Death Penalty

[The Sum of Awe]

I'm not against it fully, but somewhat. I'm against the torture death penalties though. Was it just two years ago when I was looking on the Internet for real deaths by the death penalty (hanging, electric chair, etc) just to see what it would be like. The one I particularly thought was just a bit over the top was this one that made you feel like you were drowning.

 

[fantome profane]

It's not particularly important to me. I'm not directly influenced by any religious traditions on the matter.

For modern states, I'm not really in favor of them having the power to end the life of citizens through the death penalty. So politically, I'm against the death penalty, but it's a very small and largely irrelevant part of my politics. In some ways, I think the death penalty is more humane than life in prison or long stretches in solitary confinement, but most prisoners don't seem to think that's so, so I'm not really in favor of having them forcibly executed.

For older times, when it would be difficult or impossible to humanely keep someone reliable contained for a lifetime, I think the death penalty would be the only reasonable approach towards dangerous people.

You took my answer.

So just let me say sumerize.

The death penalty is not cost efficient, with delays, appeals, lawyers, court costs etc it actually costs more.

The death penalty is not a deternt. In fact there is some evidence that it actually encourages violent crimes. Often a person contemplating murder actually wants to be killed rather than spend the rest of their lives in prision.

In a modern state it is not necessairy. An person spending life in prision with no possibility of parole is no longer a danger to anyone.

 

[s2a]

Hmmm. . . .

Gotta admit there's a lot of words in what you say.

Wordiness may lead to "Truthiness"...ya never know

 

[methylatedghosts]

It is imperative that the state enforce the death penalty. This keeps many of us from becoming murderers.

I'm not convinced that a person on death row even once considered the death penalty while commiting the crime for which he was condemned.

And I'm also not convinced that "many of us" would become murderers if the death penalty was done away with. 1957 was the last time in NZ that anyone was put to death for a crime, and in 1989 capital punishment was abolished entirely. No-one I know has ever killed anyone else, and I know a fair few people.

If you kill a member of my family and the state doesn't execute you, I would. Two in the chest and not lose a minutes sleep. Thank God for the death penalty

And so then of course one of their family members would kill you for killing theirs for killing yours. And then naturally, one of yours would kill theirs for killing you for killing theirs for killing yours. And then one of theirs would kill one of yours for killing one of theirs for killing you for killing one of theirs for killing on of yours. This wouldn't stop until all family members were dead! Or would you have close friends of yours continue on? So you've got your family friends killing their family friends, and so on, and so forth. At some point, you would have family members killing their own family members because of friends they knew etc etc etc.

I am so glad that no-one I know thinks like you do.

 

[s2a]

You took my answer.

So just let me say sumerize.

The death penalty is not cost efficient, with delays, appeals, lawyers, court costs etc it actually costs more.

The death penalty is not a deternt. In fact there is some evidence that it actually encourages violent crimes. Often a person contemplating murder actually wants to be killed rather than spend the rest of their lives in prision.

In a modern state it is not necessairy. An person spending life in prision with no possibility of parole is no longer a danger to anyone.

Allow mw to counter in my own summary from your own expressed objections…

The “Death Penalty” is more costly, inefficient, and does not serve as deterrent (as opposed to “life in prison w/o possibility of parole)… within the current framework of our system of justice and exacted punishments…and I agree. The flaw then lies either within the justice system as it exists today, or with the more exacting and expeditious implementation of any “final” judgement.

I’ll be the first in line to support the heavily demanding and rigorous evidentiary burden of proof to be met and borne by the prosecution to substantively prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that any accused is by evidentially demonstrable and unquestionable fact as proven “guilty” of any capital crime, first and foremost as requisite caveat. Some cases are a bit questionable by prima facie evidences alone, as we know that “eyewitness” testimonials are often the least reliable and credible of any other introduced evidence utilized as fact in prosecutorial proceedings… yet, even circumstantial evidences in overwhelming and consistent testimony may indeed prove compelling beyond a “reasonable doubt” to almost any seated jury of peers.

But lets clarify even further, and well beyond any skeptical doubts of fair coutrroom prosecutorial review, and suppose that the accused is not only recorded in “flagrante delicto” (caught in the act) on video, audio, and interviewed confessional of admitted accountability and responsibility ( “I planed to murder him ahead of the act; I acted willfully in full understanding of the consequences, and retain no remorse for having killed him as planned and intended“).

Does any civilized society of unique individuals, collected and then deciding as a collective and representative whole…retain it’s own right to exact especial retribution as appropriate adjudicated punishment?

I think so… simply enough predicated upon a certain and definable premise.

When any person willingly and and with forethought chooses to act far beyond the values, standards, and legal boundaries of behavior and elementary humanity we establish as fundamental to maintaing a civil society, the accused vs the jury that finds as convicted the accused as being “guilty”, as criminal having already abdicated any claims of protection regarding civil rights, or human rights…as they by evidence and testimony evinced no regard in kind of rights for their victims.

