And that is the burden society has to bear for their own decisions. If society decides to ban the DP then we definately should pay for them if we put them there. Not because the man deserves it. If it is proven beyond a doubt that the man actually committed the crimes then the only thing he deserves is to be walked out back and be exterminated in the most humane way possible, as quickly as possible.
There’s the rub. You can never prove guilt beyond ANY doubt. The law recognizes reasonable doubt as the standard, but it’s far from perfect. Innocent people have been put to death in this country. Some may find that acceptable. I don’t. The DP isn’t punitive, it’s revenge, pure and simple. I understand the desire for revenge, in cases like this, I really do. But, until we have a perfect system of justice which never fails to condemn the guilty and ONLY the guilty, an irreversible penalty such as death carries too great a risk of error, IMO. How would YOU feel, should you ever be wrongly convicted in a capital case?
I disagree. Although the DP certainly can be about simple revenge, it can also be about having a 100% guarantee that someone won’t ever be able to get free and commit other crimes.
Listen up, you fucking retards. Opposition to the death penalty has nothing to do with having sympathy for the criminals and does not remotely indicate a lack of sympathy for victims. My opposition to the death penalty is based on two factors. One, that we have no way to ensure that we don’t kill innocent people and two, that on a personal level, I think it’s too fucking EASY for them. Why should slime like the guys in the OP be allowed to just get a nice quiet shot in the arm and go to sleep instead of- you know- actually having to SUFFER for a while?
Special pleading about what the victims want is not only logically fallacious but completely disingenuous. None of you fucks would support a victim who DIDN’T want the death penalty, and there are many who don’t. So get that weak shit out of my face, ok?
A system which cannot help but kill innocent people cannot be defended as just. That’s the bottom line, motherfuckers.
Yiu can have that with life in prison and the best part of a life sentence is that it gives you a 100% guarantee that you won’t kill the wrong person.
(Bolding mine)
I don’t think it’s a deterrent at all, and many articles/studies have been done showing it may in fact have the opposite effect, what they refer to as the “brutalization effect”
http://www.prisonactivist.org/death-penalty/dpstudy.html
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=167#STUDIES
Between 1990 and 2000 the gap between murder rates in non-DP states and DP states increased hugely, and on the whole, the non-DP states had lower murder rates.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=168
A Sept. 2000 NY Times survey found that while 10 of the 12 non-DP states had murder rates below the national average, the Top 12 States for highest number of executions had murder rates above the national avg.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/deterrence.html
Let’s be serious. How many criminals, when committing crimes, are stopping to think about the possible consequences? How many of them while say, robbing a family at home as in the OP, are thinking rationally enough to say “hey, I better not murder these people, cause then I might get executed!” To me at least, the entire premise is ridiculous on it’s face.
The death penalty is about vengeance, plain and simple, imo. I understand why people might want vengeance in cases like the OP, really, I do. But it doesn’t make granting them that vengeance wise, or right, or moral.
Nor does dressing vengeance up with terms like “deterrence” make it correct, or accurate.
How do you teach people to not kill when the penalty for murder is being killed? When has “do as I say, not as I do” ever been an effective teaching technique?
When you respond to violence with state-sanctioned violence, you’re only going to beget more violence.
You’re preaching to the choir, here. That’s why I said “may” and emphasized it. I was going to add parenthetically: (but, probably not). I thought it would be clear enough without it. Guess not. 
Oh, I know, I didn’t think you were taking the opposite viewpoint, your statement was just a good kickoff point to show that it likely doesn’t have a deterrent effect, since that seems to be alot of pro-DPs alleged motivations for keeping it.
I can’t say I’m 100% against the death penalty, but I am leaning that way. I don’t see it as a deterrent, and I don’t see it as revenge. I see it as making sure some sick SOB isn’t going to commit his crime again.
Life in prison needs to mean life in prison - not 10 years, not 20 years, not 50 years. Life. All of it.
The death penalty is for primitives who can’t control the reptilian brain.
Bullshit. Plenty of people are convicted beyond a shadow of doubt. Or, to steal a term; “guilty to a logical, statistical or scientific certainty, beyond any doubt”. “Reasonable doubt” is enough if you realize the doubt must be reasonable. An unreasonable person may think that magical fairies did it and planted all of the evidence. I do think the current standard could be looked at.
Perhaps the burden of proof should be much more than usual when it comes to the DP. Maybe a willingly offered confession, or video tape, or irreproachable witness(es) should be required. Perhaps there could be an independent group that studies all DP cases and must find all requirements met.
