This is Why I Support the Death Penalty

[Aramike]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525441,00.html

NEW ORLEANS — Authorities say a 17-year-old teenager was charged with aggravated rape and first-degree murder of an 8-month-old child.

Animals like this do not justify the expense of keeping them alive for years on end. Should this person be proven undeniably guilty, he should be swiftly put down like a rabid dog, in my opinion.

[August]

Originally Posted by Aramike

proven undeniably guilty

Therein lies the rub. For every one of these there are 100 whose guilt is not so firmly established.

[sunvalleyslim]

August,
If you believe that there are a hundred to one that they're innocent......Dude you're smokin your socks......

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by August

Therein lies the rub. For every one of these there are 100 whose guilt is not so firmly established.

Point taken, although I believe that sunvalleyslim also has a point - the ratio is probably reversed (1 out of 100 whose guilt is questionable). Frankly, I find the moral dilemma to be similar regarding just locking people up in the first place - I'd hate to think of the horror of being wrongly imprisoned.

That is indeed the only argument against the death penalty that leaves me torn.

However, the fact that there's an overall margin of error does not dismiss the fact that, on a case-by-case basis, certain cases have no margin of error whatsoever. Those are the cases where I support capital punishment. A lot of times people will posit that the legal system isn't perfect, and they are correct. Yet, a single case does not represent the system as a whole. Furthermore, our legal system is based upon the single case.

I do believe that irrefutable proof must be the standard for any and all executions. I also believe that the penalty of death is warranted in many cases - especially in the rape and murder of an 8 month old baby.

How about a drunk driver who kills two people, say, a mother and a baby. Should that drunk be snuffed out?

[Stealth Hunter]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

How about a drunk driver who kills two people, say, a mother and a baby. Should that drunk be snuffed out?

Most definitely. That's manslaughter after all.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I just can't understand this whole "death-penalty" bent. It seems inefficient and silly to me. How does the death penalty repair the damage done to people and families and society? Where is the penance?
For the most heinous crimes, in which the defendant is proven guilty by irrefutable evidence, life in a labor camp holds a lot more punitive potential.

Of course, this must be done properly in order to ensure effectiveness. For starters, it needs to be in a suitably harsh climate, way too hot or way too cold. Next, it would need to produce goods that could actually generate a profit, or at least offset state expenses so that reimbursements could be paid to the victims. Something labor-intensive, though, like making highway barriers manually.
Then, it would need to have an organizational structure similar to Marine boot camp; hardly a moment of peace, bad food (minimum calorie intake, preferably in the form of tasteless paste), little sleep, constant surveillance, stiff penalties for any infraction. It's good enough for our troops, so it should be good enough for our worst criminals, right?
Finally, no amenities. No tobacco, no visitation, no parcels, no internet, no TV, no radio, no newspapers, no anything. And 7-day workweeks, 8 hrs a day (more might be considered cruel and unusual)

After a few years in that grinder they'll wish they were dead, and they will be, after a miserable life.

What does the death penalty do, anyway? If there is a hell and evil people are sent to it, burning for eternity is going to be just as miserable and endless at the end of a life in the camp. If there is no afterlife, the death penalty just grants the criminal painless oblivion, whereas their victims live with a lifetime of pain. What kind of justice is that?

Best of all, if they are later exonerated, they could be paid a healthy compensation for their wrongful imprisonment by the state, and we can get the money for that by simply saving the money it would have cost to execute them in the present system.

Naturally, this is almost completely implausible in the U.S. due to the number of judgements and rulings that would have to be overturned, but I still think it's a good idea.

[Stealth Hunter]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

I just can't understand this whole "death-penalty" bent. It seems inefficient and silly to me.

Why?

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

How does the death penalty repair the damage done to people and families and society?

It doesn't replace the person lost, but it removes the person who took their life and can at least put the minds of the family to rest with the knowledge that the murderer no longer lives. And death is the ultimatum because of the fear it inflicts upon the criminal in most cases. It MAKES them sorry.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Where is the penance?

