I thank all of you who have responded to my last debate post. A related question, an IMHO that warrents dabate. I approve of the death penalty. Yes, I am from the U.S… Yes, I am from Texas.
I believe court cases are not always fair, being run by overzelous prosecutors and biased judges who find legal(?) methods to withold crucial evidence in order to get a conviction at any cost. Yet the death penalty vs life imprisonment seems to give a suspect extra chances of appeal, thus more opportunities of an overturned conviction.
Putting aside the inequeties of the justice system, and that convicting someone to death ends up costing far more money than life imprisonment (the stronges argument IMHO against death), how is it more humane to send someone to spend the rest of his life in jail with no (or very little) chance of parole than to simply kill him?
Maybe it has to do with personal conscious, killing is wrong! But that argument is a bit selfish compared to the hell the prisoner goes through in jail. Some people may be against the death penalty because they feel the prisoner SHOULD suffer in this mortal life before passing on.
The choices for a convict: spend the rest of his life in a cage; or death. Of course, it takes 10-15 years before the sentence is carried out. I just do not see the inhumanity involved. I do welcome other viewpoints, especially from non-U.S. folk. Rant if you want, but I am looking for substance as well. Thanks.
I don’t know that the relative degree of suffering enters into it for most people. The arguments against the death penalty pretty much fall into two categories:
It’s morally wrong to take a life under any circumstances.
and/or
The death penalty is irreversible and is therefore wrong as long as we have a fallible legal system and as long as we live in an uncertain world.
Personally, I’m against the death penalty not because I think death would be a cruel or unjust punishment for someone truly guilty of murder and likely to kill again. I’m against it because of the impossibility of absolute proof of guilt (#2 above). Even a confession is no guarantee of guilt - confessions are easy to beat out of people or trick them into.
Could anyone tell me what the arguments are for death penalty? Both sides of the story and all that.
as for a response to the OP:
First of all, the death penalty violates a persons universal human rights. But lets not go into that now.
What you’re basically saying is that you are for the death penalty because the alternative, life inprisonment, is less humane.
If that is your position, the solution would be to make prisons more humane, not kill the prisoner.
IMHO the real problem is that the justice system is political. Elected prosecuters have to show they’re “tough on crime” and killing murder convicts can score big points in an election year. Exactly why politics play a role is not clear to me.
While both of these punishments banish the criminals from society, only with Life In Prison, there remains a possibility that he could kill once again, while wit Death Penalty, he is no longer a threat to anyone, and vengeance for his wrongs has been fulfilled.
And with life in prison there remains a possibility that an innocent person could be freed, while with the death penalty he or she cannot. And, of course, your view of whether vengeance is an acceptable motive in the justice system is fairly salient too.
I believe that in most states a death penalty verdict will automatically be appealed. So far as I know you don’t automatically appeal a conviction that only leads to prison.
**
I don’t know if it is more humane but if someone gave me the choice I know which one I’d take. Of course I’d take life in an American prison instead of death. I don’t think prisons are great places to live but I’d rather live then die.
**
But it isn’t always wrong to kill. I’d pick a Turkish prison over a death sentence any day.
Marc
If you didn’t want to go into that then you shouldn’t have brought it up. Do prison sentences violate the universal human right to be free?
you tell me. Do they? And if they do, does that make the death penalty ok?
As for the IMHO part, the point was that when politics enter the equation, justice tends to take a back seat. Hence the question: why is the DA’s office a political apointment?
please understand I don’t live in the US. stuff like this confuses the hell out of me.
[li]Moral – a murderer deserves the ultimate penalty[]Saves innocent lives, since convicted murderers sometimes get out of prison and kill again[/li][li]it’s a better deterrent []Having the DP available gives the prosecutor more options for plea-bargaining.[/li][]DP is cheaper (or, it could be cheaper.)[]Time-tested; DP has been used for thousands of years.
I’m confused by most of those points, december. One could argue equally that the DP is immoral, on the grounds that taking a life in vengeance is not justifiable. The point about non-DP prisoners escaping is understood, but we haven’t yet seen statistics for how prevalent this is.
I’m afraid your remaining points lost me completely. The DP is good as it offers a greater ‘range’ of sentencing options? It’s hardly a compelling argument, is it? I seem to recall the cost argument being proven false in other threads - which you seem to acknowledge (don’t you think “The DP could be cheaper” is an incredibly tenuous argument? It’s certainly no more convincing that DP opponents saying that “Life imprisonment could mean life”). I’m also unsure of how the fact that the DP has been used throughout history is a ‘selling’ point for it. Imprisonment has also been used throughout history: does that make it better or worse?
My take on the opposing arguments is as follows (note: the two groups are not clearly delimited; this is just a suggestion for the arguments often employed):
DP supporters argue that life imprisonment does not always mean ‘life’, and that it does not guarantee the safety of society in the future. Some also argue that the DP fulfils a need for vengeance mandated by the severity of the offence.
People who oppose the DP argue that there is no justification for taking a life when imprisonment can also safeguard society and provide punishment. They also argue that vengeance should not be part of a justice system. Other arguments raised are that the DP is more expensive to administer, that the deterrent effect of the DP has not been proven and that there is no possibility to free innocent prisoners unjustly sentenced under the DP.
I personally am anti-DP, but understand that life imprisonment does not always mean life. I would like to see a far tighter non-DP justice system. I don’t expect to change anyone’s minds with my opinions, however.
