• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Utah counts down to firing squad execution

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Life in prison is worse for innocent people, because the risk of them never getting out is the same (or perhaps higher) than the risk of them being executed. However, guilty people with nothing else to lose don't deserve to keep their lives, even if it is in prison.
So in terms of guilty people, you consider the death penalty to be charitable or merciful?

The death penalty is carried out so infrequently in this country that the numbers would be meaningless. I suggest that the time to ask those questions is when we actually start to use the death penalty with any sense of regularity.
Ah... so you don't actually have any evidence to back up your supposition. Good to know.

I do... but that's not the subject of this thread.
No, it's not. So "overcrowding" was a red herring when you brought it up, was it?

It may not be the ONLY way... but it certainly is a most effective and certain way.
It's a way that negates the benefit of a good, working parole system at the very least. What about the benefit of that?

A dead person cannot kill anyone anymore. Had Kenneth McDuff been executed the first time like he should have been, he wouldn't have killed 14 people.
Wait one minute.

Kenneth McDuff was convicted in a jurisdiction that had the death penalty. He was actually sentenced to death... a sentence that was later commuted. He was then released.

Nothing in his story illustrates that things would've been better if Texas had had capital punishment, because it did have capital punishment. Nothing in his story suggests that things would've been better if he hadn't been locked up for life, because he wasn't locked up for life.

The question here is whether we should have capital punishment or not. Texas had capital punishment, and McDuff still managed to kill those 14 people. The story doesn't imply what you're arguing it does.

That's like KatNotKathy arguing that the death penalty carries the risk of executing guilty people.
Not quite, but that does bring up an issue inherent in the death penalty: if you can deprive a criminal of his life without valid justification, then this damages the claim that we have the right to life generally. This hurts all of us.

Didn't say it was... but why is it better for an innocent person to die in prison after 50 years than after 5? Is he any less innocent? Is he any less dead?
I didn't say it was better. My point is that it's better for a wrongly-convicted person to have 50 years to secure his release than to have only 5.
 

Smokeless Indica

<3 Damian Edward Nixon <3
I don't know who will agree with me on this but I feel that the only people who should be in prison are murders, rapists and child molesters. Everyone else should be fined some kind of fine and have to do some kind of community service type thing. Depending on what their crime is. That way the only people we need to make sure are actually guilty and deserve to be in prison is limited. Then we can abolish the death penalty and no more innocents will be killed.
 

KatNotKathy

Well-Known Member
I don't know who will agree with me on this but I feel that the only people who should be in prison are murders, rapists and child molesters. Everyone else should be fined some kind of fine and have to do some kind of community service type thing. Depending on what their crime is. That way the only people we need to make sure are actually guilty and deserve to be in prison is limited. Then we can abolish the death penalty and no more innocents will be killed.

I agree with you here 100%. There is no sense in imprisoning non-violent offenders. Heck, it's a damn effective way to turn non-violent offenders into violent ones.

edit: Also, community service is great because it's not only beneficial to society in general, but it also greatly helps to rehabilitate criminals!
 

Smokeless Indica

<3 Damian Edward Nixon <3
I agree with you here 100%. There is no sense in imprisoning non-violent offenders. Heck, it's a damn effective way to turn non-violent offenders into violent ones.

edit: Also, community service is great because it's not only beneficial to society in general, but it also greatly helps to rehabilitate criminals!


I think drug dealers should be fined heavely and that would also depend on the type of drugs they sell.
I don't really know about the others.
Maybe weapons trafficers should be in prison too but I'm not sure on that.......
 

Poisonshady313

Well-Known Member
So "overcrowding" was a red herring when you brought it up, was it?
No. Just 'cause I brought it up didn't mean I intended to go on a tangent about it.

Wait one minute.

Kenneth McDuff was convicted in a jurisdiction that had the death penalty. He was actually sentenced to death... a sentence that was later commuted. He was then released.

Nothing in his story illustrates that things would've been better if Texas had had capital punishment, because it did have capital punishment. Nothing in his story suggests that things would've been better if he hadn't been locked up for life, because he wasn't locked up for life.

The question here is whether we should have capital punishment or not. Texas had capital punishment, and McDuff still managed to kill those 14 people. The story doesn't imply what you're arguing it does.
Having the death penalty and using the death penalty are two completely different matters.

New York "has" the death penalty, but hasn't executed anyone since the moratorium has been lifted.

Had he been executed instead of having his sentenced commuted, this world would have been better off.

I didn't say it was better. My point is that it's better for a wrongly-convicted person to have 50 years to secure his release than to have only 5.

But because execution itself is so rare... which makes the execution of innocent people that much more rare... you're more likely to have innocent people dying in prison after 50 years than you are to execute innocent people.