The criminal's fear.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

For the most heinous crimes, in which the defendant is proven guilty by irrefutable evidence, life in a labor camp holds a lot more punitive potential.

Depends on what type of labor camp you're referencing. If you mean a Communist-Russian labor camp with no hygienic stations, horrid food, and terrible conditions, then I would agree. It has plenty of ups to it. Taxpayers wouldn't have to pour money into the system to support these bastards (as we do now) and the nation as a whole would benefit from their work more than it would suffer (somewhat like the penal system the French had set up during the 19th and 20th centuries; you've seen Papillon, I assume).

Unfortunately, labor camps will never be established for political reasons. We'd look like demons to the outside world.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Of course, this must be done properly in order to ensure effectiveness. For starters, it needs to be in a suitably harsh climate, way too hot or way too cold.

Is it really a labor camp then? I mean, they normally exist where the country needs them (where resources exist and can be harvested by the prisoners, for example).

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Next, it would need to produce goods that could actually generate a profit, or at least offset state expenses so that reimbursements could be paid to the victims. Something labor-intensive, though, like making highway barriers manually.

Disregard my last paragraph. Glad to hear it would still fit the definition of a labor camp.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Then, it would need to have an organizational structure similar to Marine boot camp; hardly a moment of peace, bad food (minimum calorie intake, preferably in the form of tasteless paste), little sleep, constant surveillance, stiff penalties for any infraction. It's good enough for our troops, so it should be good enough for our worst criminals, right?

I agree here. There would also need to be places where discipline could be carried out, preferably a public area. If a prisoner was caught say trying to escape, he should be taken up onto a stage-like area in front of all the prisoners and have his legs broken, or be beaten severely and denied medical care.

If one caused trouble in general, they should be thrown into a small building and locked in for days on end, denied of all the basics (save for half a loaf a bread per day, a bottle of water per week, and no proper furnishings, such as beds or toilets; rations could also be determined by the camp's warden and could be based off the severity of the infraction). If one assaulted a guard, that same stage area should be the location to shoot the assailant.

It's harsh, intimidating, and effective.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Finally, no amenities. No tobacco, no visitation, no parcels, no internet, no TV, no radio, no newspapers, no anything. And 7-day workweeks, 8 hrs a day (more might be considered cruel and unusual).

Agreed here. Perhaps make it 12 hours a day on the working time to make even higher profits and the prisoners more miserable, but 8 is just as good.

Do you think the possession of amenities should be made an offense punishable by time in "the hole"?

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

After a few years in that grinder they'll wish they were dead, and they will be, after a miserable life.

Or better yet they WILL die in the camps. We might be able to find something to do with the bodies as well. Perhaps donate them to science.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

What does the death penalty do, anyway?

Liquidates criminals, lol.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

If there is a hell and evil people are sent to it, burning for eternity is going to be just as miserable and endless at the end of a life in the camp. If there is no afterlife, the death penalty just grants the criminal painless oblivion, whereas their victims live with a lifetime of pain. What kind of justice is that?

The justice is that they will feel a fear no one innocent can ever possibly feel when it comes time for them to die, and society will be rid of another trouble maker for good. They will have regret for what they've done, they will wish things could be different, and they will have to suffer from the pain of not knowing what will happen to them. Not only that, but it intimidates people on the outside to obey the law or face death for their actions.

If there's a hell, then good. They burn forever in it.

I personally don't think there is, and because I'm a down-to-Earth person and don't think about what is not a certainty, I think they should be executed because I KNOW the last things they'll feel forever will be too terrible to conceive for we citizens in good standing. That is the very substance of the death penalty. Fright, anger, helplessness, and remorse; I'm aware of that much. But what it would feel like to actually experience these things all at once and not just examine the words and ponder their meanings and what it would be like to feel them all at once is something I shall never go through.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Best of all, if they are later exonerated, they could be paid a healthy compensation for their wrongful imprisonment by the state, and we can get the money for that by simply saving the money it would have cost to execute them in the present system.

Agreed on the exoneration part (I think they should be given a little more than money for their time wrongfully served), but not so much on the execution part.

