You forgot a poll option: people in front of you who try to take a left onto a busy street at rush hour, and there's no traffic light. Punishment: instant death, no trial.
I've been on the fence for a very long time with the death penalty debate. Until I resolve the consideration of deterrence as a reason to have the death penalty, it is going to continue to be problematic.
thanks for voting
You left out pot heads/
You left out pot heads/
Do you view the primary reason for penalties such as death or imprisonment to be deterrent or punishment? Ideally both I'm sure, but the primary reason.
I do not support the death penalty. However, I selected "other" because the entire American justice and penal system needs to be changed.
thanks for voting
thanks for voting
I'm such a pain. Didn't find any I agreed with.
The death penalty is a good bargaining chip. Plea bargaining it to life without parole which requires full confession in open court (for family benefit) and negates the appeals process isn't all bad. And, of course, if they DON'T take a plea and ARE sentenced to death, they'll spend their appeal time on death row in almost solitary confinement...year after year after year.
I'm for having the death penalty but not using it except as I've talked about above. For many of these psychopaths, the death penalty is MUCH too easy an exit.
So you've been charged with a murder you didn't commit and are faced with two options
1. Roll the dice on a trial, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and face the possibility of conviction and then execution
2. Plead guilty, live and save your family lots of grief and expense.
Which do you choose?
If you're innocent, you're screwed either way.
Yep and I don't know about you but I'd rather be screwed and alive to fight another day than dead.
Prosecutors routinely overcharge to get people to plead to a lesser offense. We don't have a trial system, what we really have is a plea bargain system. Only something like 3% of people ever go to trial, the rest take plea bargains. If the stats I see that state somewhere between 3-5% of the people convicted are actually innocent are accurate that would mean an awful lot of innocent people don't roll the dice and take a shorter stint in prison rather than chance a longer term after a trial.
Shrug. Those people who take a plea and are innocent? That's on them. No discussion necessary. If only 3% go to trial and the rest plea? If that's true? Our court system would explode without plea bargaining. Taxes are high enough already. What we don't need is exploding justice dept budgets.