it represents, Lovitt's death would be as unremarkable as that of those condemned to death before him - or even the murder of his victim.

Over the past 28 years the United States has on average executed one person every 10 days. And the conveyor belt is so efficient that reports of executions are hidden inside the local papers.

[acmavm]

1. And I suspect some aren't reported at all.

We sure love to kill people. Here and abroad.

[Orrex]

2. Capital punishment is murder (n/t)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

3. It's absolutely disgusting.

I can't believe how many people support these murders. It will end. The U.S. as always is behind the rest of the Western world. But as always, it will catch up eventually. And people will look back on us as we look back on those who supported slavery and segregation. They'll see us of the monsters we are.

[aikoaiko]

4. There are lots of reasons to be against the death penalty....

... but one of the reasons to have it is that it induces life-without-parole plea bargains.

If life without parole is the maximum, then to induce pleas the state can only offer life with parole and those paroles are granted.

I always wanted to find some stats on this stuff though and I haven't. I don't know how many people plea to murder in order to get life without parole and how many murderers are actually paroled when its an option, but it would make for an interested analysis.