If bad things are inevitable, wouldn't it make sense to have it happen to fewer people instead of more?
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
I don't know who will agree with me on this but I feel that the only people who should be in prison are murders, rapists and child molesters. Everyone else should be fined some kind of fine and have to do some kind of community service type thing. Depending on what their crime is. That way the only people we need to make sure are actually guilty and deserve to be in prison is limited. Then we can abolish the death penalty and no more innocents will be killed.

The problem with this is that wealthly people can fund their lawlessness.

They can do it now, but prison terms are a deterrant when they know that they can't get away with something.
 

Poisonshady313

Well-Known Member
Ah... so you don't actually have any evidence to back up your supposition. Good to know.

I said:

Also, if we executed our murderers in more proportion to how many are sentenced in a given year, it would help the prison overpopulation problem.

Your response was nonsensical.

When I say "if we did this", implying that we don't do it now, why would you think it would be meaningful to ask if it's working now? We can't possibly measure it now... because we're not doing it.


It's sad how badly people who oppose the death penalty need to distort reality in order to argue their case.

Like pointing to New York as a death penalty state with a murder rate.... never mind the fact that New York hasn't executed anyone since 76.


Or consider how high New Mexico's murder rate is, compared to non-death penalty states.... nevermind the fact that New Mexico has executed 1 person since 76.

Meanwhile, Texas, with a whopping 458 executions since 1976, consistently has a lower murder rate than Michigan, a non-death penalty state. This doesn't actually say anything about whether or not the death penalty works to reduce a state's murder rate.... but it certainly doesn't support the notion that the death penalty is responsible for higher murder rates.

But people ignore this. They look at states like New York and New Mexico and say "see? States with the death penalty have higher murder rates than states without the death penalty"




It's ********. The fact is, the death penalty isn't used enough. Relative to the number of murders committed in any given year, it's practically as if the death penalty doesn't even exist. The way abolitionists talk about it, you'd think we lived in freakin Iran. The dishonesty employed by those who oppose capital punishment is astonishing.

California has the largest death row in the country. And do you know how many people it has executed since 1976? 13.


13 murderers in 34 years. Meanwhile, Texas (whose death row population is probably in the top five... but certainly not number 1) has executed 458. That's an average of 13 per year.


When we start executing, in any given year, the same number of people who are sentenced in that particular year... then we'll be able to discuss meaningfully the death penalty's impact on society.


You know how when you go to the beach and swim in the ocean... and when you come out, you're still wet? You are actually decreasing the amount of water in the ocean. Not enough to have any real meaningful impact or significance. But in a literal sense, it's true.

Similarly... yeah, we have the death penalty in this country. This country has executed 1214 people since 1976. In a literal sense, it's true that this is a death penalty country. But it happens so rarely that it doesn't have any meaningful impact or significance. It could, but it doesn't.
 
Last edited:

Mercy Not Sacrifice

Well-Known Member
Poisonshady, that may be correct, but those statistics are isolated. Can you show me some correlation statistics between murder rate and the use of the death penalty?
 

Poisonshady313

Well-Known Member
Poisonshady, that may be correct, but those statistics are isolated. Can you show me some correlation statistics between murder rate and the use of the death penalty?


I can give you murder rates.... and I can give you use of the death penalty.... but I spent that whole last post telling you why there is no correlation.


Here's another example. Louisiana consistently has the highest murder rate in the nation... yet it's ranked # 11 for its use of the death penalty (28 in 34 years). That means an average of less than one execution per year.

Meanwhile, Ohio is number 10, with 38 executions in 34 years, and consistently has lower murder rates than Michigan, Alaska, New York, New Jersey (all states which have never executed anybody), a murder rate comparable to Kansas (a state which has never executed anybody).... and a murder rate that's less than half of Louisiana, even though Ohio has executed more people in 34 years.



Are you really going to try to tell me that "states with the death penalty have higher murder rates" is at all a meaningful statement, especially given the infrequency of the use of the death penalty?
 

Poisonshady313

Well-Known Member
29 out of 50 states saw a lower murder rate in 2000 than they did in 1999.

That's more than half the country... a mix of death penalty states and non-death penalty states...

1999 happens to be the year this country has executed more murderers than in any other year... 98.


If I was dishonest like the nuts at the Death Penalty Information Center, I would try to claim that this is proof of the death penalty's deterrence.

What I wouldn't want you to know is that New Mexico's murder rate dropped from 9.8 to 7.4.... and they didn't execute anybody... but the people at the DPIC would point out that they're a death penalty state with the fifth highest murder rate in 2005..... again, ignoring the fact that THEY DIDN'T EXECUTE ANYBODY.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
The problem with this is that wealthly people can fund their lawlessness.

