Ok this is just bothersome. How can so many of you wish pain on so many people. I mean does Tookie have no one that cares about him (parents, siblings, etc) all of them are suffering because of this. It's not Tookie's fault he's being killed (as opposed to serving a life term) and those that care for him are paying a penelty as well.
Now I'm not against the dealth penelty, as long as guilt can be proven 100% (Video or DNA evidence) and if the person is so dangerous or unrepentant that execution is the only viable option. Otherwise, they can go to jail for life, tough but MUCH easier to undue.
People say, "Well then every prisoner will start writing children's books and giving speeches against violence to get their sentances commuted" to which my response is "Uhhh, that's bad why." Isn't that the idea behind the idea of rehabilitation. The only difference is that they're being held for life as opposed to killed.
And lastly for those who say that the price of keeping prisoners alive is reason to start killing them off:
Lets agree on a few facts:
-There are 3581 people on death row nationwide.
-In Texas, it costs $61.58 per day to house and feed a death row inmate.
-There are 365 days in a year
-There are 20,851,820 people in Texas
Ok now in Texas (which I think we can all agree is the death capital of the modern world) there are, let's estemate, 1000 people on death row (way too high, but it'll help illustrate the point). If there are 1000 people on Texas' death row right now, then using the above numbers we can figure out the cost to the average taxpayer of all the death row inmates:
(1000 people on death row* ($61.58 a day * 365 days/year))/20,851,820 Texans= $1.08 per year to the taxpayer.
Interesting no?
Source
Cody