I am solid in opinion that some people can actually renounce their own humanity willingly, thoughtfully, and beyond any measures of wanting remorse or compassion for any living thing.

Convicted criminals such as these not only invite, but deservedly earn the full wrath and retribution a civilized society can mete out as final justice to such a sociopath.

Just as an individual may willfully renounce citizenship to a particular nationality, I believe most earnestly that some can renounce any claim of (even primordial)l humanity, and renounce their own place in fair argument of any continued existence.

I know others may disagree, but if human civilization is to have any lasting and continuing merit, exacted societal retribution for especially heinous and veritably sociopathic “inhuman” acts is not only justified, but essential to provide both definition and punctuation as to what it means to be, and to earn the label as…”human”.

 

[1137]

What do you think of it? Is your view influenced by any religious traditions?

I think if you purposely take a life, you should not get to keep yours. It's relatively simple, and eye for and eye / retributivism would work far better than this BS rehabilitation crap we try and use. Perhaps we can recondition a drug addict to stop taking drugs, hell I did that to myself. I don't see it with most killers. You are not going to get a serial killer to stop killing unless you imprison them for life and suck us dry to give them meals and cable, or you simply take that life from them. The mind of a serial killer is highly complicated, usually quite brilliant depending on who we are talking about. The Zodiac had 5 confirmed kills and 2 confirmed attempts, he claimed to have killed 37 people, created ciphers that have never been solved, and on top of it all he was never caught! Having been caught, you would not change the mind of the Zodiac to just be a good guy.

Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac, by the way

 

[arthra]

The problem with the death penalty is that in today's society it is based largely on racial and cultural bias...

Evidence of racial discrimination in the U.S. death penalty system has attracted worldwide attention. In 1996, the International Commission of Jurists, whose members include respected judges from around the world, visited the United States and researched the use of the death penalty. Their report was sharply critical of the way the death penalty is being applied, particularly in regards to race: "The Mission is of the opinion that . . . the administration of capital punishment in the United States continues to be discriminatory and unjust -- and hence 'arbitrary' --, and thus not in consonance with Articles 6 and 14 of the Political Covenant and Article 2(c) of the Race Convention."58

In a March, 1998 decision,59 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded that the U.S. had violated international law and should compensate the relatives of William Andrews, who was executed in Utah in 1992, because of racial bias in his case.

The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides | Death Penalty Information Center

So we need to correct the system and remove racial bias...

 

[fantome profane]

I have been thinking about this topic in respect to the recent shooting massacre. And what I am going to say may surprise and possibly even disgust some people.

I am very glad the shooter is still alive.

I am glad he will have to look the family of his victims in the eye. I am glad he will have to explain how he could point a gun at an infant. I am glad he is going to have to live with what he did sitting in a cell until he dies of old age in 60, 70, or 80 years.

So often in cases like this the shooter is either killed by the police, or kills himself. And that is just too easy.

 

[idav]

\
So often in cases like this the shooter is either killed by the police, or kills himself. And that is just too easy.

Sometimes it isn't as easy as just killing people who can't go back into society. Should they deserve to suffer more, perhaps a torturous death? I'm the type that thinks the punishment should fit the crime and there is plenty of ways to fulfill that.

 

[fantome profane]

Sometimes it isn't as easy as just killing people who can't go back into society. Should they deserve to suffer more, perhaps a torturous death? I'm the type that thinks the punishment should fit the crime and there is plenty of ways to fulfill that.

Should we rape rapists?

 

[1137]

Should we rape rapists?

Maybe we should.

 

[England my lionheart]

What do you think of it? Is your view influenced by any religious traditions?

I think the death penalty is necessary for pre meditated murder but not for crimes of passion.

The method of execution is the problem and who will pull the trigger,a single bullet would be efficient and quick but you would be suspicious of anyone who would take the job,there is a problem too with proving beyond any doubt that the accused murderer is 100% guilty but there seems little doubt of the murderer of the people in the Denver Cinema.

I am not influenced by any religious tradition.

 

[predavlad]

What do you think of it? Is your view influenced by any religious traditions?

I don't think the death penalty should ever be used or enforced, because of a simple reason: I wouldn't trust anyone to decide who gets the death penalty and who doesn't. That decision would be taken by a single person or a group of fallible people, so mistakes would be inevitable.

My opinion is not influenced by religious views.

 

[crocusj]

What do you think of it? Is your view influenced by any religious traditions?

I am not influenced by religious traditions. I believe it is wrong to kill.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I am strongly against it. There are too many innocents put to death, here in America there is a strong racial bias in death penalty sentencing, it is far more costly to the state to execute a prisoner than to keep them in prison for life, it has not been shown to be a deterrent (many studies suggest homocide rates decrease after abolishing the death penalty), many people who have killed only did so in spur of the moment fight of rage (such as coming home early to find your spouse in bed with someone else) and have a very low chance of killing again, and it serves no real positive or beneficial service to society.
My thoughts on it are influenced by reason, research, and data. It is also influenced by an emotional appeal that killing someone solves nothing, and serves only to gratify a society that is obsessed with violence.