Now that Nidal Hassan has received a death sentence from a military court I thought I’d ask a death penalty related question.
The test for whether a person REALLY believes that the death penalty is morally and ethically justified is whether or not they would give the injection, pull the trigger, flip the electric switch, or whatever.
If you can’t be an executioner, you have no business supporting the death penalty. So, with that in mind I’ll be making a poll here.
If you support the death penalty, would you be an executioner?
I’m opposed to capital punishment purely on legal grounds. Kill the wrong perp and there’s no redress of grievance. If we could reserve it solely for the truly heinous cases, the John Wayne Gacys and yes, the Nidal Hassans, I’d have no problem with it. But that seems too problematic, so best not to have it at all.
However, in Hassan’s case, there’s no doubt, and I’m pretty sure I could push that button.
Can’t do it. Can’t be a judge. Don’t ever want to have to make such a decision. I still think the better option for the Oklahoma bomber was to sentence him to a lifetime of park maintenance at the park they turned the Murrah building site into.
I would do it in a second and even volunteer to do it. It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest and I don’t understand why it would anyone else either. I would be the sole executioner for every death row inmate in the U.S. if I could as long as I could opt out of any that I had doubts about (certainly not this one) and got paid well for it.
What I meant was this one is obviously guilty. Sure, I would do it without any hesitation or any remorse. You can give me all the Ted Bundys of the world too and I could be an extermination machine. If it is going to be a full-time job though, I don’t want to get forced into something I wouldn’t like to do anywhere just because of a judicial screw up. I do have standards.
Maybe in Westeros, but since Ned Stark lacks legal authority in the real world, I flatly reject your premise. There is no moral imperative to be willing to serve as executioner in order to support the death penalty.
That said, I could do it, but I choose to make my living in other endeavors.
I’m the opposite. I don’t believe in the DP, but since it’s a pretty cut and dried case I wouldn’t have a problem being the executioner, other than the stress toll that taking a life in person brings, whether they deserve it or not.
But I am against the DP because there will be other, more questionable, cases that aren’t cut and dried, and better to just eliminate it entirely than to take a chance of killing an innocent. This isn’t one of those times, however.
I have this half-baked idea that a member of the jury should have to be the executioner. If no one on the jury will do it, then the sentence is automatically changed to life in prison without parole. Knowing that you may have to do the killing would certainly make you think twice about sentencing someone to death.
Nidal Hasan? I’m reminded of the famous reply circa INDECENT PROPOSAL, when a woman was asked whether she’d sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars.
(“Sure,” she said. “But I don’t have a million dollars.”)
I reject your premise. However, I am against the death penalty and I don’t *think *I could do it. I’m pretty sure I could kill someone in self-defense or defense of others, though.
Oops, I replied before I read that I was supposed to ever support it under any circumstances. In fact, I don’t really lose any sleep over some sociopath getting capital punishment, but there’s nothing in the world that would make me pull the trigger or make the decision myself.