Death Penalty

I would like to believe everyone is reedeemable.

With that I'm going against the death penalty. Our prison and correction facilities may not be the best, but they are better than nothing. Let's continue to reform those and forget this death penalty business.

 

I don't believe in death penalty. Only because I think imprisonment for life is a worse punishment.
But what is the purpose of death penalty? Is it for saving money? Or for Showing that this particular crime is beyond redemption? Why can't we just lock up people for life? Why the easy way out with death?

On a sidenote to those who don't believe in death penalty or imprisonment for life( not implying any of the previous posters has this attitude):

Raise your hands if you think the terrorist Who rammed the WTC, given he survived, could become mayor of New York. To follow that logic look at the following. Anything could be redeemed. So This person could better himself. Not *If* but *when* he did so, he actually turned out quite clever. So clever that he for some reason ran for mayor of New York. And since he was such a nice and redeemed person people would vote for him.

Give me a break.

[ November 07, 2002, 20:41: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

 

I think the death punishment should apply if the person has done more than one crimes, such as murder or rape, some criminals such as ones going round commiting crimes for the sheer pointless sport of it might apply for the penalty. I think that some people with life sentences should get the punishment too, it's a life sentence should you pay it with your life, 25 years in jail can't do much really, you will either die there or come out with nothing for you.

 

What BTA says, is that an accident is when no one deliberately breaks the law and still death occur. Drowning, elektrochock, caraccidents. Though it isn't illegal to swim or drive you risk to die or drown. Same thing with death senetence. The jury and judge don't break the law. Unless they of course acts deliberately against the evidence brought before them.

In short;
A jury and judge act according to law. Someone dies. A swimmer swims according to law and drowns. Someone dies, Same reasoning. Something different is when a drunk driver **breaks** the law. someone dies. *Not* same reasoning.

There is a fundamental flaw of logic in denying death sentence solely due to the risk of deadly accidents. Or a fundamemtal disbelief in other people's strenght of judgement. (here the legal system)

[ November 07, 2002, 21:54: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

 

I think the death penalty is not the solution. Just lock somebody up and throw away the key. However, there should be a choice for the person who is send to prison, that instead of a life time in prison, that he may request death instead. I do think however that people should spend a longer time in prison for some crimes, especially here in Holland.

To comment on what Nobleman said. There should not be a jury system. The jury doesn't act according to the law. They act according to their own feelings. The vote for which lawyer does the best dance. What would you expect from some people that were asked from the street. Shouldn't someone with knowledge of the law, judge a criminal.

[ November 07, 2002, 21:12: Message edited by: Silverblade ]

 

I'm sorry, but I simply detest the judgemental, supremely arrogant attitude that allows a man (or woman) to be killed by the state. Not only is it just another life wasted, but it just trasfers the sin of murder to someone else. Who are we to decide whether a being entirely independant of us is destroyed? - it is not our decision to make.

[ November 07, 2002, 21:45: Message edited by: Sir Yerril of Morningmist ]

 

Yerril;
what do you propose instead? Or would you rather not comment further? Just curious

Silverblade;
Isn't it better that we strive for a jury who consist of people from all parts of society instead of lawyers? people who only come to court with commen sense, not common laws? Do you have a more efficient proposal for a legal system witout lawyers?

 

What, does nobody have a comment on the institution of corporal vs capital punishment?

 

Nobleman, the desire to see people more justly punished is a good one, but I cannot agree with life sentences being the worst sentence given.

Here's why:

1) People can get used to anything. A couple of posts mention the part of prison's punishment is being sodomized by your fellow inmates. This seems to be the reverse of the 'it will never happen to me' syndrome; you do realize that for each inmate being anally raped, another is happily (or angrily or whatever) doing the raping?

2) Life in prison is still life. A prisoner can always hope that today will be the day they are set free, be it by escaping or a pardon or overturned case. Those guilty of the most monstrous of crimes do not deserve such hope.

3) My most practical reason: it costs us money to keep prisoners alive and in humane conditions. Each year prisoners around the nation join the Million Dollar Club: taxpayers have spent one million dollars on that individuals stay in prison. A life sentence means that the prisoner is fed, housed, and clothed with public funds for the rest of his or her life. I don't want to pay for the cheeseburger of a serial rapist.

Now, don't think I'm a cold-hearted fiend who wants everyone in prison dead. I realize that there are flaws in the system; I agree with the moratoriums imposed by my home state of Illinois and several others. As it stands, innocent men and women are being sentenced to death. Until this can be corrected, the death penalty should not be imposed. Many mitigating factors should be taken into consideration before the decision to end someone's life is final. Sir Belisarius's list show several (however I cannot agree that marital infidelity is a capital offense). A better system of sentencing is needed.