In my opinion on what should happen after a person is convicted of murder and sentenced to death, they should spend one day in their jail cell. The next day, they are to be taken out into either a courtyard with either concrete walls or a special sand mound or a concrete room and will be shot. It's cheap, it doesn't take a lot of time, and it's effective.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

Naturally, this is almost completely implausible in the U.S. due to the number of judgements and rulings that would have to be overturned,

Not only that, but there would be a backlash from the rest of the world on it. It would not be a healthy political thing to do.

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

but I still think it's a good idea.

So do I.

Unfortunately, people aren't as strict as they used to be anymore and seem to have weaker stomachs for crueler punishments. The justice system of the United States anymore seems to focus more on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

[CaptainHaplo]

I don't think the 100 to 1 ratio was innocent vs guilt - but rather 100 "most likely did it" to the 1 "undeniably proven guilty". Remember that the standard in our court system is termed "reasonable doubt", not "without any doubt".

Here is the thing with the death penalty. I have no issue applying it on cases where it is called for, and guilt is clear, or admitted to. However, there are a number of cases where people were proven innocent after they were executed. That has to be a concern.

However, life imprisonment is not a good option either. It costs the taxpayers money to keep these people up, they do nothing constructive, nor - with a life sentence - can they be rehabilitated. After all - why rehabilitate when your never going to see the light of day. Its a joke.

The idea of making criminals work is fine, except that "work camps" have been sued numerous times and are just about non-existant now (with a few notable exceptions) because it is claimed that such is "cruel and unusual punishment". The conditions you guys describe above would fit that easily under today's standards, and thus would never be allowed.

My view on this is real simple actually. If there is DNA or other proof, there is no such thing as a "life" sentence. Its death - in any capital (aka the victim died) case. The defendant has one year incarcerated to prepare and file the appropriate appeals. At the end of that one year time, his opportunity to file is frozen, the existing appeals are allowed to proceed, and if he is still condemned at the end of the process, the sentence is carried out in a timely manner - aka 1 week from the final judicial decision. He has that one week to make clemency requests to the governor of his state, as well as settle his affairs through family as needed, and make his peace with his maker if he so chooses.

Is it perfect? No - but no system is. However, keeping criminals on the taxpayers dimes (actually its tens of thousands of dollars a year), while they tie up the legal system will every bull**** appeal they can, enjoying cable tv, a free gym (whereas most law abiding citizens have to pay to use one), free health care, free legal representation, etc....... - is a travesty.

If your in for 10 - fine - you should be MADE to be doing things that show your rehabilitating - training etc. If you don't - you don't get out until you show you HAVE done what is necessary to be productive and responsible in society. If your in for life - then your not getting out - so why not go ahead and decrease the cost and stupidity your continued existence puts on society?

And yes - drunk drivers that kill should also get the death penalty. Sorry - but you chose to drink and drive and thus kill someone, just as a robber chose to pull a trigger during a holdup.

[Skybird]

"Death Penalty" is a contradiction in itself. The archaic concept of justice was to bring balance back to cosmos by taking an eye for an eye. By modern definition, a penalty is a measurement or an aversive stimulus that is imposed onto an offender to either take revenge by making him suffering (a form of personal satisfaction by seeing the other suffering, for which it is a precondition that he lives), or to make him altering his attitude and cognitions so that he will not show the behavior or deed again in the future ( for which he also must live). the latter is the modern understanding of what western legal systems should be about. If that is always a realistic intention, is something completely different.

Eventually, I accept the execution of certain kinds of offenders as a preemptive measurement. This is with regard to offenders whose imprisonment causes an ongoing major and severe threat to innocents and/or the general public, or who are not being stopped from continuing their criminal behavior when being in prison. Two of several possible examples are a drug baron who runs his cartel from prison due to corrupt police, or a terrorist fanatic whose imprisonment is taken as an excuse by his still free comrades to commit crimes in order to blackmail the state and enforce his release from prison.

Things like slaughter by passion, rape, fleeing the scence of an accident where one has caused the death of people, chuld abuse, are not qualifying for my intention when to execute somebody. Such people should serve their living penalty.

