Why we should enforce the death penalty

[Lady Sidhe]

Originally posted by jaguar

Therein lies the problem.

And what's the problem with revenge? I feel it's a necessary part of the recovery of the victim's friends and family, to know that the guilty party paid for the victim's life with his own. Justice and revenge aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

I've found that many death-penalty opponents change their tune when someone close to them is murdered.

I had a friend whose aunt was killed while in a phone booth, by a Crip. Why? He wanted her car. Guess what? The car had a coded lock, so he couldn't use it anyway. She died for nothing (as if dying because someone wants your car is a good reason) People like the one I just mentioned need to die. They might target YOU next. Or your parents. Or your child. Or your partner.

I just don't feel sorry for them at all. If you kill someone, intentionally, in cold blood, and it's not in self-defense, or defense of other people or your property, then IMO, they can't execute you fast enough for me. I don't see the point in us having to pay for you for the rest of your life. We have our own bills to worry about, without having to pay yours, too.


Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

Originally posted by wolf


Actually, I had a tee shirt that said that, um, like 20 years ago.

It was sold through Soldier of Fortune magazine. They probably still have it.

I'll have to find that tee shirt. I WANT ONE!!


Sidhe

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
I just don't feel sorry for them at all. If you kill someone, intentionally, in cold blood, and it's not in self-defense, or defense of other people or your property, then IMO, they can't execute you fast enough for me. I don't see the point in us having to pay for you for the rest of your life. We have our own bills to worry about, without having to pay yours, too.

How about the innocent peoplel who are executed? Feel sorry for them? A necessary evil to save us money, I suppose.

[Troubleshooter]

Jag

What's more valuable? An eye for an eye or the life of an innocent man?

The life of an innocent man, but if 100 murderers are released in protecting the innocent man how many more innocent people may die?

Skunks

How much of a life is it, if twenty years are spent in jail?

If the options are "kill bad people with the risk of killing an innocent" or "don't kill people because you might kill an innocent person", it seems the obvious third option is "figure out more conclusively who is or isn't guilty".

For violent crimes my sympathy quotient is pretty low. That being said, the quality of life of the violent offenders should be just enough that they can survive. I'm a fan of reducing the duration of sentences if you increase the discomfort of the conditions. Today's prisons are not feared, thus reducing their preventative effectiveness. Prison is supposed to be a punitive measure. I don't believe that a prison's job is to rehabilitate someone. Rehabilitation can only come from within.

Marichiko

Not only is there the potential that an innocent person could be executed, the moral logic of the death penalty eludes me. "It is wrong to kill, therfore we will kill you." In a way, by imposing the death penalty, the state and courts are saying that its OK to take a life. You do not fight the enemy by becoming him.

Putting the two people to death who killed that poor child will not bring him back to life or undo the suffering he endured. The death penalty for people like that is an easy way out. Let 'em spend the rest of their natural lives in a maximum security prison, so they have lots of time to think over what they did. Even other criminals despise people who kill children. You can be sure those two's existance behind bars will not be pretty.

The state does not operate on the same moral compass that its citizens do. It can't. The problems that a state has to deal with are on a much larger scale and their responsibilities are as well. Execution is not murder. Execution is an immune system, murder is predation.

DanaC

1) The lawyers and judges who preside over these legal proceedings and the people who write the laws which govern them are generally from a very different class and background to those who face the death penalty.

2) The poor are more likely to commit crimes

3) Frankly though, even if the person has been caught stood over the bleeding corpse of their victim , knife in hand with an evil grin spread across their murderous face....I still deem capital punishment an act of barbarism and the electric chair in particular is a disgrace to the modern world.

4) Not to mention of course those who have mental retardation... In 1989 the US Supreme Court ruled that it was not unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded people.

5) I read of one case for instance of a fellow who had schizophrenia .....He was sentenced to die and before he died he was given medication which gave him a temporary measure of normality ( some kind of ati psychotic agent) so that he would fully understand his fate.......

6) We havent even talked about the brutality ofthe method....The electric chair which so often goes wrong is an abomination. At the very least if you are going to insist on slaughtering your murderers use a method that kills instantly and painlessly (injection ).....Or is it necessary that the condemned suffer mortal agony in order for justice to be served?

7) In Europe we consider Capital Punishment to be barbaric and unfair.

1) I agree, but I also believe that they have to be. Without the ability to devote the time, effort, and study necessary to the study of law (and in the larger context, ethics) justice can not be fully served. Most innovation comes from the leisure classes.

2) Not true, reasearch is beginning to show that white collar crime is just as prevalent as blue (or no) collar crime. White collar crime doesn't catch the news the way rape, battery and murder do.

3) Under that set of conditions, execution would not only be just but prophylaxis.

4) Retardation is an incurable state. If that person has shown themselves to be a danger then they should be treated accordingly. If they are violent, lock them up; if they are murderous, execute them.

5) If a schizophrenic is murderous and not medically compliant then execution is warranted to protect the citizenry. If it is unethical to force medication on people then how do you tend to a murderous schizophrenic? Where do you find health-care people who are willing to risk their lives for this person? I think making him take medication to drive the message how is a bit much though.