As for torture as a punishment, I agree with the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Similar to prison rape scenario, I think that many people don't realize that such torture would have to be carried out by people. For each rapist castrated, there is a human being whose job it is to carry out that castration. The sudden creation of a job force numbering in the thousands whose sole responsibility is the performance of acts of perverse brutality is an idea that frightens me. I cannot imagine the twisted effect that years of such work would leave on those who perform it. Nowadays we make jokes about the violent mental breakdowns that seems to pop up every so often in the Postal Service. Just think about such problems in the Department of Unusual Punishment.

I understand the strong emotions that are conjured by the lowest elements of society, but such feelings must be suppressed and a calculating stance taken up on the issues plaguing the penal system.

 

Excellent post. You comment on how to carry out torture, humans would have to do it. It reminded me of an account of a victim of amputation (right hand, left foot) in Afghanistan. The man gave his account from his hospital. He described being brought into the stadium and having his limbs removed. One of the doctors doing the amputation was crying while doing it. Some of the guards who transported him to the hospital afterwards apologized.
Is this what people want? I don't.

 

That is a good point, and something I hadn't given thought to. Still, I don't see a problem with hard labor. Surely we can find something useful for these guys to do other than sit around and watch TV.

 

First move before I even touched the death penality issue.

I'd have chain gangs of 12 mandantory for all federal inmates.

And I've have them hot-racking 12-hour shifts. For those of you who don't know what I mean, that's where there is exactly 1/2 the number of sleeping racks as there are inmates.

So one shift is in a cell for 12-hours, then out laying asphalt and picking up litter for another 12. I tell you right now, you'd solve about 50 problems right off the top of the entire list.

Sure, sure, sure. You'd have inmates feeling like Prisoners of War. Pull a couple of 200 miles hikes in the dead heat of August, in Arizona, and you'd rapidly see the difference between inhumane treatment and keeping-them-inline.

That is all.

 

Good Points Deviant mage.

On your 1)
I am asuming that prison is supposed to be an unpleasant experience. Not because of raping, torture and what ever we have mentioned above but because of Either as Capstone puts it. Hard labour. Or else I would vote for the direct opposite. Absolutely nothing to do.

2)
By imprisonment for life I mean imprisonment for life. Again I would rather see a prison as an uninviting place, not as a kindergarden vacation for life. If there is hope. Let it be a pathetic and not an inspiring one. High security prisons for life time prisoners with lifestyle from number "1". Freedom should be a dream, not a hope.

3) Yep we agree. This is my only cynical drawback of imprisonment for life. They cost money.

I have nothing but hatred against rapists, massmurderers and the like. Let hem rot in spelhold for all I care. If there is redemption, let them ponder on that for the rest of their lives in a miserable insignificant cell, where the highligt of the day is creating bricks for buildings, to keep the prison a non taxpayer burden.

[ November 08, 2002, 03:08: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

 

I am pro and con for the death penalty. Some people deserve it so much - but they don't get it. Others, IMO, don't deserve it - but are given it. It just depends on the situation.

I'm going to give tiny things of my imagination as to why I DON'T think the death penalty law should be ALWAYS used, rather weighed at the head of the judge. (I've never studied law, especially the American laws, so correct me if I'm wrong.)

CON - A man's wife has been cheating on him for 2 years, and one day he comes home early and sees his best friend in bed with his wife. He gets in rage and gets a bit violent. The (ex-)wife and friend barely escape and the man is left with nothing but betrayal. 6 months after the incident, he is still really depressed and has already attempted suicided several times. One night he's walking down his street, depressed, when a couple of girls (minors) walk up to him, and start leading him on, teasing him, etc., so he gets really agitated and pissed off, and rapes them. When they try to run away, his rage gets the better of him and he beats them. Realizing what he has done when they escape, he runs back to his house and stays there for a week when the police come.

PRO - A couple of thugs sneak along the streets at night, pulling men and women alike into dark alleys and making them "disappear". Nobody's caught them, and it's been a week. 15 people are missing already. Finally, a group of people walk by the same alley, and the thugs are on them. 1 person escapes and rushes to the police immediately. The police come and find the thugs' hideout. The 15 are dead, overloaded with fatal drugs and/or killed from fast drinking (alcohol). After a few hours the thugs themselves are found trying to kill the group members in the same member. They are taken in front of the judge, and their identities are found. They've owned illegal possession of drugs, guns, and alcohol and have already killed 4 people before the "incidents".

 

I think this is something I'm not really going to speak on, because it's like the abortion issue (which I don't want to get into!) I see too many shades of gray. But I do want to say that we can argue about something like this until we're absolutely blue in the face, but we'll never truly know how we feel about it unless we're one of the ones on that jury...or a family member of that person..or that person. It's just to emotional of a subject.

