The death penalty

[Synth]

I wonder how being stoned would effect your death experience?

[Guest Thicky]

I wonder how being stoned would effect your death experience?

I reckon that the huge chemical symphony taking place inside your body during the death process would probably override the high

That is my guess

[Gumbo]

I wonder how being stoned would effect your death experience?

I reckon that the huge chemical symphony taking place inside your body during the death process would probably override the high

That is my guess

Pretty good guess :wink:.As I understand it DMT is released at that moment.In an earlier post Thicky you said you might have to put MDMA on your list of things to try.Add DMT to that list .It's possible it has been and will continue to be the most significant drug in mankinds existence.I also read that more DMT is released by our pineal gland into our systems during REM sleep every night than would be consumed in a 'normal' dose.Perhaps this is a small clue as to why this tiny gland seems to play such a massive part in some quite ancient belief systems.

This rabbit hole goes deep,we arent the only animals to use this drug,and yeah,I posted this clip because of the cute kitty,it's just stunning.

From the Vid(and Wiki): 'Structurally, DMT is analogous to the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-HT), the hormone melatonin, and other psychedelic tryptamines, such as 5-MeO-DMT, bufotenin, and psilocin (the active metabolite of psilocybin).'

The above quoted information is probably what led Terence McKenna to conclude that mankind in general needs to rediscover this drug as it's possible it had a big part to play in our evolution and also suggest that one of the reasons the World is such a fuck-up presently is it absence in our lives.I'm inclined to agree but stress that I'm a DMT virgin too.I'm waiting until I can afford to go to a South American retreat,but that's just because I used to live there and like the idea of being totally immersed in nature and a shamanic culture whilst I experience it for the first time.That said if Ayahuasca becomes a feasible option here in the UK I'd be tempted.

It's only my opinion but for what it's worth it seems to me this 'war on drugs' is actually a war on our right to expand our consciousness as our governments biggest fear is people who can think for themselves.DMT might just be one of our most useful weapons in the fight back.

In a vain attempt to bring my thread derailment back into line I'm gonna conclude that perhaps if humanity had full access to our pharmacological birthright death mightn't hold the same mystery and fear for us as it seems to today.

Incoherent rambling over and out

Mumbo Gumbo Jumbo.

[Guest budassbud]

So if Hitler were alive today he should be forever behind bars enjoying the same human rights as the rest of the lifers until his death? should he be afforded a healthy diet? a TV? a nice soft bed? music? and some books to read? How much does it cost to keep someone in prison per year as a lifer?

kony?

mugabe?

how can it be OK to send in the SAS or Seals to double tap someone in a risky fire fight risking the lives of our brave soldiers and innocents caught in the cross fire or human shields but not humanly put to death the same person after a trial and after all avenues of appeal have been exhausted.

yeah right, lets have a civilized society, the one we are enjoying now. its great init.

imo any war criminal like Blair and Bush should be put to death, Ian Huntley why should we keep him alive ? how long should we forcefully extend someones life if they wont eat?

Fair enough psychopaths are always going to kill no matter if there was the death sentence or not, people in power who have their marbles, they cause the deaths of far more people than your average serial killer. i don't think Blair, Mugabe, or Bush would commit such atrocities if they knew they could be held accountable and face the death sentence. we need the death sentence for the elite, its a necessary evil to have it for everyone, that is the price were going to have to pay to keep corrupt governments accountable. some of us are just pawns, id be willing to live with the death sentence in England and be a good boy if i knew it applied to everyone the same no matter if they were Tony Blair, Prince William or Joe Bloggs in the street.

it should be up to the majority of a sovereign nation to decide democratically. and should be up for review as regularly as every 5 years, rapists, pedo's and murderers should loose the right to vote, but the rest of the incarcerated should be able to vote on this i believe

No death penalty for 1 murder in some cases, just life behind bars, but if that person has killed multiple times, get rid.

pedo killing yeah i'm up for it. lets rid the planet of this scum. do experiments on them first so cats don't have to have their eyes sewn together

if your in favor of the right to die for terminally ill patients and alike, then what about a prisoners right to die? If a human being has the right to choose life or death what about the victim's families right to revenge an eye for an eye, back when we were living in tribes it was the norm. it still happens today in some parts of the world they have head hunters, our physiology and brain chemistry is the same, were no different from humans when they came out from the last ice age. the world we live in today is alien and false. no wonder some people don't fit in and seem to have something wrong with them, i bet kids with ADHD were good hunters back in the stone age. Some human beings put our species on a pedestal like we are so much more better than animals like our lives are somehow much more important. for me i think we are a cancer on this planet, not special at all. maybe i'm just in a pit of self loathing but we are not higher beings, animals are not that different from us, they get high, i believe they experience their own beliefs and religious experiences. they morn they love. stop thinking all humans are great and wonderful. some are. but at the end of the day still human with faults.

