The Death Penalty in the united states (your thoughts on it)

[RottingLies]

What are your thoughts on the Death Penalty ingeneral? Do you support it and are you for it or against it? Why or why not? Do you think only hard core the worst of the worst murders deserve the Death Penalty or Do ALL prisoners deserve it?

(and please try to refrain from replys like '' yes i support it all thoses prison murders need to die kill kill kill!! '' etc.... thoughs type of replys in my mind aren't backing up your ideas or thoughts there just smart ass re-marks with no real motive behind them)

 

[MistressValerie1]

In brief, I oppose it for the following reasons: (1) too many errors in conviction, (2) sets a wrong example of using violence to combat violence, (3) the death penalty has been abolished in almost all industrialised democaracies, (4) capital cases are expensive and time-consuming for the government, (5) racial inequities have been proven in capital sentencing, (6) the survivors of murder victims are exposed to repeated emotional trauma with the appeals process and the capital sentence itself.

A very comprehensive list of links, pro and con, is here: http://www.megalaw.com/top/deathpenalty.php

 

[bigbear_92801]

We tend to forget the "Real" victims in these cases. For some reason the person on trial is seen as a the victim. What about the people who died. Did they deserve to be hacked up and dumped in the bay? Did they deserve to be murdered? Do you really want to see the murderer laughing while his slick lawyer gets him off? Will you read his book? Will you support him by logging on to his website?

The system isn't perfect but there is NO WAY Charles Manson should be alive today!

 

[RottingLies]

We tend to forget the "Real" victims in these cases. For some reason the person on trial is seen as a the victim. What about the people who died. Did they deserve to be hacked up and dumped in the bay? Did they deserve to be murdered? Do you really want to see the murderer laughing while his slick lawyer gets him off? Will you read his book? Will you support him by logging on to his website?

The system isn't perfect but there is NO WAY Charles Manson should be alive today!

In my mind there is a BIG difference between reading things about murders and buying books about serial killers. That is NOT REALLY supporting there causes and supporting murder and supporting that murder is ok and fun. That is just being interested in serial killers or a certain person. I feel anyways! that is my take on it. But of course i could be wrong.

 

[lollercaust]

In brief, I oppose it for the following reasons:

Most all of those are flaws with the way the death penalty is carried out, rather than the actual idea of a death penalty itself. The fact that it is applied inconsistently, and that there are so many appeals and so much time in between conviction and death, is the reason the death penalty has no deterrent factor. Historically, cultures with the death penalty have had a much lower crime rate than cultures without, all other things being equal.

However, I personally would rather opt for death than for spending the entire rest of my life in a six-by-eight cell with a roommate. THAT is the real cruel and unusual punishment.

A brief rebuttal of your points, Val:
1. There will always be errors in conviction. I don't think the fact that someone withers in jail for 25 years on a wrong conviction is somehow less morally reprehensible than that they die for one.
2. Who says that's a wrong example? It's draconian, I'll admit, but throughout history (and speaking as a history education major) it has always worked. People are fundamentally dissuaded by the thought of physical harm to their own bodies, there's no two ways around that. The only people who aren't are the psychos.
3. The "most other people do it" argument is pretty weak. Most other countries in the world don't have laws that prevent you from incriminating yourself. Maybe we should do away with ours as well?
4. Again, a problem of process, and not with the fundamental concept of a death penalty.
5. Racial inequities have also been proven in overall commission of crimes. I've never seen data proving any racial inequity in those sentenced to death compared to those convicted of crimes.
6. If the perpetrator is not sentenced to death, the victims' family undergoes repeated trauma every two years when the killer/rapist/whatever is eligible for parole (James Earl Ray, Mark David Chapman, John Hinckley, etc). You could say life in prison without parole, but I don't believe that's fundamentally less harsh than death. You're still taking the entire remainder of a person's life, you're just not ending it right away.

Note for the sake of what could be an inflammatory thread that these are not personal attacks and I do not have anything against people who disagree with me 🙂 I just rather like to debate, and I do it a lot. If I end up saying something that comes off like an insult, PM me and I'll apologize, otherwise now we've got some points to debate.

 

[MistressValerie1]

From http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/arbitraryandunfair.html

The Death Penalty is Arbitrary and Unfair

No system in which fallible human beings decide the fate of other human beings can be free from some degree of arbitrariness and error.

"Twenty years have passed since this Court declared that the death penalty must be imposed fairly, and with reasonable consistency, or not at all, and, despite the effort of the states and courts to devise legal formulas and procedural rules to meet this daunting challenge, the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice, and mistake." - Justice Harry A. Blackmun, February 22, 1994

"Race, ethnic origin and economic status appear to be key determinants of who will, and who will not, receive a death sentence" in the United States. - UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions, 1997

The death penalty in the USA is arbitrary and unfair because:
Ninety-five percent of death row inmates cannot afford their own attorney. Poor people are often subjected to convictions and death sentences that equally or more culpable, but more affluent, people do not receive.
Prosecutors seek the death penalty far more frequently when the victim of the homicide is white than when the victim is black or of another ethnic origin.
Co-defendants charged with committing the same crime often receive different punishments, where one defendant may receive a death sentence while another receives prison time.
Individual prosecutors make their own decisions about when to seek a death sentence, so that where the crime has been committed often determines the punishment.
Only a small percentage of the people convicted of crimes for which the death penalty is a possibility actually receive a death sentence. Two people who commit similar capital crimes may receive drastically different punishments.


