Death Penalty

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@Saber:

Teaching a murderer with death penalty? Do you believe in reincarnation?

@Abomination:

You still don't understand what I'm saying, do you?

Nobody gives someone the right to live! Repeating the contrary is not making it more true. Also, with being alive comes only one responsibility. Staying alive.

Everything else is ruled by society. The human rights are explicatly rights which regulate the relationship between society and the individual. Not between individual.
So, if a person violates laws, it is convicted on basis of these laws. But the law is constricted by the human rights.

 

Gah! Technicalities. Fine, they obviously don't deserve the same protection that these rights grant people. Everyone 'has' a right to live, till they show complete disreguard for other peoples' rights. Why should we grant someone the right to life when they themselves don't grant it to others?

Why should anyone have any kind of right when they disreguard someone else's right in that particular manner? It's all fine and dandy to say everyone has these rights yet the truth really comes to town when someone says "I don't care." and kills someone else. The best response is when they say "No. I have a right to life!" The judge can respond "I don't care, does this ring any bells?".

 

The big issue that some of us are bringing up is judicial error. Considering the staggering number of judicial errors we've been discovering lately, many people feel that caution and basic common decency dictates that we abandon the death penalty entirely. We already know that the death penalty isn't a successful deterrent.

 

since it appeared in the evening post i dont think it will matter me posting his name here:

darren hinder, stole a car and struck a man on a pedestrian crossing at a red light before leaving the scene of the accident, was sentenced in 2000 for 3 years at bridgend prison, served 1 year and was released. is now back behind bars for repeat driving offences and assulting a police officer.

he told me that he wanted to be in prison (since he'd spent 1 month there for drink driving before hand) after fathering 2 children which he couldnt handle, he lived on benefits because he wouldnt get a job knowing that a great portion of his wage would go to CSA for child support

i went to school with the prick and personally hope i never see him again

 

He'll die knowing he did wrong, and everyone else who sees his death (not literally, but when they hear/read/etc about it) will know the punishment for murder.

 

That isn't a valid example. He left to avoid responsibility.....not because he would have a higher standard of living (because, in prison, he won't). Also, in order to qualify as a legitimate problem plaguing our prison systems it has to happen more than once and it has to be a matter of public record. Otherwise, it's just a story.

 

Would these crimes warrant a death penalty? If not, what is the point of bringing this up at all?

 

Knowing that murder gets the death penalty doesn't work as a deterrent. Many states have abolished the death penalty entirely and (contrary to popular belief) violent crime has been on the decline for over 20 years. There is no correlation between the existance of the death penalty and lowered frequency of violent crime. That said.....the death penalty is little more than state sponsored vengeance, made all the worse by the fact that we have found an alarming number of cases in which innocents are put to death.

 

No, I don't believe in Reincarnation. It's a one way trip from Cradle to grave.

But anyone that takes that right away forfeits that right themselves. It's not about giving a right, it's taking a right away from someone that has abused it in the most greivous manner.

Beautiful. I hope that judges will indeed do that for years to come.

Okay the judicial system sucks. Let's scrap it. Do you prefer linch mobs instead? They weren't as squeamish about Justice. Those of you that tout life in prison, don't claim any high ground on us. Very little seperates Vengeance from Justice. Wheter we hang them or lock them up and throw away the key, society gets its revenge. Some of us just aren't squeemish about how it gets done.

But how many such strories are there? The guy obviously lived better in the joint because he checked his responsibilities at the door. Not only does the state support his lazy ass, but his kids as well. Maybe slavery should be re-thought. I'm not advocating the institutionalized enslavement of a race of people, but criminals ought to be enslaved by the state, and any wages would then go towards keeping the guards paid, the prison running, and supporting their families...

 

You don't get it. The thing is that because of judicial error - innocent people die. No, I don't want lynch mobs any more than I want the current system (with death penalty, though the current system sucks in general), because they're all likely to end with someone innocent dead.
If you throw them in jail, at least when someone wakes up and goes 'Oh wait, he was innocent after all!', they can let him go, rather than just going 'Ooops.'.

 

In that case, judges, juries, and attorneys who prosecute cases in which innocent people are put to death have also "abused it in the most grievous manner". They should be put to death, too.

If we make a mistake when we imprison someone and find out later we can, to some degree, rectify that mistake. If he is dead, we cannot. Death is......permanent. Too permanent for a legal system which, even at it's very best, is likely to make some judicial errors. The death penalty frequently punishes the innocent. Imprisonment does as well, but most people in prison, given the choice, will choose life over death. If wrongfully convicted of a crime, I would rather not be put to death. I'm not going to believe anyone else who makes a statement that he would rather be killed unless he (a) is in prison and (b) has a choice of living or dying. Anyone else saying such a thing is just playing at rhetoric.

