Capital punishment

[DC]

Death Penalty

I personally think capital punishment is wrong. doesn't make much of a difference how you do it.

what are your thoughts?

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

It's wrong. Plain and simple. It shouldn't be around. It doesn't prevent crime, it doesn't lower crime rates, it usually doesn't comfort the victim's family, it gets a large number of most likely innocently convicted people. And this last one is the one that seals the deal- if even one innocent person might be executed for something they didn't do, the whole thing should be done away with. One innocent person is enough to commute the sentences of a hundred thousand certain killers to life in prison (or close to it- 25, 30, 40 years is enough for a maximum prison sentence for murder). Even the possibility of the death penalty being incorrectly administered in one in a million cases is enough to get rid of it entirely because the idea of an innocent man or woman being killed by the state is so absolutely grotesque.

Though I have to admit I have a very, very hard time arguing against capital punishment for some people. You read about some terrible crazy killer who committed some horrendous and unforgivable crime (and it is 100 percent certain he did it) and you think "Meh, actually, I'm not gonna miss him."

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

Death Penalty

I personally think capital punishment is wrong. doesn't make much of a difference how you do it.

what are your thoughts?

As mentioned elsewhere I would agree but not really sure how that gets us anywhere.

From the perspective of the executee I don't think I would feel MUCH better about being killed by lethal injection over being stoned to death. Slightly, but not much.

Mind you, some days the prospect of sentencing people to life in jail doesn't seem much better. Nor does the prospect of letting murderers and rapists walk around murdering and raping.

Modern society seems to be such an artificial invention that we are probably going to have to admit to ourselves that we have to do 'wrong' things to keep it going.

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

I think the chance of the wrongful execution of an innocent wo/man is the greatest argument against it.

Agreed. Cause, really, when there's a lousy excuse for a human being being executed for an unimaginable crime he most certainly did do, even die hard liberals can't muster much sympathy for him/her. There's little argument for that guy/woman being kept alive. What are the arguments against the death penalty there?

When there's a change of a wrongful execution, that throws all the cases of guilty people being rightfully executed out the window. That shows that we just can't chance it, no matter how guilty the others were/are.

 

[Her Dark Star]

This is something that I've been thinking about a fair bit recently. I always used to be on the far left, rehabilitation not punishment, education rather than incarceration etc. However after becoming a police officer a few years ago I've found that position harder to maintain.
I'm not a fan of capital punishment at all and doing it less painfully is better than torturing to death but the end result is still the same, however I have met a number of people for which it would seem to be the logical route. People who refuse any of kind of help or change, who appear fundamentally incapable of seeing themselves as having done anything wrong. In one particular case I was, for the first time, genuinely afraid of another human being. He was rarely out of of jail for more than a few weeks before being sent back, condoned violence as an answer to anything and I think its only a matter of time before he kills someone. He will, at best, spend his life in and out of jail being a danger to everyone around him. The cost of dealing with him in this manner is huge, resources that could be better used else where and I believe him to genuinely sociopathic and incapable of being anything other than a threat.
The libertarian in me suggests that we should do everything in our power to try to change him, or at worst isolate him from everyone else. Another part of me revolts at the idea of spending such huge resources on someone who already committed many offences and will undoubtedly commit more while people who have done nothing wrong suffer. The practical answer would be to execute him, but the ethical question is much harder. For the greater good is a very slippery path.
Apologies for the rambling, I think that capital punishment is a bad idea, I don't trust humankind and its social systems to implement it fairly or ethically but I have begun to question my stance more.

edit: wow thought I was going to be the first response but in the time it took me type I'm at the bottom of the page!

 

[DC]

This is something that I've been thinking about a fair bit recently. I always used to be on the far left, rehabilitation not punishment, education rather than incarceration etc. However after becoming a police officer a few years ago I've found that position harder to maintain.
I'm not a fan of capital punishment at all and doing it less painfully is better than torturing to death but the end result is still the same, however I have met a number of people for which it would seem to be the logical route. People who refuse any of kind of help or change, who appear fundamentally incapable of seeing themselves as having done anything wrong. In one particular case I was, for the first time, genuinely afraid of another human being. He was rarely out of of jail for more than a few weeks before being sent back, condoned violence as an answer to anything and I think its only a matter of time before he kills someone. He will, at best, spend his life in and out of jail being a danger to everyone around him. The cost of dealing with him in this manner is huge, resources that could be better used else where and I believe him to genuinely sociopathic and incapable of being anything other than a threat.
The libertarian in me suggests that we should do everything in our power to try to change him, or at worst isolate him from everyone else. Another part of me revolts at the idea of spending such huge resources on someone who already committed many offences and will undoubtedly commit more while people who have done nothing wrong suffer. The practical answer would be to execute him, but the ethical question is much harder. For the greater good is a very slippery path.
Apologies for the rambling, I think that capital punishment is a bad idea, I don't trust humankind and its social systems to implement it fairly or ethically but I have begun to question my stance more.

edit: wow thought I was going to be the first response but in the time it took me type I'm at the bottom of the page!

thanks, an interesting post.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

Agreed. Cause, really, when there's a lousy excuse for a human being being executed for an unimaginable crime he most certainly did do, even die hard liberals can't muster much sympathy for him/her. There's little argument for that guy/woman being kept alive. What are the arguments against the death penalty there?

