What do you think about the death penalty?

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I have mixed feelings, I believe that the death penalty may deter some degenerates from committing crimes. Currently in Europe except Belarus is not carried out the death penalty.

I recently read that the European Commission has imposed restrictions on the export of certain drugs to the United States, due to the fact that they are used to carry out the death penalty by lethal injection.

I am interested in politics, I read an article recently in which some ultra-conservative politician (Republican) said that since Europe has imposed restrictions on the export of components for lethal injection (Thiopental), the United States should stop export to Europe American drugs, including those for terminal illness , such as cancer.

I admit that I was shocked would expect such rhetoric from Putin or Russian politicians but not from American politician.

I don't think it deters anyone. I don't believe in it for the simple fact that the justice system can't be perfect, and you can't appeal an execution.

At least where I live (in the US in California), the death penalty was invalidated by a court recently basically because even though people were being sentenced to the death penalty, actually carrying out the death penalty is incredibly rare. The judge's logic IIRC was basically that it is cruel and unusual punishment (forbidden in the US constitution) to sentence someone to death but to never carry out the sentence. Basically, here, when someone is sentenced to death there is at least one automatic court appeal and many other optional appeals and it can take years or decades by the time those appeals are exhausted.

For me personally, I feel like the death penalty could be a good deterrent but over here even the criminals know that if they are sentenced to die they'll probably die of natural causes first. Of course in other parts of the US like Texas, carrying out death sentences is relatively common.

I guess the usual arguments against the death penalty are a) it doesn't deter so we shouldn't do it - I tend to disagree with that one - and b) there is no justification for us as a society to kill someone - its revenge and not justice etc. Again I sort of wonder there since its a bit two-faced to say we can't kill in the context of criminal punishment, but we can kill in a whole variety of other situations (war, self-defense, etc.)

I do tend to think though that a life sentence has got to be every bit as bad as a death sentence. Spending decades in jail knowing you'll never walk out alive but will probably die of old age or disease, I don't think the death penalty can really be any worse.

I have never seen any convincing evidence it is a deterrent. It is like using the logic which applies to reasonable people to those that have got to the stage of wanting to murder someone.

Deterrent means there are less people doing it, there has never been convincing evidence of this. In order to say this is that case, you would need to see an consistent trend. There isn't a consistent trend. There is no evidence of a consistent trend, there is no evidence that death penalty increases or decreases murder rate.

and how did that deter exactly?

Hasn't the US has several recent high profile miscarriages of justices involving homicides, where a person spend decades in jail and was innocent? Due process can be tedious but it has a purpose.

there is more evidence that its NOT a deterrent. Consider this, America is the only developed western democracy that still operates the death penalty. The rates of crime (at least compared to those other western countries) for which a death penalty is warrantable by the law of the land is not indicative that the deterring aspect of the death penalty is working.

Perhaps we can learn something from those so called 'backward' people in Africa.

Would you want to rot away slowly in prison or get it over with quickly?

Life imprisonment is a more powerful deterrent than the death penalty.

In the majority of cases I'm against the death penalty, but there are a few instances where I've supported it.

such as?

Executions of Timothy McVeigh, the Nazis who were convicted at the Nuremberg Trials, Saddam Husein, etc.

Which tribe is that? I'm quite sure the transgression wasn't so bad, since they probably don't have much non-conformity in such a close knit community. Look I'm all for sending people to prison. I would even kill them myself if I could be sure it was just. I just don't trust the system to make that judgement.

I like it.

Im fine with it! I don't give two s**ts about those against it! Kill someone youll be killed its that simple, it saves everyone elses tax dollars and the murderer is a worthless sack of garbage! if I had my way I would also implement the death penalty for rapists and molestors as well their lives are not worth anything and the best thing for society is for them to be killed!

That's what I think as well. Plus, if you send someone to prison and it turns out they're actually innocent, you can let them go. You can't really resurrect someone who has been wrongly executed.

Concur.

Life in prison:
- live among the worst of humanity
- live in a super small space
- food sucks
- live among racist people, people who blast music, people who snore
- heating/cooling can be inadequate
- without love
- without sex, or at least without safe sex
- high % chance of rape (by inmates & prison workers)
- high % chance of getting AIDS in prison
- at old age, medical care will be inadequate
- and the younger ones and drug-induced ones will grow old in prison, and probably be different people many years later, but it won't matter

The death penalty is an escape.