The prisons are full

@ rotku, No i would still support the death penalty because as i have stated before Locking someone up for life is just not enough for some crimes as they are still breathing &/or not reliving the horrors that were inflicted upon them. Their victims don't have these luxuries.

Also, some of these guys are very persuasive at convincing people they have changed. As an example just look at jose medellin, he & his 5 buddies kidnapped 2 girls(age 15 & 16) gang-raped & strangled the girls then stomped on their necks to make sure they were dead. when they were caught they bragged about killing the girls & jose even bragged about "opening" one of the girls as she was a virgin at the time of the assualt. Now even though he confessed on tape & was convicted & is now awaiting death, he has many penpals, mostly young women, who go on all the pro & anti death penalty sites & post about how he is innocent & just to good of a person to have commited these horrible crimes that people are accusing him of committing!! People are just to easily swayed by certain types
OK , rants over, man i will be so glad when texas fries his sorry @$$

 

But you see montresor, i & others who support the death penalty are able to see the difference between murder(the killing of someone for no reason) & the death penalty(the killing of someone as punishment for actions which the community finds reprehensible)

 

Yes however we as the citizens of the state have voted the power to the state to hand down these decisions.

 

Going a bit offtopic here, but executioners of the past actually received a signed warrant every time they had to ply their trade. This was so that they couldn't be accused of murder later.

 

If they have a court system that allows such a frivelous law, then remind me not to visit this place. But I am only advocating death for the worst of criminals...

And looking at actual crimes, then -10 for a punishment is the death penalty. Reserve it for Murder, Treason and serial rapes...

You really expect that to work? Why go through all that trouble? You value the life of the worst scumbag that much that you are willing to treat the families of the victims with that kind of disrespect? Just decapitate the scumbag and get it over with...

That's what I thought, too. Unfortunately some don't agree. Hence Canada has no justice for the worst of criminals. The victims suffer for this interference.

No, because it is the state that is killing the killer. You can't kill the state. The executioner is merely an agent of the state in this case.

Why do you think the majority of the people in that position are there in the first place?

The state makes the laws, and thus is charged with punishing the offenders. For the worst of offenders, the only fitting punishment is death. The state is not permitted, but required to kill. Big difference there. Permitted means that the state can eliminate someone that they simply don't like (Michael Moore would be making movies in some country with the balls enough to stand up to the US if that was the case). Required means that that is the best/only viable option.

Exactly. For Capital punishment to be effective in society, there also has to be accountability. I accept this means more of a process and that there is more in the way of procedure that must be followed, but I also think the process can be streamlined. Not exactly an express lane to the gas chamber, but none of this 25 years on death row crap either...

Actually, that document is part of the accountability I ask for. The Judge who hands down the sentence has signed off on the order and the executioner signs off on the death afterwards (as well as a doctor to pronounce him dead). The Judge has transcripts of all the due process there.

 

martaug:

If there is an alternative and you still choose death, it comes down to killing simply for the sake of wanting a person dead. A nice noble philosophy, that makes me proud to be part of the human race.

Gnarf:

Oh my god, you got me there. How could I have been so foolish. The problem is, it doesn't ****ing matter. The point remains that one negative and another negative added together do not lead to a positiv, no matter how much you try and ignore the fact by half quoting my statements.

And yes Gnarf, I'd happily tell a small white lie if it lead to saving someone's life. Anyone's life. No one is harmed by it.

 

Would a vigilante who killed multiple criminal scumbags in a brutal manner deserve the death penalty?

 

Not if I was on the jury....

 

Well you might argue that nobody deserves any punishment. It's just a cause and effect of the legal system. You do a crime, you get punished. There's no justice. Just a cause and effect.

Then again, I would rather not have death penalty anywhere. As far as inhuman punishments go, and eye-for-a-frigging-eye goes you might as well rape the rapists and oh, as far as punishments go, why not just torture criminals to death? Or as I've said before, why not simply lobotomize the wrongdoers?

Oh, thinking economically, why yes? Very good Let's make fertilizer out of the criminals and if that seems a tad too crass, then why not...soap...Don't forget to capitalize on the bodies as much as you can, confiscate their belongings, send them to a labor camp, work them till they die and don't forget to collect the gold fillings from their teeth.

How...very...humane...Of course an eye for an eye! Of course economical thinking should decree how a society treats it's outcasts!

 

Here's something I find a bit strange. Gnarff seems to be the exception by being a person who lives in a country that does not have the death penalty, and yet favors the use of the death penalty. It seems that by and large most countries without the death penalty have a citizenry that agrees there should not be a death penalty (which makes sense). (Tal may also be an exception - I have no idea if Slovenia has the death penalty or not.)

Likewise, most people who live in countries that have the death penalty favor the use of it in at least some circumstances. There aren't many people out there who favor using the death penalty like Texas does, but most people don't have a problem with a state like Virginia - where if you are a serial killer, or the victim was a child, you are likely going to be executed, whereas if the murder was not premeditated, you likely won't get the death penalty.

 

@T2B: Let's make Rotku, Susi and me an exception on that. AFAIK New Zealand doesn't have death penalty and Susi and me being finns that don't support it - we don't have it either. We've got a maximum 12 years prison sentence, as I recall. If you're a mass murderer here in finland, you get 12 years. No more, no less.

 

Not if his name was Frank Castle.

 

Or Mack Bolan, for those older than 30.

That said, I don't know of many vigilantes who end up getting the death penalty. The perception is that the lives of filthy criminals are less valuable than those of innocent law abiding citizens. I can agree with that perception, and on that basis would argue that the vigilante should get a life sentence rather than the death penalty (the disgusting nature of the criminals under discussion being a small mitigating factor.) That said, I think I made it clear that I believe in a civilized society vigilante action is not acceptable and should not be encouraged or condoned.

 

iku-turso, that is just disgusting! So in your country, an innocent human life is only worth 12 years but a murderers life is worth 30+(commits the murder at 20, goes to jail til 32, gets out and lives to be at least 62)
How can the citizens of your country live with that?

 

I fail to see how the majority of crimes can have any positive impact--even the non capital ones. Any punishment is likely a negative after the initial negative. Your utopian view does not seem to be viable in this case, so why spare the life of the worst of criminals?

So the life of the worst of criminals is valued higher than that of the innocent civilian that they murdered? No matter how you spin it, you are going out of your way to keep someone alive when their victim is dead...

That's just wrong. It devalues the life of the innocent victim, and also discounts the suffering of innocent victims.

I won't see him die, but I can't condone what he did either. This is why every case where the death penalty is an option, it should be reviewed, and why there is such process involved...

Like all capital cases, it would be for a jury to decide. Like T2, I would not wish to see them dead for their service to society.

But does this mean that we ought to spare or kill a murderer? Death begets death, and when the state administers it, the matter comes to an end with the death of the killer.

I assure you I'm not alone. Even here on SP, at least one of my Countrymen has voiced a desire to see the worst of Criminals dead. Unfortunately, I was outvoted before I was born...