"If this does not qualify for the death sentence, then there is no case that would''

[St Leo]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
The legal definition of insanity is that the person in question does not realize that what he is doing is wrong.

That sounds too simple. People who upload music on the internet while ignorant of the illegality are not legally insane as far as I know.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Is a burglar alarm sentient?

I did not see any supposition of sentience in the passage I quoted and responded to.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kucinich
It's extremely easy to demonstrate that I have free will: I make my own decisions, correct? AFAIK, no one is mind-controlling me. I'm sentient, correct? I can at least prove that to myself. Therefore, I have free will.

No, unless you can demostrate that the decisions you make are non-deterministic.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Drogue
The point is, who you are is fixed at that point. Put it to it's base level:
Input*person=output
The input is a set set of events. You are fixed, in that at that moment in time, you are you. In an infinitely small time, you will be different, but at that time, you are you, and you are fixed. Given the same input, and the same input, run twice, if you are exactly the same, the output will be the same. Done an infinately small time later, you wouldn't be the same, and so the output would be different, but even if run a million times, with you being exactly the same, at that exact moment in time, the output would be the same.

People commit crimes because of who they are. Who a person is is a combination of their genetics and their experience. Genetics is not under their control, and experience is only under their control based on the genetics and previous experience. You are no responsible for who you are, because it is not under your control.

Would it be better if it was random. Would you have more control?

(btw, I dispute the "control" thing in the first place, because the point isn't that you can control who you are, but that who you are controls what you do)

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
No, unless you can demostrate that the decisions you make are non-deterministic.

The fact that they are deterministic doesn't mean that I don't make them.

[Buzzing Orchids]

killing is wrong in ANY form, whether its for resources, religion, or just for the sake of brutality

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Self-created by an algorithm, too. Does that have to be self-created? What about the algorithm that determines the algorithm that determines the algorithm you are subject to? It goes on forever.

No, it stops at creation. Either creation, or eternal movement. You choose.

The fact that something received information from the outside world does not remove the element of free will.

True, it doesn't. Though the real thing would be more like: "the fact than an unconscious decisional process has been affected by outside input removes the element of free will".

If you had free will, you cold modify the behavior and movement of the atoms, electrons, molecules, in your brain without need for energy.

I dare you to explain how being sentient has eny effect on free will.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kucinich
The fact that they are deterministic doesn't mean that I don't make them.

True, but that also means you have no choice in the matter. No choice = no freewill.

[East Street Trader]

Killing this man would seem weird and it is hard to imagine anyone would feel better as a result. It is certainly difficult to imagine that his various lovers and children would.

[How on earth can one explain women taking up with such a man?]

As for the death penalty the deterence argument has been pretty much done to death (forgive the unintended pun) - and the lack of any statistical evidence that anyone ever has been detered seems to me pretty conclusive. However two other arguments don't get much of an airing. The better of those concerns how people generally feel. I exclude victims and those closest to them from this. As far as I am cocerned pandering to their vindictiveness would be a mistake. It harks back to the days when feuds were allowed to build up. We have moved on by society taking away from victims the right to punish crime and I would not weaken that. But if it could be thought that society at large might feel better if particular crimes were punished by death then that would seem to me an argument in favour.

I suppose this may not get discussed much because it entails treating vindictiveness as acceptible. When, in fact, we all teach our children that it is better not to harbour grudges and not to be vindictive.

In me that lesson must have gone home because I don't think I would feel better if criminals whose crimes have made me feel worst - or most threatened - were hanged/guilotined/poisoned/whatever.

But if enough people in society would feel better then maybe we should give some weight to their feelings.

Of course this does not address the problem that justice is administered by human beings and hence is imperfect. Mistakes and misjudgments are often made.

So I guess I would want to think that a whole lot of people were going to feel a whole lot better so as to make the balance worth it allowing for the miscarriages of justice.

The second argument is just money. Locking people up for decades at a time costs a ridiculously high sum. And perhaps not just in money because the people who do what is required can be rather brutalised by the process. And hurt in other ways too.

Neither of these arguments gets close to convincing me. I would just feel tacky about the whole thing. Hard as it is to value such a man as this guy - horrible as it is to acknowledge that to be human is somehow to share something of his weirdness - I feel more comfortable doing that; while maybe trying to understand how to buttress all the wonderfully good things encompassed by our humanity from the weirdnesses; than I do just rejecting him utterly and consigning him to oblivion.