6) Much to the chagrin of Lady Sidhe, I'm not one for revenge. Whatever method is most efficient should be used. Quick and sure.

7) This isn't Europe. That's like comparing our gun statistics with Japan.

Lady Sidhe

1) I guarantee you that an executed murderer will never kill again. 0% recidivism rate.

2) It would seem that a better way to judge society would be by the way it treats the victims of its criminals....

3) I agree. Electricity is too expensive. You can reuse a rope.

4) I couldn't give a rat's ass LESS if they suffer. They deserve it. No, they should not die painlessly.

5) Society must be protected from predators, or it won't survive. Warehousing them and providing them with all the amenities that many law-abiding citizens can't afford is a slap in the face.

6) The way I see it, people in America know the penalty for certain crimes; therefore, if you commit a crime for which the punishment is death, you're taking your chances.

7) Not only is the death penalty justice, it's society's revenge.

1) I agree. You have to decide what you are trying to achieve with the execution. Deterrence or prevention?

2) Again, I agree. Just treatment of the criminal will result in just treatment of the victim.

3) Justice for the criminal means avoiding unnecessary or excessive punishment. If the ultimate punishment has been decided then do it as quickly as possible.

4) See my #3

5) Agree. Also there is the thought that one of the reasons many people can't afford the amenities is that they are paying to provide the amenities for the prisoners.

6) Short of insanity or almost complete seclusion, committing a crime in today's times is done with full knowledge of the consequences and full consent of the will and thusly deserving of the full measure of the consequences.

7) Society isn't supposed to be in the revenge business.

Wolf

Oh, and why do they have them on suicide watch ... anyone ever wonder about that one?

Attempted Suicide is a crime. Also, if it becomes known that you can circumvent justice by taking your own life then the process becomes tainted.

Happy Monkey

How about the innocent peoplel who are executed? Feel sorry for them? A necessary evil to save us money, I suppose.

I would feel sorry for them, but to expect 100% efficiency from anything the size of the state is to be deluded. And to believe that the state should not punish people at all because it might punish someone who is innocent is also wrong.

[jaguar]

As far as I'm concerned revenge and justice are mutally exclusive. When you start straying into revenge you've lost the point of justice, being just. When you cross that line I think you loose any moral authority, you're no better.

Lock the fuckers up and make them break rocks for the next 20 years, they don't have the opportunity to reoffends and if they are innocent, they can still get out. Make prisons factories, reduce the cost to the taxpayer, it seems to me that prisons need to be both more human and less generous.

[Elspode]

Here in the Heartland, three young me have turned themselves in to police. They are suspected of having gang raped a young girl in an abandoned drug house in KC, then driving to St. Joseph, breaking into a house and killing, execution style, the young couple who lived there.

It seems they thought the occupants of the St. Joseph home were drug dealers whom they were either seeking to rip off or from whom to extract revenge. Unfortunately, the young couple were not the drug dealers the trio sought; they were instead merely a young couple who had moved into the apparent drug dealer's former residence.

So...if guilty, *why* should these three psychopaths not die, exactly? I mean, assuming they are indeed guilty (it is unclear yet whether they have confessed, but they turned themselves in despite the police having broadcast only that they were looking for the responsible parties. No names were named, no specifics on age, race, gender or number of suspects...they just knew the heat was on, and they turned themselves in via a prominent community activist).

If the people involved were *my* family members, innocent victims of stupid, blind, degenerate criminality, I not only would want them executed, but I would campaign to be allowed to pull the switch/push the button/pull the trigger/whatever it took to make it happen.

And I'm a peace-loving Pagan sort of guy, too. I am, however, enough of a realist to know that you do not leave a cancer untreated, and such criminals are indeed cancers on society. They need to be excised.

The only sure fire guarantee that murderers won't kill again is the death penalty. I'm okay with that, most especially in cases where confessions or DNA evidence makes for conclusive evidence.

[Elspode]

Originally posted by jaguar
Make prisons factories, reduce the cost to the taxpayer, it seems to me that prisons need to be both more human and less generous.

We've already got problems keeping our factory workers employed without moving to China...how exactly is turning our prison population into slave labor going to help that? And if we did so, wouldn't that be an incentive to get more people locked up so that the cost of production would be further reduced for manufacturing concerns?

[glatt]

Those in favor of the death penalty here seem to be conveniently ignoring the fact that innocent people get executed when you have a death penalty. If new evidence comes to light that would exonerate the innocent, there is no appeal from the death penalty once it has been implemented. If they are in prison for life, you can always release them.

Life in prison means just that. Life. Gone are the days of getting out in 7 years.

Yes, you need to protect society. If someone commits murder, remove them from society for the rest of their lives. Put them in prison.

I have no problem with having the prisoners work to earn their keep. Manual labor, skilled labor, makes no difference to me.

[DanaC]

**Hands Yelof a guinness and a Camberwell carrot**

I've found that many death-penalty opponents change their tune when someone close to them is murdered.

.....except in Europe where many of the families of murder and rape victims dont change their tune. They usually start wanting life to mean life. We are just as prey to violent crime we fear the murderer and the rapist just as you do, European parents face the demons that lie in wait for their children just as much as american parents.

