Are you for or against the death penalty?

Hello. The death penalty is often the subject of intense debates. Are you for or against it?

Personally I am for it. And it's for practical reasons: if we instead throw people in prison for life, it costs a huge amount of money to house, feed, clothe, and otherwise take care of them. It's money VERY un-well-spent. I could sort of see spending a lot of money on the permanently disabled. I mean these people truly need help and they didn't choose to be disabled. But the condemned are hardened criminals, people who murdered innocent people, and often in very brutal manners. Why should the tax-payers be burdened with supporting them? Best to just put a bullet through their temple.

Of course, others might hold very different views. Maybe they think that all life is sacred, and that we must not take ANY life. This is just one of the arguments against the death penalty. There could be others, too.

So..what are your thoughts, and why?

 

I am generally against it, but every now and then I read about a crime so heinous that I would execute them myself if given the chance. I sense that there has been generally a move away from using it except in the more extreme murder cases generally. I don't think it is even the juries so much as the prosecutors who are content with just putting most folks away for life instead since nobody really cares if a lifer's rights were violated or how effective their counsel was, or if any shred of evidence withheld by the prosecution would have been relevant.

 

For some reason we make things needlessly expensive. Compare the cost of a rope to the millions of dollars spent to keep a single person in life imprisonment.

 

I am against it. I don't trust the state with anything, so why would I trust them with another person's life?

 

We should bring back the gallows.

 

Get a rope.

 

I'm for it because I think it's justice.

I don't think we do justice to the victims when we house and take care of their murderers for life.

My two cents ....

 

There are arguments against using it as a deterrent, and to a large degree I understand that argument.

A criminal might be inclined to kill witnesses, for example, to avoid the death penalty. That's sort of a tiger chasing it's own tail though.

Where I think the death penalty should come into play are for those we have to put in supermax prisons. These are people who will never be let out of prison for the things they have done.

These people can never be rehabilitated, and nothing is served by keeping them in prison until they die of old age.

The funny thing about the death penalty, and what people don't like to look at, is "cruel and unusual" punishment.

At the time that was written, pretty much any felony (rape, murder, stealing a ....horse, robbery) you were convicted of resulted in a pretty quick hanging.

At the time "cruel and unusual" punishment was being caged for the rest of your life.

Strange how that has flipped over time.

 

I'm all for a compromise to it; for example, where there is indisputable forensic and circumstantial proof of guilt then the perpetrator should be locked up in solitary, and on a basic diet, with a cyanide pill close to hand for if the guilty one becomes overwhelmed with remorse and wants to do the honourable thing.

 

.45 to the back of the head is cheap, fast and effective.

 

Neither. It’s far too complex an issue to turn in to a definitive binary question.

I think it’s a dangerous precedent to establish a purely financial point at which it’s legitimate to kill another human being. You justify this by declaring that all the people you’re condemning as hardened criminals and brutal murderers but for many of the people who could fall within the scope of this aren’t like that at all. They’re more often to be weak and vulnerable individuals dragged down a dark spiral.

From a purely financial point of view, the number of criminals you’re talking about, especially limited to “hardened criminals”, is so small that the overall cost, even considering full life sentences, is a drop in the ocean. And that of course requires you to actually reduce the cost of the legal process for death sentences, preferably without removing the checks and balances that should be in place, which is easy to say but difficult to do (or it would have been done already).

 

The "cost" probably should not be a factor in the decision. In any case, from what I have read, considering the appeals process, "the cost" is a wash between life-long incarceration and being put to death.

Revenge is a lousy factor to consider...no matter how tempting it is to allow it to be.

In any case, if the alternative is "life in prison without the possibility of parole"...I consider "death" (by whatever means) to be much more humane.

As a binary question...I favor the death penalty.

 

I believe not all States still have the death penalty but those who do are those that religion plays a part in decision making. Strange, when they know the 6th commandment condemns the right to kill.
The death penalty as a deterrent has been totally debunked for years and used as a way to save money is just immoral. Which leaves the emotional and real reason it’s still used for putting someone to death i.e. vengeance. For those who have been really affected by the crime, I have some understanding of the case for execution but not for five years or more after the crime was committed.
Why I don’t support execution is, that should one innocent person is put to death then the whole grizzly practice should be brought to an end.