They can do it now, but prison terms are a deterrant when they know that they can't get away with something.

I have a solution - let a fine be punishment for the 1st offense. Thereafter, jail time becomes a threat. This gets'm all, eh?
 

Poisonshady313

Well-Known Member
I didn't say it was better. My point is that it's better for a wrongly-convicted person to have 50 years to secure his release than to have only 5.

When death in prison is the end result, it doesn't matter how long a person had to secure his release. Dead is dead.

When you've got innocent people sitting on death row, I have no reason whatsoever to believe that there aren't innocent men serving life sentences as well. And the appeals process is there in order to fix mistakes made by the courts the first time around.

And if you're going to claim to be intolerant of mistakes which will cost people their lives, you have to be consistent.

And if there will be mistakes made that cause innocent people to be executed, you can be sure that mistakes will be made that cause innocent people to die while serving life sentences.

And for some strange reason, you seem to figure that one is preferable to the other.

Innocent is innocent. Dead is dead. Mistakes will happen with capital punishment. Mistakes will happen with LWOP.

No system is perfect. And offenders in capital crimes deserve to die for their crimes. And short of completely abolishing the criminal justice system and the existence of prisons altogether, there is no alternative that will 100% prevent innocent people from dying in prison (whether by execution, natural causes, or other).

More innocent people die when the system makes mistakes that lets murderers go free, escape, or kill prison guards. This is a problem that can be fixed by executing them before they have a chance to victimize anyone else.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
When death in prison is the end result, it doesn't matter how long a person had to secure his release. Dead is dead.
Death in prison isn't the result for those innocent people who do manage to secure their release. That's kinda the point.

When you've got innocent people sitting on death row, I have no reason whatsoever to believe that there aren't innocent men serving life sentences as well. And the appeals process is there in order to fix mistakes made by the courts the first time around.
I entirely agree. People are wrongfully convicted at all levels of sentencing, from suspended sentences and minor fines all the way up to execution. We need to minimize this, but the only way to completely prevent innocent people from being convicted is to not convict anyone.

And if you're going to claim to be intolerant of mistakes which will cost people their lives, you have to be consistent.
I am being consistent.

At all levels, I think we should acknowledge that there are wrongfully convicted people. Any increase in the severity of the sentence for a crime will incur the cost of that additional severity being applied to some non-zero number of innocent people. This is one of the reasons why, when given the choice between two sentences for a crime, we should only choose the more severe one when the additional severity creates enough benefit to outweigh this cost.

And if there will be mistakes made that cause innocent people to be executed, you can be sure that mistakes will be made that cause innocent people to die while serving life sentences.

And for some strange reason, you seem to figure that one is preferable to the other.
No, I don't. I don't want any innocent person to die in prison. This is why I prefer the option that allows some percentage of wrongly convicted people not to die in prison over the option that doesn't allow this.

Innocent is innocent. Dead is dead. Mistakes will happen with capital punishment. Mistakes will happen with LWOP.
Of course. But some mistakes that happen with life without parole can be rectified that can't be rectified with capital punishment.

No system is perfect. And offenders in capital crimes deserve to die for their crimes.
Why do you say that? Exactly how do you determine what someone "deserves"?

Keep in mind in your response that you're talking to someone who thinks that "deserve" is a meaningless concept.

And short of completely abolishing the criminal justice system and the existence of prisons altogether, there is no alternative that will 100% prevent innocent people from dying in prison (whether by execution, natural causes, or other).
Of course not. But it will prevent this to some degree. Any positive number is greater than zero.

More innocent people die when the system makes mistakes that lets murderers go free, escape, or kill prison guards. This is a problem that can be fixed by executing them before they have a chance to victimize anyone else.
Prison guards aren't only killed by people in jail for capital crimes. If that's really your motivation, why not argue that all prisoners should be executed?
 

Poisonshady313

Well-Known Member
I had a really awesome post that responded to the points you made in yours... and I lost the whole thing when my computer crashed.

I'll come back to it tomorrow.
 

Mercy Not Sacrifice

Well-Known Member
I can give you murder rates.... and I can give you use of the death penalty.... but I spent that whole last post telling you why there is no correlation.

I'm willing to entertain this, but I'm having trouble putting together all your data to form a meaningless conclusion. I'm not trying to play games or anything; I just can't make out the data trends.

Here's another example. Louisiana consistently has the highest murder rate in the nation... yet it's ranked # 11 for its use of the death penalty (28 in 34 years). That means an average of less than one execution per year.