"Almost all people accused of death-eligible crimes are impoverished and must rely on court-appointed lawyers to defend them at trial…there is an ever-present risk that minority defendants may be represented by lawyers who are not only incompetent, but also openly bigoted." - Killing with Prejudice: Race and the Death Penalty in the USA Amnesty International Report, May 20, 1999

 

[lollercaust]

Again, those are all problems with the application of the death penalty here in the United States, not basic and systemic flaws in the notion of a death penalty.

"Race, ethnic origin and economic status appear to be key determinants of who will, and who will not, receive a death sentence"

Those things are also key factors in who commits a crime. Are you next going to be saying that the justice system is biased because minorities are disproportionately inclined to crime due to socioeconomic factors?

The fact that the poor cannot afford their own attorneys elicits no sympathy from me whatsoever. If you don't want to be put to death, don't commit a crime for which you can receive the death penalty, and you won't have to worry about how good your lawyer is.

Poor people are often subjected to convictions and death sentences that equally or more culpable, but more affluent, people do not receive.

This is because the affluent are more likely to take plea bargains or other negotiations from the prosecution. It has nothing to do with the death penalty.

Co-defendants charged with committing the same crime often receive different punishments

The co-defendants often cooperate with police and prosecution in determining the facts. It makes sense that they should be rewarded for their cooperation. That's not arbitrary at all, it's the essence of justice.

"the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice, and mistake"

Replace "death penalty" with "justice system" and the thought remains. Will you next seek to abolish the justice system rather than reform its imperfections?

 

[Volcom1]

Don't you think the government/society which permits the use of the death penalty, is in fact extremely hypocritical and sinks to the level of the condemned murderer.
How can you claim to value human life if you sanction the taking away of it in ANY circumstance? Also, how can you claim to live in a civilised democracy that permits this kind of barbaric treatment of human beings.
In my the last part of my reply, i don't mean to offend any americans by the way. I just find it fairly stupid that the government of the supposed beacon of democracy in the world performs executions of its own citizens.

 

[lollercaust]

Don't you think the government/society which permits the use of the death penalty, is in fact extremely hypocritical and sinks to the level of the condemned murderer.
How can you claim to value human life if you sanction the taking away of it in ANY circumstance? Also, how can you claim to live in a civilised democracy that permits this kind of barbaric treatment of human beings.

It's not hypocritical. If a man kidnaps someone, and the government in turn "kidnaps" him and puts him in jail without his consent, is that then hypocritical? It's called justice.

The same goes for valuing human life. How does it show any less value of life to kill someone than to let them rot in a cell for decades, with no hope of ever getting out? That's the real barbarity, in my opinion.

No offense taken, for the record 🙂

 

[Red_Butler]

In our country death penalty has been abolished for almost one and a half century. If somebody is executed that is very irriversable. Too many convictid "criminals" are innocent. Even 1% is too much ( it's probably more). Last week a person was set free here after being in prison for 4 years. He was found guilty of sexually abuse and killing of a young child and seriously wounding another. He was the person who called the police after finding the wounded child. He was convicted even though the child denied that he was the one who did it. It was just that he fitted the profile and he had a record of sexual offences. Now, purely by coincidence, they caught the real offender. In the US he could already have been executed.
I think in the US death penalty is given too easily. The jury system is used and I am afraid that those people are not qualified to judge whether a person is guilty or not. They should know that if they declare a person guilty and that person is executed, and later appears to be innocent, they will be murderers too. I think I would not be able to live with the thought that an innocent person has been executed due to my decision.
That does not mean that I am fully against the death penalty. I think that in certain cases it should stay possible. But guilt must be 100% proven, not beyond reasonable doubt. And only in very very awsome crimes and warcrimes, like the Serbs Karazic and Mladic. But that is quite another story. In that case there will only be very few executions.

Red Butler , Netherlands

 

[morgandee]

Supporting the death penalty is like supporting the people who bomb abortion clinics

However, whether or not I like that form of population control is for me to know and for you to get a clue muhaha

There is a sense of hypocrisy, but people with anti-social disorder, an extra Y chromosome in their map, etc don't really respond emotionally to anything and the argument is not whether people should die for their crimes but whether they should be debilitated into some form of a guilt sensation

And if they can't feel remorse, then death is their only option, seemingly, because otherwise they're viewed as a general threat to society, and just because we're selfishly inclined to preserve our own existence doesn't mean we should feel bad about being selfish, it's a matter of being rational about the judgements we make rather than the fact that we judge at all, because that is an inarguable, inherent propensity of humans