I don't want to risk becoming a victim of a crime, or someone in my family becoming a victim, because a defendant was given a slap on the wrist, got out early because of time served

No indeed. Nobody wishes to invite risk into their lives. Personally I dont want to risk getting falsely accused and convicted or any of my loved ones getting falsely accused and convicted in a legal system which allows for my and any other citizen's death. Nor frankly would I be thrilled at the idea of a loved one of mine losing control or becoming psychotic and finding themselves on deathrow for a moment of madness......In fact....given that any one of us could find ourselves related to someone who has committed a terrible crime, i dont much like the idea that if such a thing were to happen the state wold have the right to kill my loved one, no matter what they have done.

As a citizen I expect to see those who have committed serious crimes brought to book and placed somewhere secure until such a time as they are no longer a risk to society. If that means they never get out then thats unfortunate. ....

I do not wish to live in a society where anybody, be it the criminal with murderous intent or the High Court , has the right to kill me.

The murderer steps beyond society's bounds when he kills another ....and that is not to be tolerated. But he and I are the same animal. I walked my road and it brought me to the place I now sit. S/he has walked a different road and I cannot say with utter conviction I would have walked that road and not ended it at the place they find themself.

So....in a way my stance against capital punishment is not just a poltical one....On a purely selfish level I feel safer ( for me and my loved ones) in a society that doesnt have the right to take my life for any reason.

[wolf]

Originally posted by Troubleshooter

Attempted Suicide is a crime. Also, if it becomes known that you can circumvent justice by taking your own life then the process becomes tainted.

How does the process become tainted? The condemned dying by their own hand saves the state money.

Incarceration costs between $50 - 100/day, not counting the costs related to a capital case including appeals filings, attorneys' and experts' fees, court time, etc.

The only thing the state and victims lose out on is witnessing the execution of sentence.

Incidentally, attempting suicide is not a crime, although it is sometimes a shame.

(mental health law is civil, not criminal law ... you aren't arrested by police and you don't go to jail for a suicide attempt, but you can be examined against your will and committed to a hospital. How does that differ from incarceration? You retain the right to refuse treatment, among other rights.)

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by Troubleshooter
I would feel sorry for them, but to expect 100% efficiency from anything the size of the state is to be deluded. And to believe that the state should not punish people at all because it might punish someone who is innocent is also wrong.

Punish? Correct. Kill? I don't think so. If there is a chance someone is innocent, they should not be executed. While someone is alive, there is always the chance that they could be exonerated. Once they're dead, it's too late.

This links in with the idea of revenge as being compatible with justice, or "treating the victims well". If the wishes of the victims are given high priority in law enforcement/trial/sentencing, the system is easily corruptible. Victims are less capable of being impartial, and are likely to latch on to whoever is first tried for the crime, and resist any evidence to the contrary. I have seen several death penalty cases being overturned, where the victims are interviewed, and they are angry that old wounds are being reopened. Revenge, being exceedingly emotional, can be satisfied as long as somebody pays.

I see in may debates "you'd feel different if your child were murdered". That may be correct, and that is the reason that certain jurors are excluded from certain trials. One of the fundamental concepts of the modern Western judicial system is that justice, not revenge, is to be served.

[DanaC]

**Hands Happy Monkey some peanuts** Couldnt agree more. If someone close to me is murdered I am the LAST person whose views should be taken into account when punishing the offender.

[DanaC]

In Europe, you get many things wrong.

Very true ! *smiles* I certainly wouldnt hold Europe up as the "right" way forward for anyone except Europeans....I do however think its interesting that we who share so much of our cultural expectations/norms and basic assumptions should differ so drastically on this issue and at such a continental level

Oh....and yeah I think we are right on this one

[Undertoad]

Death is a perfect solution that can only be implemented in an imperfect justice system. We know, we ADMIT, that the justice system is imperfect. It's run and implemented and overseen and reported on by people, and people are imperfect. You can argue whether the penalty is fair but you have to take into account the imperfections of the system. If we are to err on the side of caution anywhere in the system, this is where.

[DanaC]

Skunk...I just read that poem. I hadnt followed the link before. Damn thats beautiful.

It is easy in all this debate to forget the humanity of the killer. They didnt cease to think and feel. I find it strange that an atheist like me can feel a stranger on deathrow to be as much my brother in life as anyone else.....and yet I have heard so many who walk with Jesus find comedy in the death of a human.....seek as much pain as they can inflict on that human. .....not seeking to inflict pain and death upon another human being is what makes me different from the killer....if I am party to inflicting it upon the killer I am little better than he.

Class war, my tailfeathers! It's a war between law-abiding society and criminal society.

*Chuckles* I suspect if I even attempt to argue that one out I would either get a) shot by one of the gunowning members of the Cellar or b) so frustrated that I steal one of your guns and shoot myself.

Since we were all talking and thinking about this issue I went off to see if I could find anything interesting about it online. ....And I found this, which I thought was an interesting angle on it.

Royal Institute of Philosophy article: Capital Punishment and Realism