Do some research on the conditions in prisons and tell me that again. He had less responsibility, but no freedom, no privacy, and no personal space. If he went to prison to avoid responsibility (something I am skeptical about, anyway), then what he really needed was therapy. ....since he clearly had some type of phsycological disorder.

[ May 07, 2006, 12:21: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

@Gnarff:

So, what is the learning effect? The convict will certainly not remember the next time...

Obviously, death penalty does not work as a deterrent, since people usually don't believe that they get caught. Else, murder rates were lower in the states with 'capital punishment'.

*Sigh* That still is revenge and is not backed by any judical ethic I know. Nation states have to guarantee the Human Right of life to every person living within their borders. This includes murderers.


@Abomination:

Because the Human Rights say so?
If you strip one being of them, limiting other Human Rights is not that far away anymore.

But I can see that you and others cannot get behind this principle. It's kinda sad, you know, favouring the 'Rule of the Jungle' over the 'Rule of Law'.

 

Why? That's simply unfair. We're going to protect you in a manner that you are going to abuse.

I'm not talking about stripping a person of 'all' rights. Just the rights they obviously have no respect for. The right they obviously don't deserve and have proven they don't deserve. And please don't go into the 'slippery slope' argument. This is about punishing murderers for murder. If anything we're upholding human rights and protecting human rights by doing away with those who would ignore said rights. Protecting murderers is just absurd, they don't deserve the protection. Murder is a horrible crime, possibly the worst that can be committed and yet the punishment is nothing compared. It's like a child throwing a tantrum, knocking everything off the shelves in a supermarket and the mother just says "Fine! No lolly today for you!".

The message needs to be clear. Murderers are not welcome nor accepted and they will be punished. Frankly, we're not talking about human beings either, we're talking about people who don't care about human life. They actually do not care. So why should society care about theirs?

 

@Abomination: We keep bringing up the fact that a substantial number of times the death penalty has been invoked on people who are later proven innocent and you answer by continually bringing up the "we need to punish criminals harshly" argument? One of the central points of my side of the issue is that the death penalty is often inflicted on the innocent. In other words, sometimes the people we put to death aren't actually criminals.

First of all, who determines whether or not a murderer has any respect for human life? In the case of Ted Bundy, the lack of respect is clear and obvious. However, Ted Bundy is a really extreme example. In the case of most murders, some form of mental illness is present, and their motivations are somewhat less clear. Even if you were right and murderers have no respect for human life, who says that respect for human life is a prerequisite for humanity?. I looked "human" up in the dictionary and it never mentioned respect for human life as a prerequisite. Therefore, putting murderers (who are, according to my dictionary, human) to death would qualify as an instance of "failure to respect human life", if you want to get technical. Also, if we are going to use the death penalty, then I want to see jurors and judges and attorneys involved in cases where someone is put to death and later proven innocent tried for conspiracy to commit murder and also to face the death penalty. Obviously, if you don't respect someones life enough to give him a fair trial when his life is on the line you don't respect human life, and since (by your definition) people who don't respect human life don't qualify as "human", they aren't human. Therefore, it is perfectly justified to put those people to death.

[ May 08, 2006, 02:30: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

Ah, yes, the Almighty Dictionary! All hail the omniscient book!

 

So the biggest objection to the Death Penalty is based on a what if that has never happenned yet?

Let's see: What if they are innocent? Hmm, That hasn't happenned...

It's Barbaric? Oh, like what they did...

But it's only vengence! So is incarceration, what's your point?

Who gives you the right to kill them? Who gave them the right to murder in the first place?

 

The jurors simply decide if the accused is guilty or not. They do not deal out the punishment, the judge decides the punishment. I'm also not saying that 'all' murderers should be killed. Obviously there should be some room for circumstance. Yet the option should be avaliable to administer the death penalty.

Since it's the judge who decides he is not disrespecting the life of an innocent human by sentencing someone to death. He is disrespecting the life of a murderer who most likely deserves the punishment. I have a high respect for judges since they, more often than not, only obtain their position by displaying a good sense of proportion, morality and (surprise surprise) judgement. They are the top of our society when it comes to our legal minds and when it comes to understanding the criminal mind. We're talking about giving a VERY SELECT yet VERY TRUSTWORTHY group of people the ability to administer capital punishment. This is not some slippery slope. This is making an extreme measure avaliable in extreme cases.

 

*coughHaymarketcough*

I've given this example at least twice already in this thread...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_riot

For those who don't want to read links: The basic idea is that during a protest some guy threw a bomb at police. A bunch of totally unrelated people were tried for murder because of it (one of them was just leaving the stage after making a speech at the time). A bunch of them were executed.

In this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Spies
The jury was told

as wella s a whole heap of other dodgy stuff going on.

Now, say that it's never happened, why don't you?

 

So the best example is in 1886? That is a looooong time ago. And I very much doubt any of them would be convicted today simply because of the 'beyond all reasonable doubt' clause since only ONE person can throw a bomb.