Death Penalty

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I'm not going to get into the right or wrong thing (since that's been done to death and I don't feel like going over it again), but I will agree with one thing. I am constantly surprised by the sheer expense they put into ending someone's life. If they really deserve death, they don't deserve such extravagances. Just take them into a little room and put a bullet in their brain. Simple, effective, very cheap (how much does a single bullet cost?), and far more painless than they deserve. It'd also take less room to do it in, saving on building costs for those ridiculous semi-amphitheaters that they have for the current death methods.

The only reason I can think of to use the current methods is squeamishness over spilling blood, and if that's a factor at all, then they shouldn't be killing someone in the first place. You gotta suck it up and square off with the idea that you're ending someone's life. If you can't at least face what it is you're doing, you shouldn't be doing it. You gotta have a strong stomach for that kind of thing, and noone should be kidding themselves about what exactly it is they do at work.

 

Sorry, but that works for only those who believe in such things. I live in this world and I'd rather see justice - as defined by the rules of whatever socity I find myself living in - done HERE, instead of waiting for some imagined Divine retribution. How is real justice ever to come to this world if people throw up their hands and shrug the problem of injustice onto someone else?

@Everyone who thinks the criminals assets should be garnered for the cost of incarceration: Most systems of Western justice believe that the individual should be penalized for his/her crime, and that this penalty shouldn't be visited on people who weren't involved. Stripping assets - that likely had nothing to do with committing the crime in the first place - could be extremely detrimental to the criminals' families. Do you really care to be responsible for the ruination of yet another innocent in your quest for "justice"?

 

Gnarff: Seriously - theocracy is not a good thing. You can't base a system of justice for a whole heap of people with varied beliefs on the concept of sin and people getting what they deserve in the afterlife. I'm sure the innocent people being murdered by the state don't give a rat's arse whether the person who ordered them executed has sinned or not - they're still going to die.

And it's not like I'm really for life in prison without parole, either...

 

No, sorry, this does definatly not make any sense.

 

Bingo. Rather than spend thousands a year to lock up someone who's never going to see life outside of a prison, spend 10 bucks on a rope and find a tree and string them up...

And people shouldn't be required to watch if they don't have the stomach for it. Execution should not be a spectacle, but the elimination of a dangerous Criminal.

Maybe sin is the wrong word. Fault might be a better word.

That's why some of us advocate the Death Penalty. That's how we understand Justice.

That's another reason why we should just execute them and get it over with. The families can then procede to grieve and get on with their lives, rather than be held hostage in hopes that their family member would only rot in jail as opposed to simply killed...

That's why I reconsidered the use of the word sin in this case. But abuse of the death penalty should also warrant death, as it is nothing short of murder.

You talk like that's a regular occurance. Very seldom does an innocent person get convicted of anything--usually it's guilty people getting away with way too much because they play the system...

What does not make sence is that Criminals have more rights than their victims. Criminals forfeit all rights when they commit crime. And the most sever of them should expect to die for what they've done. There is an externsive court system that ought to prevent the innocent from being convicted. People need to stop worrying about the courts failing an innocent person. Innocent people seldom get convicted. I can think of only 2 in the last 50 years. And how many guilty people have gotten away with heinous crimes because the courts were too afraid of convicting an innocent person?

 

So, guys, we all know that it actually costs more to execute people (legal costs) than it does to stick 'em in jail for life...right?

What's with this "I don't wanna pay to keep 'em alive" stuff? You pay more to kill 'em, so if that's your concern, life in prison is the way to go.

 

That's only because they appeal the crap out of it and the state pays for appeals. Appeals should be self-funded, not at the expense of the tax payer. I know of very few death-sentances that haven't been appealed. It almost seems, well, pointless to have a trial in the first place.

 

What if a convict who has grounds to appeal doesn't have the dough to hire a lawyer?

 

Gnarff, I think you're misinterpreting me, likely because I wasn't specific enough. I wasn't commenting on the legitimacy of the death penalty, I was commenting on how cavalierly you shrug off the potential for abuse of this legal tool. If you're going to slough punishment for this sin/crime/whatever to a higher authority, it's rather hypocritical to assume the right to declare punishment for others.

 

Wrong. Used to think otherwise.

What purpose does it serve, really? Permanent incarceration with no chance of release meets all the same criteria, without stooping to the level of brutality (or brutal economy). Okay, so it costs more - I would rather pay it and try to rehabilitate those that could be helped than simply say "it's too hard!" and push the button. It's not just about sympathy - because I have none for many serious criminals. It's about mercy, and believing that in order to stand in judgement on the actions of another, the judge must be better and morally superior to the judged. That doesn't mean keeping them in luxury - just keeping them in a relatively fit state is enough. Food, water, shelter - improvements as they are seen fit to be granted, and that's all. Most death row cases will occupy a cell for a long time before the appeals process is exhausted and they are finally executed, to say nothing of stays of execution (or even pardons).