 

I made a few comments, interesting ones I think, on my opinion on death penalty on page 2 of this thread.

 

I see a lot of tree-huggers in this thread. And like all the rest, they focus on just one aspect, totally neglecting the entire rest of the world and subsequent equation.

Look. When you change one varible in a equation, this has an effect on the result. The result is directly affected by that one variable.

Some variables are much larger than other, and some smaller.

That's where the debate is. And DEATH just so happens to be one of the larger variables (rating just under SEXUAL INTERCOURSE). Evolutionary Psychology rules even over Death.

There's only so many people in a Nation. There's only so many guards, and so many prisons. More prisoners means more resources.

I'm not sure what the exact number is right now, but last time I looked we had something like 10,000 inmates on death row in our entire country. Jesus H. Christ knows how many total inmates we have. Obviously, only Federal inmates would be tallied against the number of Death Rowers, as those are the only ones that the Death Penality can even be levied against.

Something has to give. You have to start offering more money to the guards, so more people are inclined to become a guard. You have to build larger prisons, and more often than not, a larger number of prisons.

Or, you have to start letting the army or the National Guard take care of prisoners, which is DIRECTLY against their sole purpose of even being. Army ain't supposed to run domestic disputes until there's a martial law, and the National Guard is there for emergencies and to engage the Federal Armed Forces in case we need another Revolution. 1776 and that whole "2nd Amendment" thing still pisses us all off over here on this side of the Lake.

Soooooooo. Can't pawn the job off. It costs cash. Where do we get the cash?

To many senior citizens don't want us touching Social Security. The whole "vote" thing doesn't work on that one, ever. It gets shot down over enemy territory every single time it's come up for anything near a vote. Can't cut education any more than it already has been; we've been doing that for 20 years now, and we're starting to see the effects of that =).

We're leery of cutting the CIA/NSA/FBI's budget, now that we've all seen just what the **** can happen when you sit in your little room all day, and never look out the window.

So where the heck does the cash come from?

Trim back on the Military. I'm like, all for that. I'd like to see it cut down to 250,000 members. 2 Fleets, a couple of Wings, and some tanks.

The problem with American Society today is we've never been invaded. Not once. Mexicans got pushed back by that Rough Riding fool. Candians haven't liked us since that whole French-Indian thing. Britts tried to again, but Andrew Jackson shot that one down in New Orleans =). Japs didn't get enough firepower to do any good; one sub and one plane just doesn't cut it. Von Schlieger (whatever) came over, but didn't get off the boat (errrr. U-boat). Hitler came over too, but again didn't get off the boat.

We totally need to get seriously owned one good time. And when I'm talking serious, I don't mean one city and one state. I mean 50 cities, and 50 states. You'd have not one, but two, generations scarred for an entire lifetime. They'd know just how bad it REALLY can get.

And, with a bit of luck, there'd be plenty of pock marked areas where cities USED to be, so that everyone can look out there and think to themselves "WHOA! Dude. We, like, totally got owned on that one. I don't think I really care for that to ever happen again. What can we do to stop this from ever occuring ever again for the next 4.6billion years?"

I'm result oriented. It's time to stop playing Mickey Mouse games, and get some results. Personally, I like how the Jews are result oriented too...

 

@ejsmith

I'm not sure if I find your desire for massive destruction on a scale not seen since the Second World War more disturbing, or the flippant racial stereotyping of the Jews you ended with. What's even more disgusting is that I have the eerie feeling you were suggesting this was because they had been through something terrible, like you want all of us to go through.

The slightest suggestion that the Holocaust was, in any way, shape, or form a good thing sickens me. As for the idea that as a nation, the US should have to go through a similar experience so we stop playing 'Mickey Mouse games' is one of the most grotesque and simply awful things I've ever had the misfortune of running across. The idea that someone could actually think that is a sincerely depressing one.

 

It costs more money to execute someone than keep them in prison for life. I've seen it said a few times that the cost of keeping someone in prison is more and this weighs in favor of the death penalty. That isn't true. It costs more to execute a man. May seem crazy but it's true.

As for me, rights are something you can usually either voluntarily give up or forfeit. Some dispute you can forfeit the right to life. I take the cheap and easy way out, agreeing with the idea that the justice system is there to protect both the public and the individual. Since the death penalty is the most severe punishment, it should require the highest degree of certainty. Given that we know men are executed at a higher rate than women, that blacks and hispanics are executed at a much higher rate than whites, and that we now know of a appreciable number of cases of an innocent man being convicted and sentenced to death -- I think there is sufficient evidence to believe that the system is currently not responsible enough to justly administer the death penalty.

[ November 08, 2002, 23:31: Message edited by: Laches ]