[Guest Thicky]

[

It's only my opinion but for what it's worth it seems to me this 'war on drugs' is actually a war on our right to expand our consciousness as our governments biggest fear is people who can think for themselves.DMT might just be one of our most useful weapons in the fight back.

Mumbo Gumbo Jumbo.

I agree with you Gumbo

Thanks for posting, I appreciate the information and will certainly have a read up on DMT and MDMA and see what I am missing

For many years now I have regarded myself as a human laboratory, I love doing experiments

Edited August 5, 2012 by Thicky

[Eddiesilence]

WOOO HOOOOOOOO

Celebration in the Death Row thread for my friend Jimmy.

Jimmy Dennis was tried and convicted in 1992 for a murder he didn't commit. At trial, Jimmy's lawyer pointed out some unavoidable facts.

"The shooter was six foot tall and a very dark African black. Jimmy is five foot one, nickname 'Shorty', with light brown skin."

The prosecutor said "this is not about height or skin colour. This is about a vicious murder..."

An obvious miscarriage of justice. But finally, after two decades of Jimmy and his supporters fighting for his innocence:

Philly.com

Citing "miscarriage of justice," U.S. judge overturns Phila. murder conviction

Aug 21. John P. Martin.

A federal judge on Wednesday overturned the 1992 conviction of a Philadelphia man she said had been unjustly sentenced to die for a murder he probably didn't commit.

In a scathing ruling, Judge Anita B. Brody said city police and prosecutors ignored, lost or "covered up" evidence that James "Jimmy" Dennis wasn't the man who fatally shot a high school student for her gold earrings near the Fern Rock transit station in 1991.

The judge also chided Dennis' trial lawyer for ignoring leads and doing just the "bare minimum" to defend him.

"The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has committed a grave miscarriage of justice," Brody concluded in her 40-page opinion. She ordered the state to retry Dennis within six months - or set him free.

The ruling marks a stunning victory in a 20-year-legal battle for Dennis, now 42, who has always maintained his innocence and whose cause drew supporters worldwide, even as he lost appeal after appeal.

For most of the past two decades, Dennis has remained on death row at the State Correctional Institute in Waynesburg. In March 2011, Gov. Corbett signed his death warrant. But a federal judge later stayed the execution...

Full story at the link

www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20130822_Citing__quot_miscarriage_of_justice__quot__U_S__judge_overturns_Phila__murder_conviction.html#z1gqqS6YpFszvmyO.99

Edited August 21, 2013 by Eddiesilence

[Guest bazzad9]

"The shooter was six foot tall and a very dark African black. Jimmy is five foot one, nickname 'Shorty', with light brown skin."

The prosecutor said "this is not about height or skin colour. This is about a vicious murder..."

so the prosecutor doesnt know the best way to determine who is guilty and who is not is by looking at things like height and skin colour of the perpetrator and the accused ,if they clearly dont match there is a problem

prisons one thing when your guilty but i cant imagine what its like if your not

good news eddie

[Eddiesilence]

Exactly Bazzadington. Identification is dependent on such criteria as what someone looks like. We intelligent people have always thought so. We're nit-picking pedants who insist they don't executing the wrong guy.

Phillip Hammond MP would complain that I am "unduly weighted towards the evidence".* (Yes. That is an actual quote from the actual Phillip Hammond MP's office. [Financial Times, 'Facts finally collide with ideology on Europe' 22 July. 2013]) As Rumsfeld said 'you people in the reality-based-consensus...'

I can't believe Jimmy's trial lawyer was awake, let alone sober. What's more frightening is that Jimmy was only introduced to his trial lawyer a few minutes before the trial. Then the court convicted him on evidence sourced from a buddy who was tied to a chair, mentally and physically tortured until he said Jimmy did it.

Meanwhile the actual shooter has emerged, and even stated his guilt. But the Justice Department is insulated from reality by a number of laws, which are frankly, weird. For instance, it is constitutionally permissible to execute an innocent man if the trial and direct appeal 'were procedurally correct'. [Herrera v. Collins, 1993]

I first got in touch with Jimmy Dennis about fifteen years ago, and the first response from Jimmy contained one single sheet on its own, in big letters: "Praying for the truth of 99". This is a convention Jimmy repeats in every letter he writes. One final page, big letters, and 'Praying for the truth of ________", whatever year it is this year. Of course, his last letter signed off: "Praying for the truth of 2013".

