Check out this page from the Death Penalty Information Centre. It shows the comparative cost of the death penalty vs. non-death penalty prosecutions, and consistently shows that the death penalty costs more than the non-death penalty prosecutions.
Well, not necessarily. There’s some solid medical evidence that lethal injection is actually nightmarishly painful - that people under the influence of the three-drug cocktail may be paralyzed, but sufficiently conscious to feel a great deal of pain as their heart is stopped.
It is not just the incident of getting a painful death, it is knowing about it and facing it as it comes closer and closer. It must be horrible to count down day after day, then minute after minute until the day comes. I wonder how much worse it is when you are innocent?
Well, kidnapping someone and keeping them locked in a room for 20 years is wrong, but if you do it, we’re going to grab you and keep you in a cell for 20 years.
There is no peer reviewed data to back up your position.
From Wiki:
Lethal Injection dosage: 2-5 grams
Sodium thiopental (United States trade name: Sodium Pentothal) is an ultra-short acting barbiturate, often used for anesthesia induction and for medically induced coma. The typical anesthesia induction dose is 3–5 mg/kg. Loss of consciousness is induced within 30–45 seconds at the typical dose, while a 5 gram dose—14 times the normal dose—is likely to induce unconsciousness in 10 seconds.
Are you assuming that the convicted will come to regret his actions?
Is it possible that someone is so antisocial that they just don’t give a rats fuzzy butt what the rest of us thinks thinks about him, or sees no reason to care to change?
Those who are charged with administering the death penalty always describe it as clean and easy. The reality is often quite different. Electrocution was always described at quick and clean. It was proven not to be. Gas chambers had the same problem. They often were ugly and not as they said it would be. Why do we believe what they say now? Does it make it a little easier for death penalty fans? I understand if you need to convince yourself of how clean it is.
Please produce a credible cite showing that lethal injection is often a painful death.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m not strongly convinced of the deterrent value of any form of punishment, period. I don’t think you stop crime by deterrence so I find arguments about the relative deterrent value of various punishments to be misplaced.
Finally, I also think that when it comes to serious crimes the discussions should be about what is just and what is necessary to protect society. From a philosophical/legal standpoint I view the criminal justice system as an intermediary to the “natural” human way of settling wrongs.
Prior to government if I wronged someone else in the tribe things would be settled ad hoc and sometimes through violence. If I killed someone else in the tribe most likely the tribe would quickly run me off or quickly exact swift and final retribution.
Since we are civilized and have layers of government that settle these things, I think the foundation of any legal system is providing a just and equitable result whether it be in a civil or criminal matter. While crimes are an offense against the state’s law, they are often offenses against an individual person and in those cases it is in the interests of the state to insure the ultimate punishment is equitable. For that reason I feel that if you intentionally take a life, you should essentially forfeit any meaningful enjoyment of the rest of your own life. I’m opposed to execution but I fully support a person being locked in a cell 23 hours a day with little creature comforts until the moment they die. I am totally unconcerned with the logistics or cost of that, because it is a necessary thing to provide equitable results and is a key component of justice.
Going back to the issue of deterrence I will point out that until the early 20th century there were many many crimes that carried the death sentence. Even repeated stealing would earn a hanging in England at one point, and this justice was executed swiftly and publicly for all to see. You see it going back to the pre-Medieval period and into ancient history, even relatively petty criminals were given extreme punishments. Since there wasn’t a system for the permanent housing of convicted criminals until the 19th century the punishments tended to be vicious corporal punishments like flogging or mutilation, or execution. The executions were carried out so widely and so certainly that it was totally different than our current system where only an extremely small percentage of the worst criminals will be condemned to death and then only some of those so condemned will ever be actually put to death. Yet all evidence suggests executioners in the ancient world up to the early industrial world were busy individuals. This is because even the most draconian punishments isn’t deterrence because most criminals don’t plan on getting caught and because they feel the risk is worth the reward of their actions. Or in the case of some they have some sort of innate character or psychological flaw that makes their criminality an almost intrinsic part of who they are.
Very few innocent people are executed in the United States; and I don’t find the personal anguish of those awaiting execution to be compelling at all. I’m reminded of the execution of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith (the criminals who killed the Clutter family, the crime was the basis of Truman Capote’s book In Cold Blood); those two had to sit and wait for the day when they were hanged, which must have been terrible for them. However, how terrible was it for Bonnie Clutter, laying disabled in her bedroom, knowing the two men were in the house, and hearing one shotgun blast for each of her two children and then finally hearing the men come to her room to kill her?
Most people that are executed in the United States are monsters and are not an object of sympathy. The discipline is you must have compassion for all man, but that doesn’t mean I have to or will sympathize or empathize with people like John Allen Muhammad. I don’t revel in the execution of monsters like him nor do I think they are morally acceptable actions, you can’t justify that which is immoral simply because of the immorality of the person who is the target of your action.
Your internet psychic abilities have failed you. You understand nothing. If it were up to me he would be hanged or specifically in his case, shot.
Is not saying innocent people shouldn’t be killed absolute morality?
Dude, the death penalty nowadays is almost like working on a scientific theory, months long trial, dozens of appeals, several investigation, and so on so yes I do trust the US government to execute the right people 99.99999999999% of the time.
“Thou shalt not kill” can be interperted as “Thous shalt not murder”.
Ahhh yes, the U.S. government, eleven orders of magnitude more competent than the state of illinois :dubious:
Only if you want to . What does that change? The state will murder in your name.
Murder is illegal killing.
here’s a poll on what to do with the prisoner. am curious what the results will be - http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=540287
There is nothing heinous about prison or fines. Homicide is heinous.
According to the Old Testament, which is what we were discussing, the death penalty in cases of murder is not heinous - it is required. Feel free to produce a cite from the Old or New Testaments that says otherwise.
Regards,
Shodan
Judicial slaying in response to the crime of the executed is different from murdering someone out of anger, money, or enjoyment.
Not in my book. Murder is wrong. A state that allows murder is wrong.