I’m happy with many more murderers not being eligible for the DP if it makes sure the innocent is not put to death.Brian Nichols is a perfect example of “beyond any doubt”.
I agree, see above and my first post on the subject.
That is debatable. I do not strictly agree, although I do not think it is has nothing to do with revenge. But then again, if the person is guilty, I don’t care. I am of the belief that the DP has at least some deterrent factor.
We will never have a perfect system of anything. If we can make the risk negligible enough that only those beyond any doubt are sentenced to death, than I think it would be wrong to abolish it solely because it may deter a crime of such cruelty as in the OP.
None of this changes the fact that some, like ** GorillaMan**, opposes the DP for the sake of the guilty, not only the innocent. And I find that repugnant and callous.
No, the death penalty is to mete out proper justice to those who can’t control their reptile brain – with the beneficial side effects of guaranteeing that they’ll never harm anyone else and that they’ll serve as examples to others of what will happen to them (albeit in twenty or so years :rolleyes: ) should they fail to control their own reptile brains.
Ah, but you contradicted yourself here.
If a person is in thrall to his/her reptilian brain, then s/he is de facto NOT being deterred by the DP, correct?
The DP is a crappy deterrent and may even have the opposite effect, as has been pointed out with cites in this thread. The trouble is that it tends not to deter the impulsive fucks, mentally-challenged-but-evil cretins, and plain old pyschopaths who could use deterring the most.
But the reason why we retain this “punishment” is indeed because of our thirst for revenge, coming to us courtesy of the reptile brain or whatever loci of that organ supercede logic and sense.
It’s a tradeoff. You get a 100% chance that you won’t kill an innocent man, but a <100% chance that, if guilty, the person won’t kill others in prison, get parolled, or escape.
I’d agree with AFAIKnow. If you want to make the standards tougher for getting a sentence of the DP I’d be fine with that.
In addition, a life sentence doesn’t always mean you’ll be in for life.[
Life without parole means life without parole.
Come on, not all lifers are serving without chance of parole. And even a lifer without parole can escape.
Mmmm…revenge!
But seriously, I understand your point but I don’t happen to believe that a very large percentage of murders is committed by people who can’t help themselves. Certainly, the DP isn’t a one hundred percent deterrant, but neither are traffic tickets and think what the roads would be like without them.
Most of the murders I’m aware of have been committed in order to acheive some specific goal. Often this goal is nothing more than wanting to leave no witnesses to some otherwise relatively minor crime. I recall the rash of senseless murders (mostly of convenience store clerks and filling station attendants) that occurred following the outlawing of the death penalty in the early seventies. One after another of these murders was committed with no more motive than to leave no witnesses to a $50 robbery. In fact, an entire family I knew was wiped out in just such a robbery forty-five minutes after I had stopped at the convenience store where the husband worked. Three lowlife motherfuckers took them into a back room, lined them up and shot them in the head. Forty-five minutes earlier the sweet and slightly overweight wife of the clerk (a quiet, soft-spoken guy who wouldn’t harnm a fly) had been cheerfully showing me the new diet book she’d just bought, while her beautiful, dark-eyed six-year-old son tugged at my pants leg wanting to show me a new toy he’d just gotten.
These assholes got exactly $50 and were caught within a few days. They were sentenced to life in prison and guess what?..the triggerman escaped after ten or twelve years and has never been recaptured.
Shortly afterward I was transferred to another town a hundred miles away and I know of at least three other cases where convenience store clerks were killed for the same reason during the first year I was there.
Of course many murders don’t involve convenience store clerks, but to me this emphasizes the fact that not only does doing away with the death penalty remove a deterrant, it actually encourages murders that wouldn’t have happened
otherwise.
With regard to the assholes referred to in the OP, I’d wager just about any amount that the murders they committed were to cover up some other crime and not because they were in the grip of some homicidal urge they either couldn’t or didn’t have the time to control.
As I said above, I beleive most murders are committed in relative cold blood by people who have specific, deliberate goals in mind, and IMO it is this type of murder that the death penalty primarily serves as a deterrant to.
I also believe it causes people to recognize and accept (as I did in the fifties and sixties) that murder is the worst crime you can commit, and if you kill someone you will die as a consequence. I’ve never accepted this notion that the death penalty cheapens life. To me, abolition of the death penalty cheapens life as it makes the penalty for killing soneone less severe. How is that realistically supposed to convinmce would-be killers of the sanctity of life?
And even lifers without parole who don’t escape, such as organized crime and gang figures, can control events in the outside world regardless of their incarceration.
Thank you, that’s a good point that I didn’t add.
See also: Tookie Williams.