"Judge not (others), lest ye be judged" is the quote I am referring to

And Unfortunately yes, there is some nepitism with people who are rich, and we can bring up OJ as an example but then that would cause a ruckus and people would talk about racism and all that other brand of nonsense

I have this feeling Scott Peterson is the reason for this thread (if not then I am wrong and then you can sue me or have the death penalty enacted upon me ROFL no)

My philosophy has always been an eye for an eye, but most people claim that death for death would cause a domino effect of revenge death (an irrational fallacy), and doing that for rape crimes would be kind of awkward (except in prison), and stealing, well, honor among thieves (and thievettes for those girls who like stealing ^_^_^_^_^)

It doesn't have to be the death penalty that is the punishment for the crime, and we're not going to chop off hands for stealing anymore here, but, the problem will always exist in how to make a person give penance for his or her actions without simply giving a slap on the wrist

Like, we can make the person turn into a really responsible citizen within the prison cells, and make him or her deal with more than just what you see on the TV show OZ, like learn how to cook and do laundry and make beds and do all sorts of household chores because why not, they do that in the army

But prison time isn't even really as bad as even OZ makes it out to be because OZ is just a sensational sitcom that's meant to shock others just like that stupid MTV's "Scared Straight" which I guess is about prison inmates trying to scare gay people into being straight I don't know

But otherwise, we can always go back to a less government involved lynch mob setting or renegades like Lorenzo Lamas who take the law into their own hands, I think that would be cool and dramatic

It's just that people want to argue that we're being too cruel to the deathrow folk by putting them in a permanent slumber for their atrocious crimes, but we've only provided ourselves two stupid options in the first place and not enough alternatives because we've brainwashed ourselves into having tunnel vision and one side is going "REVENGE!!!!" and the other side is going "HEY TWO RIGHTS DONT MAKE A WRONG wait a minute the other way around 🙁"

Yet, nobody's offered anything smart and reasonable, and even I agree that death in itself is just not enough of a viable solution, but likewise, the opposing argument has offered nothing on the table

Okay done talking

EDIT actually I have a great idea

They should start a Street Fighter tournament within the prison cells

Unfortunately they will have to supply the special effects for the sonic booms

 

[RottingLies]

Supporting the death penalty is like supporting the people who bomb abortion clinics

However, whether or not I like that form of population control is for me to know and for you to get a clue muhaha

There is a sense of hypocrisy, but people with anti-social disorder, an extra Y chromosome in their map, etc don't really respond emotionally to anything and the argument is not whether people should die for their crimes but whether they should be debilitated into some form of a guilt sensation

And if they can't feel remorse, then death is their only option, seemingly, because otherwise they're viewed as a general threat to society, and just because we're selfishly inclined to preserve our own existence doesn't mean we should feel bad about being selfish, it's a matter of being rational about the judgements we make rather than the fact that we judge at all, because that is an inarguable, inherent propensity of humans

"Judge not (others), lest ye be judged" is the quote I am referring to

And Unfortunately yes, there is some nepitism with people who are rich, and we can bring up OJ as an example but then that would cause a ruckus and people would talk about racism and all that other brand of nonsense

I have this feeling Scott Peterson is the reason for this thread (if not then I am wrong and then you can sue me or have the death penalty enacted upon me ROFL no)

My philosophy has always been an eye for an eye, but most people claim that death for death would cause a domino effect of revenge death (an irrational fallacy), and doing that for rape crimes would be kind of awkward (except in prison), and stealing, well, honor among thieves (and thievettes for those girls who like stealing ^_^_^_^_^)

It doesn't have to be the death penalty that is the punishment for the crime, and we're not going to chop off hands for stealing anymore here, but, the problem will always exist in how to make a person give penance for his or her actions without simply giving a slap on the wrist

Like, we can make the person turn into a really responsible citizen within the prison cells, and make him or her deal with more than just what you see on the TV show OZ, like learn how to cook and do laundry and make beds and do all sorts of household chores because why not, they do that in the army

But prison time isn't even really as bad as even OZ makes it out to be because OZ is just a sensational sitcom that's meant to shock others just like that stupid MTV's "Scared Straight" which I guess is about prison inmates trying to scare gay people into being straight I don't know

But otherwise, we can always go back to a less government involved lynch mob setting or renegades like Lorenzo Lamas who take the law into their own hands, I think that would be cool and dramatic

It's just that people want to argue that we're being too cruel to the deathrow folk by putting them in a permanent slumber for their atrocious crimes, but we've only provided ourselves two stupid options in the first place and not enough alternatives because we've brainwashed ourselves into having tunnel vision and one side is going "REVENGE!!!!" and the other side is going "HEY TWO RIGHTS DONT MAKE A WRONG wait a minute the other way around 🙁"

Yet, nobody's offered anything smart and reasonable, and even I agree that death in itself is just not enough of a viable solution, but likewise, the opposing argument has offered nothing on the table

Okay done talking

EDIT actually I have a great idea

They should start a Street Fighter tournament within the prison cells

Unfortunately they will have to supply the special effects for the sonic booms

😛 a street fight tournament? LOL that would be to funny! or they should set up something like in first blood the movie