 

The rule of law has become dilute in America. From the 1960s onward law has fallen victim to politics. After the glorious victory of the Civil Rights movement the left co-opted it and turned it into a ever evolving circus of protected groups.This meant deconstructing and redefining centuries old law that had already stood the test of time. Since then equal justice for all has become perverse and Orwellian it is more equal for a few at the peril of many. It has become such a mess that I'm not sure it can be fixed. Too many politically hot issues have been tossed back to the states by the cowards in the Washington and the results have been disastrous. America once was the sum of it's fifty states a whole nation and with few exceptions most laws were the law of the land. When we started tinkering with that to solve small problems the rule of law began to unravel and we lost our grasp of the big picture and the greater good. The death penalty should not be off the table anywhere, it should be the law of the land but not without absolute evidence of murder. I'm inclined to include such a penalty for violent crimes that do not take a life but cause a lifetime infirmity or incapacity as in the case of rape and lesser sexual abuse. Again a preponderance of evidence much exist in making such decisions.

 

As the saying goes: THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS.

I suspect your comment, "...but not without absolute evidence of murder" actually was meant to mean, "...but not without absolute evidence of guilt." (Evidence of "murder" is not hard to obtain. Seldom do suicide victims shoot themselves four or five times...especially in the head.)

And "...preponderance of evidence..." can be one thing for a minority suspect...and quite another for someone with wealth and standing.

I support the death penalty...but mostly because the most often used alternative is "life in prison without the possibility of parole." No one should ever be subjected to that...unless we create a Devil's Island or Escape from New York kind of scenario.

 

One problem is that innocent people are sometimes convicted of crimes (see the Innocence Project https://www.innocenceproject.org/) and once you've executed someone it's too late to let them out.

 

I support the death penalty, however, since WW 2 our liberal courts have so damaged due process that current death row inmates now take about 15 years on average to be executed. Laws must be changed so the average wait is only 6 months---as it was in the past.

As for those who think that "innocent people" may be unjustly executed, that is a fantasy. There are no significant numbers of felons on death row with no prior criminal history. Certainly any death row inmate with 2 prior violent felony convictions are too great of a danger to be kept alive----even if there is the slightest chance they are actually innocent of their latest crime. Pro-terrorist and anarchist organizations do not want any thugs, no matter how dangerous they have been to rightfully pay for their crimes:

https://www.innocenceproject.org/

 

yes, for heinous crimes with undisputable evidence. opponents of death penalty often point to the deeply flawed american system... But that's hardly the only or best way to do it. Heinous and undisputable are the key words.

 

I favored the death penalty in the past for cases of incontrovertibly guilty violent recidivists. My support of the death penalty was based on the idea that violent recidivist criminals should be removed from the world because they do harm whether they're in prison or not. Lifers victimize, teach and otherwise influence those around them in prison, which has a deleterious effect on people outside of the prison system as well as those within it.

Now I think there is another alternative. The technology exists to sentence a criminal to virtual reality. A convict could be maintained at relatively low cost by putting him into a "Matrix" style sensory deprivation pod and feeding him a virtual environment that would prevent him from interacting with anyone else, could potentially be used to effect rehabilitation training, yet would leave him alive and sane should he be found to have been wrongly convicted at some point in the future.

 

I'm for the death penalty but I'd like to change how we implement it.

First off, there needs to be 2 types of convictions; guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and guilty with absolutely no doubt. A video of the murderer committing his crimes falls into the "no doubt" category.

For criminals who fall into the no doubt category execution should be swift, like the next day. What good is having a deterrent, which the death penalty is, if we execute a guy 20 years from the day he's convicted? No one will remember who the guy is and they won't care. But if he's executed while everyone still knows and remembers him then maybe it will prevent future murders.

Also, regarding how we execute someone, I don't buy this 'it might cause pain' argument. If We can perform brain and open heart surgery without causing pain then we can execute someone with little or no pain. Besides, where does it say causing pain is unconstitutional? Everyone suffers pain at some time in their lives and most of us will suffer pain when we die.

 

I am no expert on this subject. I do remember a documentary with the BBC's Louis Theroux. He spent a few weeks talking, interacting with death row inmates, guards and ultimately the officers and "physicians"

I used "" for a reason. The so called professionals administering the lethal injections had less training than veterinarians.