The argument against is that you shouldn't kill people. Really. Ever. It's just not nice. It's not nice for the person being killed, it's not nice for the people involved of the process of the killing and it really doesn't help the society in which people think that it's alright to kill people sometimes if you think they earned it.

 

[Darat]

Even before we get to the "Is it a deterrent", "Would it reduce the number of murders/rapes" and so on I have an objection to the death penalty.

I do not want to trust the state with the power to execute me. There have been way too many instances of people who were convicted for crimes that would have led to execution being found to have been wrongly convicted.

I suppose if you are the type of person who is happy for the state to have the power to execute you then you won't share my objections and I admit my view on this matter are at odds with my general view that we should be pragmatic. For instance it could be that even if we wrongly executed 1 out of every ten people the "plus side" i.e. lives saved could outweigh the loss of those innocent people. I just don't ever want to find myself in line to become one of those statistics.

 

[welshdean]

<snip> Another part of me revolts at the idea of spending such huge resources on someone who already committed many offences and will undoubtedly commit more while people who have done nothing wrong suffer. The practical answer would be to execute him...

Could you set a figure as to how much is too much to spend trying to help this fella? I'd be intrigued to know what price you think his life is worth. Would you place the same financial limit on a career fraudster? Afterall the damage and pain they cause can and often does last considerably longer than a beating. What about a repeat traffic offender. How many tickets must he not pay and be prosecuted for before he reaches his fiscal societal limit? 100 - 200? 10 -20 maybe?


Edited to delete this last paragraph: "Maybe, just maybe you might be better off with a career change. Methinks if you'd arrested me more than you think is financially fair, I may, just may be subject to a little corporal punishment." It's too personal and doesn't move the debate forward. Please accept my apologies Her Dark Star.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

I do not want to trust the state with the power to execute me.

Think that more or less sums it up though I'd go further and say I don't trust the state (or society in general) with the power to execute anyone.

The kind of state/society that elects David Cameron, spends millions voting on X-Factor and Whateverthehellcrapgrahamnortonisdoingnow on TV, thinks that the most important story in the world is some tramp-stamped pop tart getting malaria and gets their daily opinions fed to them by the Daily Mail/Sun/Sky News really shouldn't be deciding who lives and dies.

 

[richardm]

I do not want to trust the state with the power to execute me. There have been way too many instances of people who were convicted for crimes that would have led to execution being found to have been wrongly convicted.

I do find it interesting that the set of people who don't trust the government to run a bath and who are happy to let it execute people is quite large.

Threads like this are doomed from the outset, I fear. It'll devolve into increasingly outlandish "But what if someone.." examples, and we'll never get anyone to change their mind. Least of all me

 

[welshdean]

I do find it interesting that the set of people who don't trust the government to run a bath...

<derail>
No, it's government that doesn't trust us to run a bath;

This week, John Prescott was accused of "nanny state interference" after it was announced that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is considering regulating the maximum temperature of domestic baths. As part of the plans, which could be implemented next year, thermostatic mixing valves may be fitted in all new homes.
See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3318578/So-Mr-Prescott-how-hot-should-my-bath-be.html
</derail>

 

[Her Dark Star]

Could you set a figure as to how much is too much to spend trying to help this fella? I'd be intrigued to know what price you think his life is worth. Would you place the same financial limit on a career fraudster? Afterall the damage and pain they cause can and often does last considerably longer than a beating. What about a repeat traffic offender. How many tickets must he not pay and be prosecuted for before he reaches his fiscal societal limit? 100 - 200? 10 -20 maybe?

Maybe, just maybe you might be better off with a career change. Methinks if you'd arrested me more than you think is financially fair, I may, just may be subject to a little corporal punishment.

Lol, no I wasn't suggesting that we should set a financial limit or standard to the value of a person's life. I state that I am against the death penalty and I also think that the concept of money is the worst invention humankind has ever come up with. However my experience has also caused me to think that the ethics, under the practicalities of the society we have, are more complicated than I had previously thought.
In the example stated it is not that we shouldn't devote resources to the individual but rather that those resources (which are huge) might help others far more and that by directing those resources to an individual who is a serious danger and unlikely to ever have a positive contribution to anything is in fact punishing others - try telling someone who is homeless or starving that we can't give them what they need because we're giving spanish lessons to a violent convict.
Ideally we'd live in a world where there weren't any resource constraints and could offer them both everything they needed but as we don't I think that it makes the ethical position less clear cut.
Hoped that clarified things, though probably not.

PS - I would never actually support the death penalty sinply because I would never trust the state to implement it.

 

[welshdean]

Hoped that clarified things, though probably not.

Yep, thanks!

