Death penalty is damn right

[DinoDoc]

Is there a difference between dieing of old age behind bars and being fried? The state has taken a life in both instances.

[reds4ever]

I know which one I'd choose. So yes, there is a difference

[DinoDoc]

In what way?

[Arrian]

Life in prison leaves open the possibility of overturning an erroneous conviction (permanently, whereas with the DP, eventually they run out of appeals).

The justice system is all sorts of fallable. I'd rather err on the side of caution.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Oh, **** this ****in ****, man!

-Arrian

[DinoDoc]

Your post is too FABULOUS to respond to.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
In what way?

I agree with Arrian (but not in pink)

[Arrian]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Your post is too FABULOUS to respond to.

[alva]

/me notes, Arrian is going out of his way to avoid words.


Next year: Random (gay) smilies!!!

[The Mad Monk]

Fine, don't fry them.

Lobotomize them, and have them clean public restrooms.

[ajbera]

Originally posted by Tingkai

Exactly. The justice system makes mistakes all the time. We can't trust it with the power to determine life or death. Better to throw the murderers in jail for life.

I'm not arguing the justice system is infallible. It isn't. I also happen to believe the death penalty is often misapplied, or unjustly applied (there is a racist element.) I think it should be reviewed and refined to make the death penalty a more equitable penalty - certain crimes deserve it, and as long as the evidence is there, as long a doubt is minimal (it's usually too much to hope for non-existence), those crimes should receive it. There's room for repair, but doesn't mean the idea of the State taking a life for certain heinous crimes is wrong.

I understand you disagree, and I accept it, but it's a philosphical difference, and we'll have to agree to disagree.

Also, if the victim had been a severely deformed kid, how many people would be talking about this case? How many would be demanding the death penalty?

This, however, is a specious argument. It's coming from an emotional perspective, like the accusation that we're crying for the DP just because it's an epileptic toddler. We're not. The penalty should be the same whether the victim was a child, adult, or elderly person.

The question is whether or not kidnapping someone, beating their skull in with a shovel, then tossing them in the river is a crime heinous enough to warrant State-sponsored extinction. I think it is; you think it isn't. It doesn't matter who the victim is.

[Patroklos]

Maybe thats the price we pay for living in a civilized society?

Interesting how this has snuck into what makes “civilized society.� Absolutely no reason for it. It is basically just a semantic choice some people make out of nothing more than opinion. Which is of course what all rules of civilized society are, but since they are entirely arbitrary, we can decide DP is part of civilized society just like we can decide it isn’t.

Remember the purpose of a penal system is to reform, not to avenge.

That is a negative. The purpose of life sentences is to make people go away forever when they prove they are incapable of operating in society by their own choosing. Whether or not you believe in the DP or not, the purpose of such sentences is not to reform.

One of my chief concerns is that, by devaluing life via executions, if we aren't actually inducing far more murders that we're deterring.

Executions have the opposite purpose. It shows that we hold life on a pedestal, and it says something that the worst possible punishment is reserved for those who interfere with it.

Human beings are rational entities with the ability to make choices. When it is proven that they made a rational decision knowing the consequences of their choices (ie not insane) they should be held responsible. Freedom is not just being able to make choices, it is reaping the consequences of them.

People tend to think that it is the government taking their life, which is ridiculous. These individuals voluntarily forfeited it.

The government has a prerogative to defend society. The death penalty does not defend society in any way that imprisonment does not

Sure it does, cremated bodies rarely escape and hurt again, nore do they require a society that has already withstood a viscious attack against it forced to continued to be leached from to support this scum.

I am sure those parents are happy their child’s murder is watching cable television for the next 50 years out of their taxes.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Excatly, It is not the job of anyone here to change the minds of believers or non belivers in the DP. The only thing one can do is express why he/she feels the way they do on this topic. The penal system like life is always fallable, no one thing is perfect.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Cyclotron
and while a state has the right to act to keep its people safe, the state does not have the right to act out of vengeance.