[MrBaggins]

Perhaps it was an iffy batch of KoolAid, and he's the only one that doesn't like it.

[Arrian]

I'm against the DP as policy, mostly because the justice system is, like all other things we create, quite fallible. Mistakes are made, and as bad as sending an innocent person to prison may be, it's a helluva lot better than killing an innocent person.

This sick ****, however... there is definitely a part of me that says "fry him!" There is another part that says "put him in a small room with padded walls & floor, and have psychologists study him for the remainder of his life."

Under no circumstances, and I do mean NO circumstances, should he ever be allowed out of a secure mental facility.

-Arrian

[The diplomat]

Let us not forget that Kerry would not support the death penatly in this case, as he has said that he would inly support the death penalty for terrorism.

How anyone could oppose the death penalty in this case is beyond me!

[Mr. Harley]

Nice discussion, have been busy over the last couple of weeks, little one's birthday.

I've mentioned before, and I will say again. I am opposed to the death penalty for procedural reasons. Until the United States judicial system is willing to admit to two levels of guilt - beyond a reasonable doubt and beyond any doubt I am opposed to the death penalty. To execute an innocent person is an abomination, and there are excellent indications that has been done in the US. When the state of Texas can have the prosecuting attorney begin to implement a policy of destroying rape kits from previous cases to prevent genetic testing (this happened just a few years ago - these were older kits that had never been subject to genetic testing) because the people involved were rightly convicted by a jury of their peers, then I will remain unalterably opposed to the death penalty.

If, and only if, prosecuting attorneys are subject to exterior review, and bad convictions brought about by them and the police are constantly examined, and after a certain number of false convictions they are banned from acting as prosecutors/banned from acting as detectives then the death penalty can never be properly implemented in the United States. This doesn't even get into the issue of mental illness.

If the man believed he was god, he is definitely mentally ill. His actions of being found covered in blood, and cooperating with the police, tend to support this. Some posters here, for the death penalty, commented that if one was shot full of some chemical then they would not be guilty, otherwise that individual must take responsibility for their actions. What many people don't realize is that for many mentally ill their brain is doing just that, pumping the wrong chemicals out and making their behavior bizarre, uncontrollable, and at times, deadly.

Does he need to be removed from any chance of ever harming anyone again? Yes. However, while this crime is horrific, look at the collapse of Enron. I can almost guarantee, given the number of people involved and the fact that many were retired, that a fair number of suicides resulted from the actions of certain officers of that company. Even worse, Keating Saving and Loan where they DELIBERATELY targeted older, retired people with dishonest investment/churing advice. How many older, retired people committed suicide when faced with living off of dogfood and living in a high crime apartment as they lost everything they had? These men are evil, and I would argue from the amount of pain, suffering, and yes death resulting from his actions that if anyone deserves the death penalty, people involved in large scale, massive fraud, especially targeting the elderly who can never recover, they do (and in the PRC, that can happen on a random basis). Of course, if you grant that premise, where does it stop? I'll take the safer course and oppose the death penalty, thank you.

[Capt Dizle]

A couple of points I would like to make. There is no "sort" of person that is not capable of committing crimes. All of us are capable of that.

People tend to resist religious zealots who attempt to impose their moral standards on society as a whole. Most opposition to the death penalty is very similar, except it is an attempt by humanists to impose their standards on society. Fact is, that you can't impose moral or ethical standards on nations or states, it simple cannot be applied. The whole idea of requiring a government to be moral or ethical as we might think that a person should be is outright idiocy.

So any attempt to oppose the death penalty on the basis of morality is moot and baseless.

Also, many have taken the position that there should be a moratorium on the death penalty because DNA testing has proven that the innocent have been convicted. This is actually a reason to continue the use of the death penalty, as it demonstrates that a smaller percentage of the innocent will be convicted in the future.

Clearly the death penalty is a deterrent in some cases and not a deterrent in others. It is perfectly logical that the net effect of the death penalty is fewer innocent deaths overall. If you want to make an argument that the financial cost of administering the death penalty is too high relative to the estimates of lives that it save, be my guest. But spare me the bleeding liberal heartache. It is not relevant.

[Sava]

I support the DP in principle, but think it is unfairly applied; and that the justice system needs reform.