at least one person asked why not just kill all criminals. He was not suggesting he actually do this. I am.
It is important that we do not kill persons who are innocent. So I would require an extra finding by both the judge and the jury that there was no possibility that the accused was innocent. This would be for cases where there is extensive evidence. For example, a person robs a store at gunpoint and shots a shot. The gun is then matched to the bullet, and the gun is found in the accused person’s possession. A positive ID is made. There is video of the accused. He admitted what he did to witnesses. He was dumb enough to confess on video to the police.
Once he is convicted and the judge and jury make the extra finding is made, he gets one appeal. Then he is executed.
There is no excuse for committing a felony. A person who shows such disrespect for society should be removed from society. This is the way things used to be, and we need to bring this back.
[I do not want this to be a discussion of the perversion on the 8th amendment by the Supreme Court. Assume we get a non-activist court that will stick to the original understanding of the 8th amendment.]
Maybe there are some low level felonies for which it would not be appropriate. But things like: murder, rape, robbery, drunk driving, insider trading, arson, etc. should be punished with death. I am, however, open to removing some low level felonies.
Great idea. Let’s do house-to-house searches while we’re at it. If we’re lucky we can depopulate Washington, DC by half in just a few days, not to mention Chicago, New York, etc.
Of course, then we have to try them for their crimes, so we’ll just leave them in place, because living in those cities is like being in prison anyway and we don’t have enough room to add a few million to the mix.
I figure by the end of the year we can beat the old genocide record if we play our cards right. Boy, won’t we be popular then! Canada will love us when the mass exodus comes in waves over the only slightly guarded border, fleeing that good ol’ American justice.
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Yeah, I thought it was a bad idea, too. Oh, wait, you were serious. God help us.
I doubt that most of the people cities would be eligible to be executed. Nor a majority. But I bet the law abiding majority would be happy to have the criminals stop ruining their communities. Not that this law could do that, but it is a step in the right direction.
You think so? I’ll bet you that 2 in 5 have an illegal firearm, usually a handgun, possession of which is a felony in Chicago and DC. All of those people are destined for the needle. And since there is a logical problem in working out who the weapon belongs to, everybody in the house dies en masse.
Yeah. Maybe just for completeness we could shoot 'em and charge the family of the executed criminal for the bullet, the way they supposedly do in China.
Well, thank goodness Martha Stewart has already served her sentence . . . or are you planning on making this retroactive? Will her execution be televised, just to set an example to anyone else who profits from a tip by her broker?
Or drug possession. Or DUI. Or damn near anything.
Unless we make this a Larry Niven future and the method of execution becomes organ donation. Then we might have the death penalty for second offenders on false advertising charges, or for running multiple red lights.
Thank you. Now, that I have convinced another rational person of the wisdom of this approach, can we stop with all the “are you serious” comments? Yes, I am serious.