Soon after I began to write to Jimmy, the writer and activist Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote the article below. Mumia was on death row with Jimmy, and he's respected to the nines. Everyone in SCI Greene, PA calls him 'Poppa'.

SHORTY'S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

11/7/99 © 1999
Mumia Abu-Jamal

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.-H.L. Mencken (Journalist) (1800-1956)

In prison one of the easiest things, and first things to acquire, is a nickname.

It could be a remarkable physical characteristic; a feature, or a fact arising from the case that landed one in jail. For James Dennis, it was his height that earned him the common moniker, "Shorty."

Shorty had life of a promising musician, as young father, who had many reasons to have hope in the way his life going. All of this ended on the afternoon of October 22nd, 1991, when a beautiful youngster named Chedell Williams was shot and killed as she and her friend were entering the subway station in the Fern rock neighborhood. It was a robber murder, reportedly for her earrings.

At trial, the state prosecutor argued to the jury:

Two finger rings, one gold chain, earlobes bleeding from where the earrings were snatched. Did she leave a legacy? I hope she did. And it's not in a-it's not in a slogan or cliché, don't wear jewelry. It's not in a slang and it's not a cliché, if you wear jewelry go in a group. What this is about, ladies and gentlemen, is stopping the person from trying to take advantage. Wearing earrings when they will sell you those earrings, they don't put a sign on them that says, wearing these earrings may be hazardous to your life. But that's the reality under which we now live. [Trial notes:15 Oct. 1992, p. 98]

The case was a hot one, and anyone allegedly involved in it, was sure to face serious trouble from both the community and from authorities. Unfortunately for him, one of the people connected to the case, was Shorty. Three eyewitnesses testified to seeing the shooting, and would give various descriptions of the shooting, and the assailants. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court would later find that these witnesses provided "protracted and unobstructed" views of the shooters, thereby upholding the identifications of Shorty.

Armed with these tools, and the nature of the case, it was an easy matter for the prosecutor to convince the jury to convict, and shortly thereafter, to sentence Shorty to death.

It is easier than most people suspect, for a prosecutor to get a death sentence under present laws. In no other case, can jurors be removed purely because they may have some opposition to the death penalty. The resulting jury is one that scholars agree is one that is more prone to convict, and also more prone to sentence someone to death. The courts have ruled, however, that such an outcome is not unconstitutional.

Was the fact that there were three eyewitnesses undeniable evidence of Shorty's guilt? Hardly. A close examination of the witness testimony proves otherwise. One testified previously that he "had visual contact" with the shooter for "no more than a second", which became three of "four" seconds at trial. Another said, several days after the incident that a photo of Shorty looked like the guy, "but I can't be sure." An additional eye-witness gave a similar statement several days after the shooting, saying that the photo of Shorty "looks familiar, but I can't be sure."

These are, at best, equivocal identifications, certainly no sure ones.

Some described the shooter as a person standing 5 feet 10 inches, yet Shorty's most distinctive feature is his shortness: a man who stands 5 feet 5 inches. Another witness said the shooter was 5 feet 9 inches, about 180 pounds of weight. Shorty weighed around 125-132 pounds at the time.

His alibi witness testimony was disregarded, and evidence of other perpetrators was all but ignored. Remarkably, 3 justices of the state's highest court decided that "improper prosecutorial misconduct" in closing argument narred the trial, violating Shorty's right to a fair and impartial proceeding. But in Pennsylvania, the opinions of 3 justices is tantamount to no opinion at all, for the majority rules. And in this case, 4 judges ruled otherwise, thus affirming the marred trial they went before. For want of one vote, Shorty remains in the abode of death.

His life as a musician was cut short, and an innocent man waits to die.

His loving family and friends continues to fight for his life and for his freedom****.

© MAJ 1999

*Actual quote. Financial Times, 'Facts finally collide with ideology on Europe' 22 July. 2013

Edited August 22, 2013 by Eddiesilence

[Eddiesilence]

When Jimmy was convicted, he wrote "Praying 4 the Truth of 1992" at the end of his letters. The first time I got a reply from Jimmy, he signed off: "Praying 4 The Truth of 1999". The scan below is from the last letter. It looks like it could actually be 'The Truth of 2013'.

This news is totally unreal, I'm just blown away by Judge Brody's ruling. I'm afraid to sleep in case it's a dream.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Eddiesilence