Meanwhile, Ohio is number 10, with 38 executions in 34 years, and consistently has lower murder rates than Michigan, Alaska, New York, New Jersey (all states which have never executed anybody), a murder rate comparable to Kansas (a state which has never executed anybody).... and a murder rate that's less than half of Louisiana, even though Ohio has executed more people in 34 years.

Are you really going to try to tell me that "states with the death penalty have higher murder rates" is at all a meaningful statement, especially given the infrequency of the use of the death penalty?

Hmmm.

I think that even if a negative correlation could be established between use of the death penalty and murder rate, one still has to cross the hurdles of (1) stretching from correlation to causation, and (2) determining what percentage of deterrent the death penalty serves over life without parole.
 

Poisonshady313

Well-Known Member
I'm willing to entertain this, but I'm having trouble putting together all your data to form a meaningless conclusion. I'm not trying to play games or anything; I just can't make out the data trends.

There are no data trends. That's the point. There is not enough data to support a meaningful conclusion.

The Death Penalty Information Center puts out some bogus charts about death penalty states having higher murder rates than non-death penalty states, as if we're supposed to believe that the death penalty encourages murderous behavior.... not accounting for the fact that some states with outrageous murder rates might have used the death penalty only once in the past 34 years (New Mexico), while a state that has executed over 400 people in the same time span has a significantly lower murder rate (Texas).

And the fact that Michigan and Alaska (both non-death penalty states) have higher murder rates than Texas (the only state worth mentioning simply because it is the one that executes more people than 31 death penalty states combined... and there are 35 death penalty states.) is an interesting figure that death penalty opponents like to ignore. The only thing it really proves is that their claim is bogus.


I'm not about to claim that the data supports deterrence... because it doesn't. The death penalty simply isn't used enough in this country to have a meaningful impact on society.

But to claim the opposite... that the death penalty accounts for higher murder rates (or at least that non-death penalty accounts for lower murder rates) is dishonest and absurd.
 

Poisonshady313

Well-Known Member
Death in prison isn't the result for those innocent people who do manage to secure their release. That's kinda the point.
No, it's not the point. There's is a chance that more than 0 innocent people will die serving a life sentence.... just like there's a chance that more than 0 innocent people will be executed. And all that time given to attempt to secure one's release means nothing when an innocent man dies in prison.

Given that there are more people serving life sentences in this country than there are on death row, the chance of a mistake leading to an innocent person dying while serving a life sentence is higher than the chance of a mistake leading to the execution of an innocent person.

I am being consistent.

At all levels, I think we should acknowledge that there are wrongfully convicted people. Any increase in the severity of the sentence for a crime will incur the cost of that additional severity being applied to some non-zero number of innocent people. This is one of the reasons why, when given the choice between two sentences for a crime, we should only choose the more severe one when the additional severity creates enough benefit to outweigh this cost.

More innocent people have died as a result of murderers who should have been put to death re offending than as a result of having been executed. Saving those lives is certainly enough benefit. Executed murderers cannot re-offend.


No, I don't. I don't want any innocent person to die in prison. This is why I prefer the option that allows some percentage of wrongly convicted people not to die in prison over the option that doesn't allow this.
There is no option that doesn't allow this. I can go all over the place to find numbers of people being exonerated from death row... DPIC, Innocence Project, etc... How frequently are innocent lifers being exonerated? I know it happens... but how frequently?



Of course. But some mistakes that happen with life without parole can be rectified that can't be rectified with capital punishment.
And when an innocent person dies after spending 50 years in prison, that cannot be rectified either.


Why do you say that? Exactly how do you determine what someone "deserves"?

Keep in mind in your response that you're talking to someone who thinks that "deserve" is a meaningless concept.
A person who has committed a capital crime has forfeited all of his rights. All of them.

Prison guards aren't only killed by people in jail for capital crimes. If that's really your motivation, why not argue that all prisoners should be executed?

Not all prisoners are violent. Not all prisoners are murderers. Heck... not all homicides are capital crimes (i.e. the husband who finds his wife in bed with another man, and kills them both).

And when a person in jail for stealing cars goes ahead and murders a prison guard... he has stepped into the category of "capital offender", and has earned capital punishment.

All people who commit capital crimes should be executed.
 

Terrywoodenpic

Oldest Heretic
why do some states and countries have the death penalty and others not?
What are the factors involved?
Religion?
Ethics?
the political Left?
the political Right?
The anaesthetising effect of high gun and crime death rates?
high population density?
Education levels?
belief in Retribution?
belief in Tooth for a tooth ?

The USA seems to have a disproportionate number of incarcerated prisoners.
A disproportionate level of long term prisoners (life)
A high level of Gun crime
a high level of drug related crime
Why should these things be disproportionate in the USA?
 
Top