What do you think about the death penalty

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Ultimately, these debates on law and crime leave a bad taste in my mouth because they serve to detract from the underlying, root debate.

We ought to worry first on how to raise the least of us before we deal with the worst of us. People are not innately evil; most of these crimes are the product of the problem of poverty and social decay that have not been dealt with. Replace this rotten system and with it will go most of the motives and opportunities for crime.

I agree with that.


Unfortunately, evidence suggest that even requiring 'convincing proof' is not sufficient to prevent innocent people from being convicted and sentenced to death. Hanging is not painless, and probably not quick from the hanged person's perspective.


Strongly disagree. If someone tortures a victim to death, I do NOT want a state-paid torturer running around whose job it is to replicate that pain.

Some crimes deserve death, but in the absence of absolute certainty over who committed the crime, it is better to err on the side of life in prison than to risk executing an innocent person (which is effectively state-sponsored murder). The statistics show strong negative bias against men, ethnic minorities, and the poor, which means that the death penalty is not fairly and evenly applied; thus, even though some people *deserve* death, the penalty should be abolished.

First of all, "beyond reasonable doubt" is a higher standard of evidence than "clear and convincing".

Second of all, although no definitive source exists, several sources lists 98 percent certainty or higher as the standard of beyond reasonable doubt. DNA evidence is often conclusive only to the identity of the person who left the DNA at the crime scene. Here are several instances where DNA might not be conclusive inculpatory evidence:

Murder? He could be a bystander who tried to revive the victim after the attack, and pulled out the knife in his chest, thus leaving his DNA all over the place.
Rape? It could have been consensual sex, thus explaining DNA evidence from semen.
Mass school shooting resulting in 25 dead? He could have tried to pry the weapon from the hands of the *real* shooter when it went off in the struggle, thus explaining DNA evidence *and* gunshot residue on his hands.

If you raise the standards of evidence, then these scenarios have to be given greater weight in criminal proceedings, and thus more people would be acquitted.

Finally, demanding that individuals should be executed within a year of sentencing would increase the number of wrongful executions, as there would be less time to review flaws in the conviction.

To illustrate, *every single death row inmate exonerated by the Innocence Project* would have been executed if they had been executed within a year of sentencing, as they all served several years on Death Row after sentencing.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content ... enalty.php

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content ... enalty.php

That's all the reason anyone should need to oppose the death penalty.

You don't need a higher standard of evidence to convict. You need a higher standard of evidence to execute.

I can convict you of murder by beyond reasonable doubt, but if I want to execute you, I need a higher burden of evidence.

I would commute any death sentence that doesn't have DNA, and run all tests on anyone on death row. There is NO reason it takes 20 years to run some DNA tests.

And I don't want that person getting free health care, free cable tv, free food, and regular family visits.

In the US, conviction and sentencing are two separate phases of a trial. Once someone is convicted, he is considered "guilty," not "probably guilty." At the sentencing phase, the jury is instructed: 'given that Mr. X committed crime A, should he be put to death?' Not, 'given that Mr. X had a 90% probability of having committed crime A,' or a 95% chance, or whatever. Once he's convicted, in other words, he is considered to have done the crime for the purposes of sentencing; evidence is no longer relevant, only the severity of the crime.

In Poland we do not have juries, although I think that it was great if such an institution existed in Poland.

Instead of a jury, we have a panel of judges consisting of one professional judge and two lay judges, in cases punishable by life imprisonment, we have two professional judges and three of lay judges.

The role of of lay judges is similar to the role of the jury.

You write about ethnic minorities, does the fact that the offender belongs to the minority means that he should have some special favors, probably not.

I believe that justice should be the same for all regardless of whether someone is rich or poor, whether it is a Pole, a German, an American, a Jew, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, White or Black

fortunately Poland is quite homogeneous state.

As long as DNA is admitted as state's evidence, it should be up to the state what to do and if they choose to kill so be it.
If the evidence is circumstantial yet the jury convicts anyway the death penalty should be off the table imo because the only smoking gun is DNA evidence unless there's a video showing exactly what happened, as in surveillance.

That would definitely be the case in an ideal world. However, in the US legal system, and especially in death penalty cases (see the note above about 'death qualified' juries for one of the reasons why), men, ethnic minorities, and the poor are statistically all judged more harshly than women, ethnic majorities, and the wealthy.