[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

@Skybird and Aramike

I think I didn't express myself properly before. I meant if you tell your kids that the sentenced person has done something evil by killing someone how do you tell them that killing this very person is a just act? I think the killing of someone can only be a last resort if no other option guarantees the safety of the population (emergency killing in a hostage situation, getting rid of cruel dictators who you can't get in any different way, etc).

If you read again what I tried to express and gave examples for in post #10, you will see that I do not see it that much different than you do when talking of last resorts.

Remember by executing someone you are doing the same thing that the criminal did. Maybe in a more "humane" way (if there is something like that) but the result is the same nonetheless.

No. Motivation counts, and it is different motivations for the criminal, and the victim acting in self-defence, or the law enforcment or a judge acting according to the law.

Law also considers motivations. In German laws we have the conception of a crime committed for lower motives (= Verbrechen aus niederen Beweggründen), which means that the crime is considered to be even more serious than the same crime rated without that "seal of malice", and a more severe penalty must be spoken out - for example that early release from prison is explicitly ruled out, and any penalty must be the maximum allowed by law.

Also, state of mind and emotions matter in doing a deed, both legal and illegal. I would even say it matters most.

Besides there is still the problem that not all cases are crystal clear. Mistakes WILL happen as they happened before. Maybe not so many but still I would say that even just one innocent in the death row is one too much for supporting this kind of punishment.

That is true, and I fully accept the argument ofr too many death penalties that have been proven to have been wrong - I haven given it myself in earlier debates over death penalty and showed some statistics (that can be easily found via Google). However, if you read again what I wrote, you see that I argued against the "death penalty", and that I gave a totally different understanding of when the execution of a criminal eventually is justifiable. Death as a regular penalty in cases of "ordinary" crime (to cut it short and not writing a long novel of explanation) I explicitly excluded. The two-word term "death penalty" is a contradiction in itself.