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Death Penalty, for or against

Do you support the death penalty?

  • Total voters
    134
ChrisL said:
Yes, and these same bad or incompetent people also serve on DP cases, and that IS a big deal. We want adequate legal representation for all citizens when they are accused of a crime, don't we?
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You have taken us from the original point so far that I can barely remember what it was and I am not interested in debating the court aspects...
 
Ad_Captandum said:
I'm curious, though -- do you believe it is the government's duty to regulate emotion (i.e, suffering, anguish, etc.)?

I am against the death penalty entirely, but even if I were to condone it, it could only ever be on the basis of this being the most moral act.

The government can't stoop to the level of a murderer -- it would thus lose the moral high ground to dish out penalties in the first place.

Ergo, it is the duty of the government, when enacting the death penalty, to do so with the utmost respect and the least suffering. The point is for this person to be gone, not for this person to feel the wrath of the people he hurt.

Otherwise it's just barbaric.
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Perhaps, now the guillotine is quick and painless at least after the first couple of nano second or there about. I have always felt respect is a two way street. Not just one way. Respect is something that must be earned, not just granted. For those who murder others I find it hard to find respect for them. But of course there may be different kinds of respect. Webster defines respect as esteem; honor. regard for, deference, hold in honor. I think none of these apply or should apply to a murderer. Now in the old rest some gunslingers, hired guns, fast draws, etc. it was said they were respected. But that is not the type of respect I think you are talking about. No, I have no respect for those who would murder a fellow human being in cold blood.

As for the moral high ground, a murderer kills indiscriminately or sometimes in a well thought out plan. But he still kills, murders, takes a life on his whims. As for government, a murderer is brought before the court, he is offered a trial, something his victims didn't have. He will be found guilty or innocent by a jury of his peers, something his victims didn't have and a judge will sentence him. A judge is something his victims didn't have unless you could the murderer as judge, jury and executioner all rolled up in one little package. That is the moral high ground.

As for feeling the wrath of the people he hurt, the murderer probably deserves it ten fold. But as you state, we are humane to the murderer even if the states takes his life. There have been times I think we worry more about the murderer than his victims, feel more pity for the murderer than his victims. One thing is for certain, we provide the murderer ten times, probably closer to a hundred times the rights and privileges than the murderer gave his victim.

Respect, that is something we should give the victims, not the murderer.
 
Bodhisattva said:
You have taken us from the original point so far that I can barely remember what it was and I am not interested in debating the court aspects...
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I have not. All of these things are completely relevant when talking about a death penalty.
 
ChrisL said:
I have not. All of these things are completely relevant when talking about a death penalty.
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Not the morality of the Death Penalty... and that is what I was challenged on, not all this other stuff.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Not the morality of the Death Penalty... and that is what I was challenged on, not all this other stuff.
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The question is "Do you support the death penalty." If you wish to refrain from discussing certain aspects, then that's on you.
 
ChrisL said:
No, the point is that the government should not be given the power to take human life at it's whim. It really has nothing to do with the individuals unless there is the chance they could be innocent like this guy. EVERYONE thought this guy was guilty. Thankfully, there was no death penalty in RI at that time, but if he had been in a death penalty state, his "alleged" crime most certainly could have been a death penalty case, and if the guy who truly was guilty never came forward Mr. Hornoff would probably STILL be in jail today. Thankfully, he was alive to be freed and try to live out his life.

Scott Hornoff | The Story
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Improve the system. Don't abolish the dp/
 
ChrisL said:
The question is "Do you support the death penalty." If you wish to refrain from discussing certain aspects, then that's on you.
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And that is what I just made clear too...
 
Bodhisattva said:
And that is what I just made clear too...
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Well that's fine, but don't say it's not relevant because it is relevant to the topic, and it's interesting as well.
 
Alyssa said:
Improve the system. Don't abolish the dp/
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People are going to be people. There will always be human error, whether intentional or not, for whatever reasons. Fairly recently there were 2 cases of evidence tampering (not related to a death penalty case, but to drug cases). It just goes to show that all of these things are ultimately in the hands of flawed human beings, and once a life is snuffed out, that's it. There's no taking it back.
 
