What do you think about the death penalty

Post Reply New Topic

Sometimes the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many - Captain Kirk

So, what if you were that one?

Positive DNA matching is not all that perfect. DNA is used mostly to eliminate suspects, but false positives are possible. There is no absolute evidence. Confessions can be false or coerced and witnesses can lie. Physical evidence can be misinterpreted or spoiled by mishandling (think of OJ's glove).

ruveyn

Yes indeed. Check out The Innocence Project web-site. Also, from a technical standpoint, the deaths from the death penalty methods have been shown not to be painless and constitute cruel and unusual punishment. I wont go into details but the medical aspects of how the death sentence is carried out indicate extreme pain is involved for several methods and the time it takes for the condemned to die is much longer than is legally permitted for animals in slaughterhouses.

This does not excuse the crime committed no matter how heinous. Evidence exists indicating that long term confinement is more painful than death, so its also hard to compare.

Honestly, killers who murdered their victims in a painful fashion deserve to die as painfully as they killed. But at the same time, you are correct that long term confinement can be much worse than death! In fact, there are killers who have begged for the death penalty because they are so terrified of spending years being sexually violated in prison.

Trouble is, while being pro-death penalty is acceptable being pro-corrective sodomy isn't(liberals think that killers, rapists, and pedos getting humped up the rear in prison is "cruel and unusual punishment" ).


What kinds of painful execution methods are you referring to? One that is not painful, even thought it APPEARS to be from observers, is the electric chair because the person being executed is subjected to a voltage and current so high that they immediately have a massive seizure once the electricity is turned on.

I think that the purpose of the justice system should be to protect society from dangerous people, not to dole out punishment or to deter future offenders. Once a person is in prison, they are no longer a threat. Unless you live in Gotham City or something.

Absolutely, and the critique is a fair one.

The majority of cases where we know without the shadow of a doubt that the murderer is guilty of taking someones life, they should be executed, which happens to be the majority of cases. It is a terrible thing when the state accidentally puts an innocent to death, but that shouldn't mean that we do away with the system as a whole, but rather, make it better. Especially when we account for the fact that far more people have been killed as a result of not executing murderers. Be it prison guards, other inmates, people connected to the victim outside of prison, and no one seems to have any moral or emotional remorse for that reality.

There is no certain insurance against anything, the lives of the innocent are still lost even when the state does not engage in capital punishment, so I don't look for insurance when the reality is that people are going to get hurt anyways no matter the course you take. The only thing we should strive for is to do what does the most good and what justice demands.

So that I know you are not using a smokescreen to evade, should the Colorado shooter be put to death? If you don't think he should, then the issue of the state accidentally putting to death an innocent is just an anti-capital punishment is just a play on guilt, and that there are much larger moral reservations that you hold against it in general.

Is not putting someone in jail for life vengeance? I don't know why vengeance is stated, and then so comfortably, life imprisonment, or permanent removal from society pushed alongside it. That is vengeance as well.

BTW, these are just a few thoughts on the issue, if the reason you stated above is your main moral reservation against capital punishment, that is both an honorable and respectable position, one more anti-capital punishment people should consider.

If applying this standard, then every single execution in the history of mankind has been a wrongful execution.

fine, in 2012, we know with great certainty, its caught on camera and he admits to it.

And if it was a father who - after months of deliberation - killed a man who in turn had killed one of his children?

did you ever see "Wag the Dog"?

T.V. images and photographs can be faked.

ruveyn

well absolutely, but the majority of murderers in prison are not innocent and their evidence not faked.

"The majority" is not "100%." That's the point. If the state kills an innocent person, then the state (and therefore I) is commititng murder.

But you have no qualms when these people kill again or hurt others when their rereleased prematurely, rereleased because they have a great defense, attack an inmate, attack a guard, or send attacks at someone outside prison from within prison as retribution or vengeance? That happens, and with great frequency.

It seems that everyone is acceptable/comfortable and guilt free with their side so long as the state is not the one doing the killing. But you have to accept reality and the very real implications of your choice... there is no route that guarantees 100% protections of the life of an innocent once a murderer is imprisoned. People are going to, and have died no matter which position you take. Therefore, we must at least do the right thing (If you believe in capital punishment) and execute the ones we know with great certainty who've deprived another individual of their right to live.

There's a few notable ones here in Oregon who made the cut, one of them even asked to die after our Governor banned Capital Punishment, he stabbed, raped, sodomized, and beat with a lamp, a bat, and a hammer his girlfriends at the time mother who tried to convince her daughter to abort their child, and he's a respectable case for owing up to it, many others on Oregon's death row are the scum of the earth and need to go. Do people who even oppose capital punishment in their state know of the people who are on death row?

I guess that's my point:

Do you not feel guilty when someone dies because of a murderer who is imprisoned and not put to death? Which happens.

Or do you only feel guilty when the state mistakenly kills someone who is wrongly accused? Which very often doesn't happen.

People are uncomfortable making this call because they've so skewed the framework but that is disregarding reality. Sometimes in real life, it is not between a great option and a terrible one, but an unfortunate one, and an even more unfortunate one.

For me, the question isn't one of whether "murder" will happen- that seems somewhat silly.
It's exactly how many innocents should be claimed by it.
I'd prefer a lower number, personally, and I think were the death penalty regularly-carried out (read: as mandatory sentencing for certain types of crimes), then it would prove deterrent.

I'd be satisfied if such people, otherwise, would live a truly-miserable and short existence incarcerated,
but the reality is that little Susie's parents' tax money will pay for Susie's murderer to take watercolor classes, learn a foreign language, and get 3 squares daily,
until he's out, that is. Some prisons prove hellish enough that people die in them of unnatural causes, but many are truly-enviable environments.

I suppose more harsh a non-lethal punishment won't ever be instituted for the same reasons people are so reluctant to administer the death penalty.

What exactly turned you into a right-wing populist, pray tell? I'm actually curious.


Do you not realize that even harsher non-lethal punishment already exists??? I've mentioned it SO MANY F*CKING TIMES I can't believe you haven't picked up on it yet. It's called jailhouse justice; and it consists both of raep and murder by fellow inmates. It will save states millions of dollars to have Susie's killer places in a cell with a homosexual predator much bigger than him who will expand her killer's anus. If that doesn't work, there's always another inmate willing to murder her killer as violently as Susie herself died, if not more. This way there is no blood on the states hands.