Oh, but it does. "Vengeance" is an element in every punishment. There's a legitimate interest in ensuring that people suffer the consequences of their actions, even though the "suffering" doesn't necessarily rectify the original wrong. A person with a mandatory minimum 3 year sentence might be rehabilitated after a year and a half, but he must stayin in prison for the entire 3 year term. Why? Because he is being punished. For example, imprisoning someone for assault does not turn back time and prevent the assault from occuring. "Vengeance" in the way that you use it is nothing more than a loaded term, an emotional appeal. Oh, the irony.

Rights should be abridged only when to not abridge them would endanger the equivalent rights of others. You have yet to demonstrate how "doing something heinous" requires death, making this just another platitude.

By this reasoning, imprisonment should end the second that rehabilitation is achieved. A murderer who "sees the light" after three years should be granted freedom because he's no longer dangerous, with no regard to his prior actions. This is why the position can be assailed as being more sympathetic to the criminal than to the victim.
Not saying that you are (which is why I couched my statement with the phrase "Am I missing something?"), but that is how this philospohy can be viewed by someone who believes that bad actions should have proportionally bad consequences.

Why do you think that a heinous crime deserves life imprisonment, especially if the murderer could somehow be reformed and made harmless after a few years? How can you justify advocating life imrisonment for someone who could possibly be rehabilitated? Isn't that just "vengeance"?

Punishment has value in and of itself. Society has a desire to see bad people get what's coming to them. This desire is incorporated into our legal system, as demonstrated by the fact that we have different punishments for different crimes. The worse we consider the crime to be, the more harsh the criminal's sentence is. Leaving that desire unfulfilled can lead to vigilantism. That's often why particularly objectionable offenders tend to fall victim to "prison justice." I prefer to have the judicial system dispense justice rather not have to rely on prison vigilantism.

but I see a certain heirarchy of punishment: execution is more serious than imprisonment. A prisoner can still contribute to the world; this we saw during the Stanley Williams incident.

Maybe some prisoners can still contribute to this world, but I don't believe that they deserve to contribute. If they wanted to contribute, then they shouldn't have murdered people. They've forfeited their right to contribute. We're never going to agree on this, because we have different foundational philosophies. What you see as unjustifiable "vengeance," I see as consequences reaped by a person who consciously and intentionally decided to murder someone without provocation.

If life imprisonment is sufficient to fulfill the prerogatives of the state, why execute?

I have 4 reasons why I find death a more appropriate than life imprisonment:

1. It prevents the criminal from escaping from incarceration
2. It prevents the criminal from victimizing other prisoners
3. I find it unjust that we pay to keep these people alive while other needs go unmet
4. I don't find it enough of a removal from society. These people still can interact with others, they can still watch t.v. and read books, they can still use the drugs and alcohol that are smuggled into prison, and, in some instances, they can still conduct criminal operations while imprisoned.

Yes, these elements incorporate the "vengeance" that you. When people do certain crimes, they lose their right to certain enjoyments. The worse the crime, the worse the punishment should be. However, they also incorporate societal protections that life imprisonment doesn't.

The argument I usually hear then is something along the lines of "why should we have to pay to keep that SOB alive?" My answer to this is that, unfortunately, what is the duty of a civilized society is not always either expedient or monetarily efficient. Feeding prisoners is simply one of the costs of an advanced system of justice.

I think this is a monstrous misuse of public funds. Why should irredemable criminals be clothed, fed, and sheltered by the state when law abiding citizens go hungry? Maybe you find this to be acceptable. I don't, because the murderer has affirmitavely acted in a way that has cost him his rights. The needy people shouldn't have to go without because someone who has acted in a way as to require his removal from society gets priority. That seems unjust.

Currently, if the statistics I've seen are correct, it costs more (in California, at least) to execute than to imprison.

Statistics such as these are highly unreliable, because they have been politicized. The figures differ depending on which side is putting them forward, as each side takes takes different things for granted and counts different costs.