I am against "suspended penalties" in principle. I am also principally against alcohol being accepted as a "mitigating" circumstance.

the remarks that somebody made above above on executing a car driver when causing a lethal crash, have a personal dimension for me. Almost twnty years ago, my girlfriend, companion and fiancé got killed by a ghost driver who drove under influence of alcohol. He got away with an extremely mild penalty, because courts consider people not to be responsible for the ammont of alcohol they drink - this is the conclusion from the mitigating penalties in case of alcohol involved. I have never fogiven neither the court, nor the driver. But I do not wish him to be executed, and would object to it.

And in the early 70s, the sister of my mother, 18 years, just married and pregnant, got killed with her husband on the autobahn - again due to a drunk ghostdriver. And again he got away with a very mild penalty. Neither me nor my mother wished the man to be executed, and we would object to it.

Both men were allowed to drive again within months, and got away with low-medium money penalties. Eventual prison sentences were suspended completely. -

Wo will complain when me and my family do not trust such a system anymore?

We have laws. Far too man yof them, with too many exceptions for rules, and too much disconnection from reality in the name of some distorted form of pedagogic attitude, eduaction, resocialisation, and humanism. It would be enough if we filter the laws, delete many of them, use the one remaining in full, and understand that lawyers defending their client should not see it as their duty to get him out no matter what he has done, but that the facts of the deed should speak for itself, the defense should be done by the client himself - and the only duty of the lawyer is to monitor that basic rules for court proceedings are not getting violated. It is my conviction that a defender's duty is not to defend his client. He is more a referee than a defender who should try every trick and every cheating of the rules to get his man out no matter weather he is guilty or not. The defnder as well as the rest of the court should help to find the truth. and if the client is guilty, the defender'S job is not to minimise the penalty, but to cooperate with the court to find the correct penalty.

Many people today perceive court sentences today as too mild, or too injust. A legal system where the outcome is influenced by the ammount of money a client can invest into his defender(s), where anybody can sue everybody over the most ridiculous claims, where defenders are actively engaged in distorting the process of finding justice, where procedural questions are seen as important ifd not as more deceisive than the essence of content, and penalties time and again get minimised and suspended over intention od education and a perverted sense of humanism that wills to put parts of the public at risk far too easyminded over claims of resocialisation (no matter if that has a realistic perspective or not) - such a legal system has serious deficits and suffers from extremely self-damaging distortions. No wonder then that it falls into disrepute.

Three years ago a junkey tried to stab me on open street, unprovoked, en passant, totally surprising. I got a deep cut on the right waist. Only my former martial arts trainign and reflexes helped me wo react still fast enough to deflect his attack, for he aimed at my throat. I took him out in a short burst of hard, brutal chops and kicks, and put him out of action within seconds. He received several injuries and fractures. I later learned that he was no unknown to the police, and he was stoned at the time of the attack. Nevertheless he sued me for using "excessive force", while he tried to kill me. Okay, the real scandal is that such a case would not be filed by a private person, but is brought to public prosecutor'S office where it is then decided whether or not this office launches a case at court or not. The scandal is that they found a state attorney who was willing to accept it to be handed to the court. If later the defnder of that junkey would not obviously convionced his client to give up that counter battle and convince the state attorney to withdraw the legal proceedings against me, I would have been the accused offender at court for having dared to defend my life against a sudden and unprovoked attack by a junkey.

Who will complain when I do not trust such a system anymore?

My father is a sport rifleman, he shoots small cllibre pistol and precision air pistol. In his club their are also some policemen training. One of them who is with the criminal police, once gave him privately a tip. If he ever were to confront a burglar in his appartmenet and would be in need to shoot, he should not wound him, but should make sure he shoots him to death with one shot if possible. Else the chances would be extrmeely high that he would be sued at court and would face a penalty as severe (or even more!) as that for the burglar.

Again, who will complain when I do not trust such a system anymore?