 

Personally I don't really care one way or the other! Although if I'm the victim of a crime of that magnitude and quick enough, I will save the American taxpayer the burden of trial, incarceration, lethal injection, burial or cremation

 

I agree with your reasons. Here are mine regarding the traditional arguments::


"The death penalty is not a deterrent."
Yes it is, but only if you actually use it. Otherwise it is an empty threat.
Imagine what happens if you find a large gun in your face and a convincing voice orders you to surrender your money or you die. Imagine you know the last person he threatened this way who refused was promptly killed. You know that the death penalty for failing to surrender is real and imminent. You will believe it, and you will comply because you do. That is deterrence.

Now imagine what happens if some unarmed jerk comes up and demands your money, and says if you do not surrender it, he may come back in 15 years and there is some remote possibility that he will actually kill you. Now the death penalty is an empty threat, more along the lines of "Just wait until I tell your mother what you did!".
If you want to deter actions with a consequence- the consequence MUST happen, it must be real. This is credibility of the rules, parallel to the situation of parenting where some parents have no control and others have no problem.

"The courts make mistakes, innocent people get executed."
This is true, but there are ways we could modify the laws to avoid that. For example, a conviction even of first degree murder could be assigned a confidence level. If the evidence is so totally beyond doubt that there is no doubt, the death penalty is on the table. If there is a possibility of error- meaning that a jury finds guilt beyond a reasonable doubt but not beyond all possible doubt, the death penalty is not on the table. The confidence level could be reviewed by a higher court as well. In Kansas today, there are two brothers by the name of Carr, who murdered and abused a group of five people they kidnapped from their residence. They took them to a snow covered country field, made them strip, and systematically shot them- however, one of the victims shot in the head took a glancing shot and survived by playing dead. When the killers left, she walked about a half mile in the snow to a light at a distant house. The Carrs were caught shortly afterward- driving the victims car, using their credit cards, possessing their property, carrying the guns used in the murders. They were not only described clearly by the survivor in advance of capture, but identified without question.

In some cases, there simply is no doubt. But 15 years after the killings, the Carr brothers are still alive and well in a state prison. Like many other states Kansas can't figure out what to do, and hasn't actually executed anyone in over 50 years. The victim that survived is paying the taxes that help provide the expense of supporting their prison life, as well as the legal maneuvers they continue to pursue. There needs to be a line between beyond reasonable doubt and absolutely no doubt. We don't have that.

The element of deterrence is related to both probability and time. In this respect, we also fail to act in a timely way- and many under death penalty die of old age. I believe that as the measure of confidence in a conviction rises, the options for endless review and appeals should be limited. In a case where the confidence is absolute, the review of the case should consist of perhaps two steps, and those should be on a fast track- resulting in sentence being carried out within a year of conviction. Presently ours laws do not have any way to do that.

"There is some good in everyone, people can change"
There are always some who think forgiveness is a solution, and they aren't like to go away. However the rate of recidivism (or re-offense) by violent criminals released from prison is about 70%. in three years- and that only considers the ones caught and convicted again, not the actual rate of offenses. The initial experience of doing anything is much more difficult than repeating it, be it your first time off the diving board- or murder; we become conditioned and less hesitant. Yet, our system regularly releases inmates convicted of murder who soon commit another. While we do not know positively who will and who won't kill again, statistics show that the mindset which enables people to justify such things in the first place is very deeply set and very difficult to alter. There is a question of how many lives are we willing to put at risk by releasing a person proven to have the capacity to murder at all. I think this is something critical to our choices of sentencing and paroles, but poorly considered and needs to be improved. Personally, it would seem that once a person has committed an intentional murder, their right to be part of society is surrendered.

"It costs more to execute a person than to keep them in prison for life".
Does it? That depends on how we go about it, how we create justice- or injustice, as the families of the victims wait for decades and often in vain for justice and closure. We entertain the idea that the death penalty should be humane, when generally it's true purpose is to remove the most inhumane people from society and send the message that the kind of crime they committed will not be tolerated. We spend that outrageous cost not just on housing costs but on endless legal appeals and complicated processes of execution that are supposedly humane. It would actually be more humane physically to use a firing squad than a chemical injection or hanging or electrocution, and that requires very little expense. This "cheaper to" argument is one we have made logical by our own illusion that somehow dragging things on indefinitely is better than making decisions and acting. We are entangled by complexity and confusion of our own making.

First step to fixing anything is to realize it needs fixing. We could do that, the question is why we don't.

 

I don’t mean to be offensive but you are arguing with yourself. To point out that putting to death an innocent person (it has happened and will again) is a powerful argument against the death penalty but then you agree with execution if it was carried out one day after the sentence was announced, you can’t bring the dead back to life.