There's that "innocent" word again. I wonder what the point you are trying to make with that is?

I thought that I made that perfectly clear. Killing an innocent person is killing someone when there are no mitigating factors that could lead to a lesser charge. It's preplanned killing without any provocation. Anything less than this receives a lesser sentence, like murder 2, manslaughter, etc.

People should recieve the chance to rehabilitate, quite simply, because people are not perfect. I'm not saying that this applies specifically to this case; it may be that the state deems them unredeemable. Generally speaking, however, people deserve a second chance because the society owes them one.

Now you're the one speaking in platitudes. "People deserve a second chance because society owes them one."

I agree that rehabilitation should be the primary goal for lesser crimes. They're lesser crimes because society has judged them to be so, and consequently gives out lesser punishments for them. Since they're going to be out in society again, it's in our best interest to rehabilitate them so they don't commit more crimes and cause more harm when released. Society does this not because it "owes" the criminal the chance for rehabilitation, but because it owes it to itself to ensure its own safety and stability.

People who have commited crimes so severe that they're not going to be released aren't "owed" a chance to rehabilitate. They've permanently lost their chance to be in greater society. You even recognize this. Rehabilitation ceases to become a reason for their imprisonment. If they're never going to be allowed out into greater society, then why suffer the four elements that make life imprisonment inferior to death?

We must not turn our back on any that can be returned to civil society.

Doesn't this contradict your position on giving murderers life imprisonment without parole? What if they could be somehow rehabilitated? Should they be released? You tend to conflate two different poistions. The debate between the sufficency of D.P. and life imprisonment is one debate. The debate between absolutely removing someone from greater society (be it through execution of life imprisonment) and rehabilitate and release regardless of crime commited is another distinct argument. Sometimes you argue as if you believe that some crimes incur permanent removal from society (which means the debate is over what constitutes "permanent removal") , other times you argue as if you support releasing rehabilitated murderers. These are incompatable positions.

Degrees of murder are based on the intent of the killer, not on the degree of "innocentness" of the victim.

Half truth. You're limiting this to murder, but there are other homicide crimes. Voluntary manslaughter takes the victim's provocation into account. A victim who provokes the killer is not an innocent victim. Murder 2 in most cases is basically a stronger form of voluntary manslaughter.
The legal system realizes that killing someone who provokes you is not as bad as killing someone who doesn't provoke you, as is demonstrated through different sentencing levels for the different homicide crimes. Yes, it is tied to the killer's intent, but the actions of the victim are also taken into account.

We're never going to convince each other. We'll just trade platitudes for platitudes and emotional appeals for emotional appeals. I think the "irrevocable rights" and "vengeance" arguments are meritless, because I don't agree with the philosphies undergirding those arguments.

The only good argument against the D.P. IMO is the danger of executing an innocent. That's a very strong argument, and it's why I think that execution should only be the answer in the most obvious of cases. I think that in a perfect legal system there would be no life imprisonment, only execution (because of the 4 elements I listed above). However, I realize that the system is imperfect, and that life imprisonment is a necessary evil. However, when you have someone like John Wayne Gacy, someone who was absolutely and clearly guilty, then there's no reason to keep him alive.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

I had the experience of going thru hi school with my father who is now deceased as a prison inmate. While going to the process of writing to this man and recieving letters i realized there is something wrong when these guys can make their own alochol with things in the prison, smoke, get fed up to 6 times a day, have free run of the place, read porn and live life i, (sorry i am not seeing suffering or rehab going on here). They arent forced to go to rehabailtion classes they choose to do this if they want to try to get out.
My father was in there for murder, a bar room fight that ended in the loss of another mans life. You can call me heartless if you want but i no where think that my dads life was or wasnt any more important then the man that died.
If my dad would have gotten the DP then we would have had to accept it. He like the others in that bar had choices. He choose to be there, he chose to get into a fight, so did the guy that died, and the results were that two families were now with out fathers.
Bottom line if you are conscious enough to choose this crime then you must also be willing to accept what penalties come with it.