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Summary
Stephanie Diane Dowells, 62, was strangled during an overnight visit with her husband, David Brinson, at Mule Creek state prison in California.
Brinson, serving life without parole for four murders, claimed Dowells passed out, but authorities ruled her death a homicide.
This marks the second strangulation death during a family visit at the prison in a year; Tania Thomas was killed in July 2024 while visiting inmate Anthony Curry. Investigations are ongoing.
California is one of four states allowing family visits to maintain positive relationships.
Overnight visit?? They just let them visit people in prison overnight? That seems a bit odd.
Which begs the question, at what point is the death penalty a reasonable option?
People here love to talk about killing billionaires, who kill with paper.
It's not that he doesn't deserve it or lack of evidence. It's because the state shouldn't have that authority. At all. Ever. Look at the fuckery going on in the Whitehouse. Ten years ago 90% of people would've said this isn't even possible. Close that door, lock it, throw away the key. It's not about justice for in one case, it's more important to prevent greater injustice.
The state has nuclear weapons. The state kills people in shoot outs with the police all the time.
He killed his wife. Where's her justice?
That's exactly what I'm saying. It's not about justice for one person.
Then try this. Call him Joe. Joe has a rare blood type that can cure cancer. Joe doesn't feel like giving his blood away. No amount of persuasion or money will change Joe's mind. If justice for one person doesn't matter, do we have a right to lock Joe up and take his blood?
And if we don't have the right, why are Joe's rights greater than the dead wife's?
Joe is human. He doesn't have more rights than his wife, her right to life was cruelly taken from her in a criminal act. That isn't fixed by taking more life. It just makes the government an even bigger criminal.
Edit: due to the scale of them taking far more lives.
So now all prisoners know that they can kill guards and visitors and have no punishment?
Two questions:
It's not so unlike my job. Things go wrong and situations get fucked up, but retribution doesn't fix anything. You have to identify how to resolve any ongoing situation and then prevent it from happening again. If the guy isn't in a situation where he can attack anyone else, what more needs to be done to keep people safe?
There is no fixing the damage the guy has done, with or without retribution. That is only to assuage our own emotional wants.
Look at Luigi. He (allegedly) killed one person. No aggravating factors. The laws say he can't be executed for that, so now he's charged with terrorism. Same with people who vandalize fucking Teslas. I doubt they are going to face execution, but nothing actually prevents that.
If the state wants to murder someone, it will find a way to make it legal to do so if there is any avenue at all. Let's just take it off the board.
If the state wants to murder someone, it will find a way to make it legal to do so if there is any avenue at all. Let’s just take it off the board.
We keep going back and forth over the same point. Let's agree to end it here.
Have a nice day.
If you believe the legal system to be 100% effective then a death penalty makes sense
However since in reality no legal system is 100% effective, by allowing death penalty, you are allowing a certain percentage of people to be murdered legally that have not commited the crimes they were convicted of
What about a case like this, where it's incontrovertible?
You can have incontrovertable (facts) in a case
Laws and rulings by themselves are objective, and by definition are contentious
Now you're just arguing the definition of the word I used and ignoring the actual facts.
You have a person who we are completely certain committed the crime.
We may feel certain of things, but we weren't there to witness anything. We didn't see anything happen, and are only learning of the details after they've been filtered through several people. We don't know anything about motive, potential external threats, anything really. All we know is that this woman was strangled, and it is likely he did it.
Now you are doing a what if scenario, we can do "what ifs" all day....
There is no case that exists right now where it is 100% without a doubt certain that a crime has been commited by an individual Again, no legal system is 100% irrefutable
There is no case that exists right now where it is 100% without a doubt certain that a crime has been committed
This one seems to be 100% certain.
Lemme get this straight. You want the people who made this decision the same power to decide if people live or die.
Make it make sense
There is no case that exists right now where it is 100% without a doubt certain that a crime has been committed
This one seems to be 100% certain.
Which part confuses you?
Shawdow's point is that there are cases where the facts aren't clear.
I pointed out in this case it's certain what happened.
And again you have no logic.
You want the people who made a decision you deem "dumb" more power.
Again make it make sense.
I asked specifically what confused you.
You breezed past that.
I think we're done here.
If every case were so cut and dry, it would work.
But invariably there will come a case where it seems so certain but not be true. To accept the death penalty in any case, we must be okay with it being applied at least once to kill an innocent person.
That's an idea from 1760. Long before the invention of camera, DNA testing etc etc etc.
It's premise is that the courts can never be 100% correct. There is no level of burden of proof which is infallible.
No amount of modern technology guarantees that an innocent man won't inadvertently be convicted and sentenced to death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_inmates
There is no level of burden of proof which is infallible.
He was in a cell with his wife and she was killed.
You're already jumping to conclusions, specifically that he was definitely in the cell with his wife when she died and that she was killed.
There's still some doubts that can be cast, especially given the few details we have.
He didn't have control over who could enter or leave the cell, it's possible someone else did the murdering.
Heck with the evidence we have access to, it's possible she never entered the cell alive.
It could have been accidental as the result of something consensual.
It could be coincidental that something consensual happened and after which see died of an unrelated cause.
It could have been suicide, where she wanted to be with him at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Long_Island_Rail_Road_shooting
Numerous witnesses saw him get on the train and start shooting.
Say it happened today and there were several independent videos showing the person doing the shooting.
What then?
Did you not read the story? He just killed his own wife, while in prison. It's not like there's a chance he was set up by the police. How do you say never?
We're more than capable of preventing a single individual from causing harm to others without having to kill them. Failing to do so here isn't justification for introducing the idea to kill them instead.
If we actually had a well run justice system, I don't think executions would even seem remotely necessary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Long_Island_Rail_Road_shooting
Here's a pretty famous case where there were numerous witnesses who survived the attack.
I have to go now.
Yeah, this is the right answer.
Also, maybe in 30 years we'll find a better way to reach out to people and help them.
If you kill that person, you'll never have a chance.
What about the wife he just killed?
Freedom to choose. You dislike freedom?
As written, that's meaningless. Whose freedom? If you have a point, lay it out clearly.
This is meaningless. You're disingenuous. If you think everyone in that interaction didn't make thier own choices you're an authoritarian coward.
People jump over tiger cages all the time.
Seek help.
Same you're authoritarian. Straight coward way of thinking. If you need daddy to tell you what's right and wrong you clearly are an npc.