"One in 25 criminal defendants who has been handed a death sentence in the United States has likely been erroneously convicted. That number—4.1% to be exact—comes from a new analysis of more than 3 decades of data on death sentences and death row exonerations across the United States.

“This was a very carefully done and carefully considered approach,” says statistician Bruce Levin of Columbia University, who was not involved in the new study. “The analysis was quite sophisticated, and the authors were transparent about both their assumptions and methods.”

...To calculate a more accurate false conviction rate, Samuel Gross, a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor and a former criminal defense lawyer, decided to focus on one small subset of criminal cases: those that result in death sentences.

“Every case where you have a death sentence is recorded in a national database,” Gross says. “And the rate at which errors are detected in death penalty cases is orders of magnitude higher than in other cases.” Defendants on death row have better access to attorneys, he notes, and more attention and resources are generally devoted to ensuring that their convictions are accurate........."

More Than 4% of Death Row Inmates May Be Innocent | Science/AAAS | News

Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death
 
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ChrisL said:
People are going to be people. There will always be human error, whether intentional or not, for whatever reasons. Fairly recently there were 2 cases of evidence tampering (not related to a death penalty case, but to drug cases). It just goes to show that all of these things are ultimately in the hands of flawed human beings, and once a life is snuffed out, that's it. There's no taking it back.
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I agree. However, certain cases really are cut and dry. The ones I posted are examples of this.. which is one of the reasons i posted it.
 
ChrisL said:
Well that's fine, but don't say it's not relevant because it is relevant to the topic, and it's interesting as well.
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It wasn't relevant to what my point was... so I will say to is irrelevant although it is interesting as well.
 
Alyssa said:
I agree. However, certain cases really are cut and dry. The ones I posted are examples of this.. which is one of the reasons i posted it.
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Some people can't differentiate between the cut and dry ones and the muddled ones. They use the muddled ones to shoot down the whole idea.

The Cleveland guy that kidnapped and raped the three women for over ten years? Cut and dry. The guy deserves the Death Penalty.

Now Pistorius in South Africa? No death penalty. Not cut and dry. Although he killed her we will NEVER know if it was intentional or not.
 
NGNM85 said:
Capital punishment is always barbaric.
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Hmm, I'm not sure.

I disagree with it outright, and I am entirely against the death penalty in a civil law system. But I don't think it's necessarily barbaric unless it's for the wrong reasons -- I simply think the death penalty is wrong, as the government shouldn't be in the business of killing its own citizens, no matter what they did.

The barbarism is, however, often a constituent component of the system, sadly.
 
Ad_Captandum said:
Hmm, I'm not sure.

I disagree with it outright, and I am entirely against the death penalty in a civil law system. But I don't think it's necessarily barbaric unless it's for the wrong reasons -- I simply think the death penalty is wrong, as the government shouldn't be in the business of killing its own citizens, no matter what they did.

The barbarism is, however, often a constituent component of the system, sadly.
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If state-sanctioned murder is not barbaric, what is? To put it in starker relief; can you honestly say that state-sanctioned murder is civilized?
 
NGNM85 said:
If state-sanctioned murder is not barbaric, what is? To put it in starker relief; can you honestly say that state-sanctioned murder is civilized?
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You're preaching to choir here mate; I'm totally against the death penalty. All I'm saying is that, to my mind, it matters what the state's motives are. If the state wishes to remove a bad element from society, and the only way it can do that (for whatever reason) is death, this is -- to me -- better than the state saying "don't kill or we'll kill ya."
 
Ad_Captandum said:
You're preaching to choir here mate; I'm totally against the death penalty. All I'm saying is that, to my mind, it matters what the state's motives are. If the state wishes to remove a bad element from society, and the only way it can do that (for whatever reason) is death, this is -- to me -- better than the state saying "don't kill or we'll kill ya."
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That's basically exactly what the state is saying.

There is no justification. These are people who are in custody, they are locked down, they have been removed from society. There is no justification for killing them. The burden of proof always needs to be on the side of killing, I don't neef to prove why someone shouldn't be killed, and that burden is very high.
 