 

[Her Dark Star]

<derail>
No, it's government that doesn't trust us to run a bath;

This week, John Prescott was accused of "nanny state interference" after it was announced that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is considering regulating the maximum temperature of domestic baths. As part of the plans, which could be implemented next year, thermostatic mixing valves may be fitted in all new homes.
See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3318578/So-Mr-Prescott-how-hot-should-my-bath-be.html
</derail>

Wow, that probably deserves a thread unto itself.

 

[Cainkane1]

This is something that I've been thinking about a fair bit recently. I always used to be on the far left, rehabilitation not punishment, education rather than incarceration etc. However after becoming a police officer a few years ago I've found that position harder to maintain.
I'm not a fan of capital punishment at all and doing it less painfully is better than torturing to death but the end result is still the same, however I have met a number of people for which it would seem to be the logical route. People who refuse any of kind of help or change, who appear fundamentally incapable of seeing themselves as having done anything wrong. In one particular case I was, for the first time, genuinely afraid of another human being. He was rarely out of of jail for more than a few weeks before being sent back, condoned violence as an answer to anything and I think its only a matter of time before he kills someone. He will, at best, spend his life in and out of jail being a danger to everyone around him. The cost of dealing with him in this manner is huge, resources that could be better used else where and I believe him to genuinely sociopathic and incapable of being anything other than a threat.
The libertarian in me suggests that we should do everything in our power to try to change him, or at worst isolate him from everyone else. Another part of me revolts at the idea of spending such huge resources on someone who already committed many offences and will undoubtedly commit more while people who have done nothing wrong suffer. The practical answer would be to execute him, but the ethical question is much harder. For the greater good is a very slippery path.
Apologies for the rambling, I think that capital punishment is a bad idea, I don't trust humankind and its social systems to implement it fairly or ethically but I have begun to question my stance more.

edit: wow thought I was going to be the first response but in the time it took me type I'm at the bottom of the page!

I knew a guy like this in highschool. He wasn't stupid or crazy he was just mean as hell. He was unpredictably vile tempered and would hit someone out of the clear blue sky. He killed someone in 1979. He was convicted of aggravated assault and murder. He had a chance for parole but he killed another convict and now he's in for life with no chance of parole. His picture is in Ga inmate locaters and if you want to see him just ask me for his name.

There is a woman on death row here in Georgia. She was black and she wanted a light skinned baby to raise. She plotted with her boyfriend to get one. There was a white woman married to a black man in her neighborhood and she was carrying her husbands child. The two plotters pretended to befriend her and when they got her alone they cut her baby out of her and of course she died.

The law caught up with them eventually. She and her boyfriend were sentenced to death. The baby is doing fine. Should I feel sorry for the murderers?

I don't want my post to turn into a rant but heres another case. In 1985 a man kidnapped, raped and strangled an 11 year old girl to death. He was caught the same day he committed the murder as another child has witnessed the abduction and had taken down the mans tag number. The man was eventually sentenced to die. After many years of appeals he was administered death by lethal injection in 2002.

This was the mans first and last criminal act. He had never been arrested before. I feel no pity for him. In the USA ou cannot give the death sentence unless there are aggravating circumstances. I understand that some innocent people get executed and perhaps for that reason there shoould be no death penalty.

 

[Rasmus]

Agreed. Cause, really, when there's a lousy excuse for a human being being executed for an unimaginable crime he most certainly did do, even die hard liberals can't muster much sympathy for him/her. There's little argument for that guy/woman being kept alive. What are the arguments against the death penalty there?

That is not how the law works, and it is not how it should work.

We have to sit down *before* crimes are committed and spell out in great detail what types of crime justify what types of punishment and exactly what standard of proof we require.

Bonus points if the system ends up being somewhat consistent in the end.

So far, I've not seen anyone come up with a definition of what makes one a really, really, really bad guy who certainly deserves being put to death that I'd be happy with.

Yes, we have the odd case where it's really hard to argue that the criminal in question should stay alive, but it's not as easy to put what they have done in abstract terms.

Also, I dislike the "he doesn't deserve to live"-rhetoric. Because, frankly, I am not so certain if you or I 'deserve' to live. and I am not so certain that, if we go down that road, we might not come across a murderer who mist definitely does deserve to live. but then, nobody has ever spelled out their criteria for what it takes to deserve to live.

 

[DC]

Should I feel sorry for the murderers?

should you feel justified to kill them?

 

[Cainkane1]

should you feel justified to kill them?

I have mixed feelings. On one hand not having the death penalty would prevent nnocent people from being executed. On the other hand when someone who is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt I feel no remorse for the executed killer. I wouuldn't want to be the executioner.

 

[Just_Me]

thats actually a fair question to me . does one murder justify another killing . why is the state aloud to kill when an individual is not . i don't include the military in this comment as thier job is to defend a country from people attacking it .

a good friend of nine got killed walking home from a bar by a drunk driver ( a woman lost control of her car mounted a footpath and hit him ) and to me it makes no difference what they did with the woman who killed him . anto is still dead . i belive she got a few years in jail for driving drunk and causing death by dangerous driving . none of it meant much to me . i just missed my friend .