What do you think about the death penalty

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Id say yes on the death panalty or force them to go into battle on the front lines and if they dont kill other american soldiers etc they get granted freedom but.. if they kill a civilain after that they are to be executed on site.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxBctqJkTLI&feature=related[/youtube]

I am against it. There are too many people who end up on death row who are at some point proven to be innocent. To me, one innocent person getting executed is too many (and we have undoubtedly executed many innocent people). And, with some courts having bizarre rules, such as if you find evidence that exonerates someone you may be prevented from using it to get a person off of death row, it's even more important not to execute people.

(I suspect those rules have something to do with prosecutors not wanting the cases they won overturned and to maintaining public confidence in the system (which is an insane way to do that).)

What about cases involving premeditated murder carried out by actual THUGS(gang members and mafiosi)? Most killers who are gang members have a pretty easy time in prison where they continue to commit crimes and even instigate more crime outside of prison walls through cryptic communication(incarcerated gangsters often order killings through free people they have contact with and sometimes this means family members who are part of the gang)? I remember hearing a horrible story about a young man shot to death at an Iowa diner by a gangster as part of a gang initiation rite. The killer was given life since Iowa doesn't have the death penalty. The only way to uproot organized crime is to exterminate these people who will kill their way to the top if they deem it necessary.

The way to prevent innocent people from being executed is to require forensic evidence(habeus corpus)in order for a death sentence to be handed down and carried out.

You're trying argue for greater crime prevention in exchange for less justice for the innocent.

Fingerprints are nowhere as conclusive as they are made out to be -- the field isn't scientific and doesn't use scientific methods, and studies have found a shocking amount of inconsistency between experts given the same samples to analyze.

Eyewitness testimony is very compelling to juries, but it's known to be very unreliable.

There's a recent case of a crime lab tech who admitted to faking and mishandling 1,000 drug tests. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-5 ... rug-tests/

The system, even with forensic analysis, is full of holes.

That's why I think there should be a federal law that renders a convict ineligible for capital punishment unless there is scientifically verifiable forensic evidence linking them to the crime. If they are convicted on circumstantial evidence, the maximum sentence should be life without parole.

I support the death penalty for heinous crimes against humanity.

Rape of a child

Willful murder with no real reason.

Heinous murder (Like the guy in CT who tied someone to a bed and set the house on fire)

Torture leading to murder, to include rape.

Murdering a witness in a judicial proceeding

Attempting to murder a witness.

Murder of a public servant such as law, fire, ems

In terms of proof, I believe the burden of proof must be higher than reasonable doubt. It must be a clear certainty that the person on trial committed the crime. Clear proof must include physical evidence. If there is that, and the crime is heinous, it should be a quick trip to the execution chamber. And no more lethal injections or crap like that, back to good old fashioned quick drop hanging. Painless and quick.

you would literally have to invent mcuh of that field or set it in context first.

eye witnesses are so notoriously unrealiable that they should be barred from functioning as primary evidence.

I've always been interested in human sacrifice and it's echoes in capital punishment. I also think of it as a form of state terrorism, which is what human sacrifice always was, anyway - especially when the executions were public. It was never a purely spiritual act, it was about consolidating the power of druids/priests/divinely mandated kings, etc. It was essentially a form of theatre to display the state's power, much like the processions and parades of kings. No-one knew this more than the Elizabethan playwrights and also, I think, Dickens. If you can saturate a populace in violence that way, you can desensitise them to them to all kinds of abuses. Nowadays, the violence doesn't need to be public to be effective - in fact, it works better that way, because you can present a veneer of civility. Nowadays we talk about capital punishment/human sacrifice in terms of punishment rather than spirituality and appeasing the gods, but that's still bunk. The real reason it is used is the same as it always was - power.

I suppose in a way. If the blowing up of Alderan was a real life event, it would be even worse than the Holocaust since we're talking billions vs millions. Though on a qualitive level, no worse.

So if we could know for sure, you find the idea of killing to show society's contempt for killing an appealing concept? Or no.

I think the argument of innocence is a good argument against the death penalty, and one I would use if I were a politician and campaigning against it, but I actually think the death penalty in itself is a disturbing and unjust concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rind_et_al._controversy


Then it would be rational to go back and kill a witness who survived the first attack. Nothing to lose...



This is the real world. Reasonable doubt is already a high standard, and clear certainty is unrealistic.

Um, reasonable doubt is not a high enough standard buddy. There have been numerous people sentenced to death based on circumstantial evidence even with a lack of forensic evidence. Juries are often biased and will convince even when there is plenty of reasonable doubt. That I why I agree 100% with thewhitrbbit about the need for physical evidence for a death sentence to be carried out. This BS about "beyond a reasonable doubt" is nothing more than semantics. Yeah, this is the real world, where physical evidence speaks for itself and peoples opinions are unreliable.

Physical evidence does not speak for itself at court. Having established that the DNA of the suspect is on the murder weapon only confirms that... the DNA of the suspect is on the murder weapon.

There is a fundamental uncertainty to just about everything in the world. Only carefully organized scientific experiments in the natural sciences can reduce this uncertainty to a negligible level. And that is usually not an option in criminal proceedings.

As such, there is little to be gained from raising the legal standard of evidence above "beyond reasonable doubt". Unless one wants to acquit everyone accused of any crime.

Also, see this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_burden_of_proof

NOT TRUE. There is much to be gained from raising the legal standard of evidence when it comes to eligibility for capital punishment; like reducing the likelyhood of innocent people being put to death. If the standards where high enough there'd be no need for The Innocence Project. The last 2 sentences are clear examples of the false dichotomy.

The problem is that you can *never* be certain. Beyond reasonable doubt is probably already above the standard 95 percent confidence level, and likely above 99 percent in capital cases. If you raise the standards of evidence even further, you are simply helping criminals getting away with crimes... The problem is that the data is uncertain. No statistical tool can remedy this fault...

How do you measure confidence level in terms of cases like this? Furthermore, a mandatory life sentence for a capital murder conviction(where ineligibility for parole is strictly enforced and judicial discretion is barred) will ensure that murderers will not escape justice. Also, we are talking about a very specific punishment for a very specific crime here! This is not about jurisprudence in general nor is it about raising the standard of evidence for ALL crimes. I hope you understand the concept.