Death Penalty

[infinite monkey]

The second best argument against capital punishment: no one will agree on who 'deserves it.

Guilty vs not guilty being the first best argument.

Assuming you ignore the cost-effectiveness argument and pretend it is cheaper to enact the death penalty given our legal system of all that pesky appeal stuff, and other reasons dp costs so much more.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

...and other reasons dp costs so much more.

y'know, she tried to explain why it should cost more, to me, but I didn't buy it.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

The second best argument against capital punishment: no one will agree on who 'deserves it.

I thought we had reached an agreement about hobos.

[infinite monkey]

Oh my. I think I don't know if my acronym means something else? What?

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

Oh my. I think I don't know if my acronym means something else? What?

Urban Dictionary can help you out. NSFW.

[infinite monkey]

Shhhhhhh...

It's kind of a secret, about the hobos. Duh!

[monster]

Would you rather spend life behind bars or just die and get it over with?

[Aliantha]

You know, to that question, I'd probably answer that I'd rather die, but then I wonder what it would really be like knowing people wanted to say when you should die and if my answer wouldn't change. Life is life after all. We all cling to it tightly most of the time. I don't know if that would change just because life was highly restricted.

[monster]

Fair point. I don't know either, but I'm very claustrophobic. Right now my only fear of death concerns what will happen to my kids etc..... If 'm incarcerated, i can't help them. They might not want me to die, but my death would free them from a lifetime of visitations and parole hearings etc.......

[Clodfobble]

"A lifetime of visitations" is what any person has to do with their parents, whether they're in jail or not. At least if you're in jail, they don't have to feel obligated to clean the house for your arrival.

I think I'd insist on living with a life sentence, because I'd want to see my kids be adults, even if I no longer had a hand in helping them get there. And I'd always be hoping for new evidence/technology that would someday to lead to my exoneration (assuming I didn't actually commit the crime, which is not a guarantee.)

[BrianR]

[quote=Clodfobble;830610 And I'd always be hoping for new evidence/technology that would someday to lead to my exoneration (assuming I didn't actually commit the crime, which is not a guarantee.)[/QUOTE]

This.

[xoxoxoBruce]

How do you justify the cost of keeping Charles Manson alive?

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

How do you justify the cost of keeping Charles Manson alive?

Usually because it is less expensive than the death penalty, or so I've heard.

[henry quirk]

Only 'cause so much horseshit is folded into the 'process' by way of appeals and humanitarian treatment of the guilty*.

The act itself -- one gun, one bullet, one hand to pull the trigger -- is almost negligible in cost.

One thing, however: the State may 'try and convict', but it should be the aggrieved (family/friends or victim, if he or she lives) who pulls the trigger.

Never lobby for an irrevocability you yourself aren't willing to enact.

In other words: don't clamor for 'death' if you can't deliver it.









*see the latter part of the 'he/she' thread for an example of prison(er) absurdity.

[Ibby]

Having never had to remotely consider the possibility, I would say, as a brash, angsty 21-year-old, that I'd take the death penalty over even a 10-year sentence. But I say that as someone who would be at particularly high risk of abuse, persecution, rape, and discrimination in GenPop, and as someone who doesn't honestly expect to survive past age 35 or 40 even outside prison, given the rate of trans* suicide, murder, and hate crime, and considering my propensity towards self-destructive addiction and depression. So, given those factors, I would say living for a few years on death row and then going, without lengthy illness or infirmity, sounds like a better option than even just ten years in general population.
But I say that as someone who has struggled for years with a lack of self-worth, with self-injury, and with the constant looming threat suicide, and as someone who has never actually faced my own mortality or the real threat of death. It's easy for me to be flippant about saying i'd rather be dead.
I know that it's unfair to those, especially the falsely accused, who face the real possibility of death, to say that i'd prefer that. and I absolutely know that the fact that I might lean towards preferring to die than to linger should not in any way affect whether or not I think the government should be executing ANYONE.