However, to all these problems, a general acceptance for a self-contradicting death "penalty" is nom solution. Also statistical anaylsis has shown time and again that death "penalties" do not have a deterring effect, since many crimes commited are done in a state of aroused emotions, social context that cannot be escaped, and the always present assumption that one would not be caught anyway. Irrational factors like this cannot be just "countered" by rational arguments and rational appeals and rational proceedings and deterrance - thats why they are irrational. You need to directly influence and change the irrational factors themselves. Get people out of social contexts that get them into trouble. Get people educated and self-disciplined while they are still young. Reduce the time passing between crime and starting to serve a penlty drastically. No suspended penalties. Alcohol no longer a mitigating excuse. Psychology shows that the more time passes between crime and consequences, the less the chance the object will link the two. the more time passes, and the smaller the penalsiing stimulus is, the less edcuating effect and chnage in the offenders behaviour wou will see. This has been exemplary shown in behaviouristic experiments en masse, you cannot get around this conclusion, no matter your excuse for trying.

They way death "penalty" is handled in some countries today, it is nothing else but a legalised form of collective archaic revenge. And the passion you see on nthe faces of street demonstrators at times, tells something revealing: some people are angry if you give them just panem but not the circensis-part in the quote.

[TDK1044]

I think that any society that truly wants to be referred to as 'civilized' should not be killing people who have been found guilty to the legal standard of 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

How many times have we seen DNA prove the innocence of people convicted at a time when DNA testing was not available?

There are certain crimes committed where any normal human being can't begin to understand how anyone could commit such a crime. In my view though, our role should be to remove that individual from society for the rest of his life and to try and learn what, if anything, could have been done in that persons life to prevent the later action that he took.

Simply killing a monster who killed a young child doesn't bring the child back, and it doesn't allow us to learn patterns of early behaviour from the killer that may save the life of another child in the future.

[AngusJS]

The death penalty is a bad idea all around. It assumes complete certainty where no such thing exists. Think of all the people cleared by DNA evidence. I guarantee everyone who prosecuted them was certain they were guilty...until they found out they were innocent. Oops!

Without the death penalty, every injustice committed by the state can at least potentially be righted. With the death penalty, that's not the case. The state has to be 100% right all of the time. When the justice system fails in a capital case, the injustice it has perpetrated cannot be righted - its victim is dead. The death penalty is applied for exactly these situations: someone is wrongly killed by another, and no justice is possible for the victim - he's dead. Why do you want to allow the same thing to happen all over again, except this time at the hands of the state? Apparently, death penalty advocates usually get around this by simply not caring.

Think of all the people cleared by DNA evidence. How many innocent people were killed throughout American history when there was still no such thing? I guess they don't count.

Think of all the problems present in the system: crap eyewitness testimony, false confessions, police tampering with evidence, police lying under oath, police departments that destroy evidence after convictions are obtained, prosecutors withholding evidence from the defense, underfunded public defenders, public defenders who fall asleep during trials... all feeding into an antagonistic process whose result will be decided by a bunch of people who have nothing better to do than sit on a jury (How many of them know about false confessions and the huge problems with eyewitness testimony? How many still don't know about them after they've handed down a guilty verdict in a capital case?).

Humans are fallible. Systems break down. Entrusting such a problematic system with the ability to take someone's life is not a good idea.

If I was the POS mentioned in the first post, I would welcome the death penalty, if I wasn't able to kill myself first that is. Imagine living with yourself after doing something like that. In this case, is it not worse punishment to be sentenced to go live with other animals such as yourself for the rest of your life, rather than have it all end after a few years?

[GoldenRivet]

Dead men do not make good repeat offenders.

living men do.

[TDK1044]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Dead men do not make good repeat offenders.

living men do.

Innocent men who were wrongly killed didn't offend in the first place.

[Schroeder]

I find it a bit odd that all people here are agreeing that killing is morally wrong. But yet some here think that the state has the right to kill. Some of you stated how disgusted they were with those who killed and the way they killed yet they want to kill those people too. So murder is wrong, revenge is right? How do you explain your kids that killing is wrong if even the state can do it and supports it as a legitimate penalty?
And again remember all those who were found innocent AFTER being sentenced to death. If you make a mistake you actually murdered someone yourself.