NGNM85 said:
That's basically exactly what the state is saying.

There is no justification. These are people who are in custody, they are locked down, they have been removed from society. There is no justification for killing them. The burden of proof always needs to be on the side of killing, I don't neef to prove why someone shouldn't be killed, and that burden is very high.
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Out of curiosity, do you believe the state's moral culpability in killing extends to non-citizens?

The execution by a state of non-citizens would, to me, appear to relieve the state of its duty not to harm its own citizens. So, for example, the US supporting and condoning the execution of Saddam Hussein is OK in my book.
 
Ad_Captandum said:
Out of curiosity, do you believe the state's moral culpability in killing extends to non-citizens?

The execution by a state of non-citizens would, to me, appear to relieve the state of its duty not to harm its own citizens. So, for example, the US supporting and condoning the execution of Saddam Hussein is OK in my book.
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Nationalism is the religion of the state. The working class is international, as is the bourgeoisie. Nation-states primarily exist to reinforce the hegemony of the capitalist class. They must be demolished.

I oppose capital punishment in all contexts. I oppose it because it is barbaric, and because it is, overwhelmingly a weapon of the state, therefore the capitalist class, against workers. This should not be interpreted as sympathy for the condemned. I despise Saddam Hussein ( who, incidentally, comitted his worst crimes with enthusiastic US support) just as I loathe Ted Bundy, or John Wayne Gacy. (Although, I find them fascinating from a clinical perspective.)
 
Hard Truth said:
"One in 25 criminal defendants who has been handed a death sentence in the United States has likely been erroneously convicted. That number—4.1% to be exact—comes from a new analysis of more than 3 decades of data on death sentences and death row exonerations across the United States.

“This was a very carefully done and carefully considered approach,” says statistician Bruce Levin of Columbia University, who was not involved in the new study. “The analysis was quite sophisticated, and the authors were transparent about both their assumptions and methods.”

...To calculate a more accurate false conviction rate, Samuel Gross, a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor and a former criminal defense lawyer, decided to focus on one small subset of criminal cases: those that result in death sentences.

“Every case where you have a death sentence is recorded in a national database,” Gross says. “And the rate at which errors are detected in death penalty cases is orders of magnitude higher than in other cases.” Defendants on death row have better access to attorneys, he notes, and more attention and resources are generally devoted to ensuring that their convictions are accurate........."

More Than 4% of Death Row Inmates May Be Innocent | Science/AAAS | News

Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death
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With that high of an error rate, and the fact that minorities and low income people are more likely to be given a more severe sentence or the death penalty, our justice system in the USA has not earned my trust enough to think that they should be allowed to make life or death decisions.
 
Nope. Very much against it. Its inhumane, costs way too much money, and there are cases of the wrong man being put to death.

Only time I can see to be in favor of them is convicted war criminals.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Nope. Very much against it. Its inhumane, costs way too much money, and there are cases of the wrong man being put to death.

Only time I can see to be in favor of them is convicted war criminals.
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What if it's a wrongly convicted war criminal?
 
The Mark said:
What if it's a wrongly convicted war criminal?
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I think it would be a lot harder to convict someone who was innocent of war crimes. This would all have to go through intentional bodies like happened at Nuremberg.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Nope. Very much against it. Its inhumane, costs way too much money, and there are cases of the wrong man being put to death.

Only time I can see to be in favor of them is convicted war criminals.
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Did you happen to see the execution of Saddam Hussein? While there is no love lost from for him, I still found that execution to be absolutely disgusting, also the fact some of the prison guards apparently had stabbed him post-mortem? Barbaric!

Think about this too, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and other such barbaric countries are who we keep company with when we employ the death penalty.
 
ChrisL said:
Did you happen to see the execution of Saddam Hussein? While there is no love lost from for him, I still found that execution to be absolutely disgusting, also the fact some of the prison guards apparently had stabbed him post-mortem? Barbaric!

Think about this too, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and other such barbaric countries are who we keep company with when we employ the death penalty.
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I did see it and i found it disturbing as well.
 
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