Of course, I would have a hard time objecting to some criminals being put into general population if I thought they'd be spending the rest of their lives eating their meals through a straw as a result. Martin Bryant, the Port Arthur gunman, is one example, as are child pornographers and many paedophiles. I agree, these people have committed acts that do not warrant mercy. However, as I said, if we want to feel as though justice has been done, I think it is wrong to stoop to the level of killing in retribution.

EDIT: On a side note - am I the only one who sees a fundamental contradiction in those who are both anti-abortion (pro-life) AND pro-death penalty?

EDIT #2 (somewhat off-topic): Contrary to what has been said, self-defence is an absolute defence to most crimes, so long as the force used is proportionate. Proportionality varies from case to case. And, as anyone who has trained in the use of a firearm will tell you, in a pinch, you aim for the centre of mass, because it's harder to miss. Shooting a weapon out of someone's hand, or hitting them precisely in the calf, shoulder or other extremities is very hard, and if you've only got one shot, are you really going to take that chance of missing?

[ May 03, 2006, 07:25: Message edited by: NonSequitur ]

 

While an appealing idea, it has a significant flaw: defendents charged with capital crimes don't typically have the money to pay for that sort of thing. Unless one chooses to toss justice out the window and deny appeals on the grounds that, well, the defendent can't afford to pay for 'em and needs to be killed, that's not really an option.

 

Yet the appeal system is a joke. EVERYTHING is appealed these days. Why do we even bother to have a district/high court if stuff is just going to be appealed? The cost to the tax payer is incredible and it's a pointless process when everything is appealed.

When it costs more to end someone's life than it costs to keep someone alive and in jail for 40 years you know something is wrong with the legal system.

 

Elaborate, please.

 

Then perhaps there ought to be a charge for those that arrange for a false execution (framing someone for a capital crime to eliminate them/cover your own backside), which also would be punishable by death. Again, there needs to be a safety net, but not as expensive as the 20 years of appeals or whatever that there currently exists.

It's the improvements that gets out of hand. When they live better than people who actually work for a living, there's a real problem. When the cost to keep them exceeds the benefits paid to disabled or elderly, there's a problem. Sure we ought to rehabilitate those who have a chance to return to society, but if we don't want them back (like life with no parole or other severe crimes), Why leave them alive to drain the coffers?

I wouldn't be so upset if they'd do that even. In Canada, there's Paul Bernardo, a man who abducted, raped and murdered two teenage girls (for the purposes of making videos). He is kept Isolated and protected from other prisoners, at much added expense. Put him in General pop (no extra cost) and let the prisoners deal with him (likely shortenning the sentence anyway). But in such a case, the death penalty would really be mercy...

But the unborn are innocent, as a result, don't deserve to die. We don't want to execute random people...

But how many appeals should we pay for? One probably, but when they stop coming up with new evidence, then string them up.

Didn't Shakespeare write:

The first theing we need to do is kill all the lawyers...

 

Granting them the right to live, which is not given to them by society, is not granting them more rights. They should have the same rights, as far as their status as a human being is considered. No more, no less.

 

Even though they broke natural law?

A murderer should get the same rights as a regular person who has done nothing illegal? I don't think so...

 

Not nearly so much as the contradiction of pro-choice and anti-death penalty (kill the innocent and let the scum of society live).

 

So Zacarias Moussaoui is sentenced to life without possibility of parole. I'm torn between thinking this is a good thing since it deprives him of the mattryrdom he was seekign, and thinking he should be released into general prison population and let the guards go on coffee break.

 

Not really. I'm past the point of being aborted, yet not past the point of being executed (with the same going for other people that I would rather not be killed...).

An aborted fetus means nothing - no one has places any personal value on it (hence why it's getting aborted, doubtlessly). However, a criminal can mean something, even those who've committed horrible crimes. Let's go to that gangster guy - he did stuff that was productive and useful. What he did while in prison had meaning, and clearly it affected various people in a positive way. So who cares what he did back 20 years ago? He wasn't the same person then as when they executed him.

If it was only the people I thought weren't worth living getting killed by the death penalty - then sure, why not? But seeing that there's every possibility that it won't be, I'm against.

 

if someone infringed the human rights of another why whould they be entitled to human rights? they are an animal, if a dog is rabid, it gets put down - society is there for a reason, it protects itself - if someone is a continued threat to that society then you cannot take the chance, you remove that threat, today we are a global society, so you cant solve the problem with penal colonies or deportation. you cannot justify to a tax payer, who pays the country to protect them and provide them with the essentials of life, that paying to keep a dangerous criminal in jail is a good thing.

and i dont understand where people get the idea that the death penalty is barbaric... its quite humane, over in seconds, barbaric would be the way that most people would love to see these people executed- but that cant be justified either.