[speaker001:] okay Toby this is Brian White and our topic I guess tonight is on capital punishment and how we feel about that um if you don't mind uh how do you feel about capital punishment
[speaker002:] well my position in general is that I'm supportive of it but I'm not supportive of the way that it's currently administered
[speaker001:] okay
[speaker002:] um it takes so long with uh the appeals process uh that it's uh uh simply impossible to say that it's that it's consistent administration of justice uh
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] if if the penalty could be executed swiftly and surely upon people who deserved it when there was uh evidence uh beyond a a reasonable doubt that they had committed a a crime worthy of it then I think it should be done
[speaker001:] uh-huh and that way it can be a deterrent a deterrent
[speaker002:] that's right but as it stands now it's not a deterrent we just had a fellow here in our county who has he's been on death row for seventeen years and just had his sentence overturned for the third time uh on a technicality
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] everybody knows he did it
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] this last technicality was simply because the language of the decision handed down by the jury uh explaining uh saying that he should get the death penalty was not precisely as it is stated in the statute that it should be
[speaker001:] uh-huh oh great
[speaker002:] and that was it I mean it was a a very simple I mean they fully intended to give him the death penalty uh they had a unanimous decision but when they drafted the uh decision
[speaker001:] the response yeah
[speaker002:] uh they did it wrong and it was just a very minor very minor uh mistake but it was enough for uh the state supreme court to say that the uh that the decision was invalid and that they had to empanel a new jury to consider the death penalty again
[speaker001:] uh
[speaker002:] that kind of thing uh and and and the way that people search and search for those kind of things just uh just disgusts me
[speaker001:] yes
[speaker002:] and with uh with with it being that way it ends up costing us so much money so much more to have the death penalty than to not have it that uh I'm almost inclined to say do away with it
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] the the problem that I see is uh what do we have instead
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] here in Georgia uh we don't have a a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole
[speaker001:] yes
[speaker002:] if someone gets life in prison they are generally released in seven years if they behave well
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] and we have had people get out in seven years and commit uh another murder uh that just shouldn't be so but I say uh I could tolerate getting rid of the death penalty if we could have life without the possibility of parole
[speaker001:] yes right right I tend to agree with you uh I'm kind of uh torn between two items however I I definitely believe believe in due process that if a person is found guilty so that we're not ramrodding a a guilty verdict on them that it's uh up for review in uh the appeal process however I tend to agree with you that well I don't tend to agree with I definitely agree with you that there are people that are going to make sure that every T is crossed every I is dotted and to make sure that everything is just right otherwise you know someone gets off on a technicality now
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] not only in the courts is that costing us money and millions and millions of dollars and wasting our taxpayers and uh clogging up the courts but also when the uh the detectives the homicide detectives and so forth when they're researching when they are gathering the evidence they're they're bending over backwards uh in typically what I believe is an open and shut case where the guy is guilty there are seven eyewitnesses they saw it happen they have testified what happened um
[speaker002:] there's video tape of it
[speaker001:] they yeah exactly exactly and the guy is as sound mind and and so forth he's he's not an idiot uh he wasn't acting I I don't know you know in that case
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] we're we're spending money in the in the judicial system we're spending money in the law enforcement area trying to verify all this kind of information and the and the individual's guilty I believe that if we have cash capital punishment that it should be executed swiftly that it should uh be taken care of not after seven levels of appeal but after a couple levels appeal of appeal uh under certain certain circumstances
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] those circumstances would be