Is rape worth death?

Great Debates
41

OK. If you are suggesting physically removing the individual from society at large in order to prevent additional violence, well that’s just good sense.

For the rest of you, they **are ** humans. And as research progresses it is being found that at least 50% of rapists and dangerous people in general haveserious brain damage.

Has nobody here known someone who’s had a brain tumor in the frontal lobes? Simply the physical pressure from the mass is enough to dramatically change the habits and character of that person. Once the mass is removed, the person often returns to patterns similar to those that preceeded the illness. I do not believe that the majority of violent people can be neatly categorized as “mean.” Some are most certainly improperly socialized without physical deformity of the brain, but the real nutjobs most likely have a bad brain. Which may or may not be repairable.

I agree that if someone is broken this badly, they most certainly need to be removed from the population at large. But this talk of killing them, mutilating them, torturing them…what’s that all about? Some of you here have been raped. Would YOU be the one to cut into the flesh of another human being to remove the offending part? To teach him a lesson? Or would you even be the one to carry out every step of the execution, if that’s what you support?

Don’t answer with a post, I don’t want anyone to say “Hell freakin’ yeah!” just to save face on a message board. Just visualize yourself going through the process of correction/punishment and ask yourself seriously if you could do it.

Now. The child molester that makes everyone’s blood boil (I have 2 daughters under the age of 9. I worry about the predators as well). If I caught someone fucking my screaming and knifed up 4 year old I can’t say what I’d do for sure, but being human I can speculate I might become disturbingly inhuman for a period of time. But let’s just say that he’s not caught in the act, but 3 months after the funeral. And let’s just say that an MRI indicates frontal brain damage–tumor, trauma from a car accident in which he was hit by a drunk driver, whatever–and prior to that incident he was a “decent” person with whom I might have been great friends. What right do I have to harm this individual? Especially if the malady can be corrected and he can be given his life back.

42

But he’s not a “decent” individual anymore. He’s become, for one reason or another, dangerous, and most likely irreparable. Execution might be considered a form of euthanasia.

And, legally, as I remember, the criteria for an individual’s competence to stand trial is that the defendant is “sufficiently mentally able to stand trial, if he/she understands the proceedings and can rationally deal with his/her lawyer,” and that they had the capacity to “knowingly or purposely commit a criminal act.” It doesn’t matter if the defendant just doesn’t care about the morality of his fact, like if he’s a sociopath, or just an outright asshole.

And what about the sexual predators who aren’t suffering from physical brain damage? What if they have a perfectly “healthy” brain, but one that just doesn’t give a crap about seeking out and harming innocent people?

If I’m not mistaken, you’ve set that question up in a way that you can disregard any answer you don’t agree with by saying that we’re “just saving face.”

IMHO, you seem uncomfortable with the idea that a “civilized” person can be willing and able to use violence against another person (and I use the term lightly, with regards to sex offenders), without automatically becoming an uncontrollable barbarian themselves. I would disagree…take soldiers, for example. They are able to kill and be violent in war, often directed against other people who’ve done nothing more “wrong” than being drafted by the other side. But we don’t condemn all wars—wars sometimes need to be fought. And all soldiers don’t become inhuman monsters because of what they do. And soldiers aren’t a race apart, cut from a different cloth than the “rest of us.” They’re just ordinary people, like you and I. And if great numbers of ordinary people can kill—and kill guys pretty much like themselves, just serving the other side—just because their country asks them to…why shouldn’t an ordinary person be willing or able to kill or injure a convicted criminal—a criminal who’s committed an act considered so indefensibly evil?

Maybe not every person could do it…but there are those of us who could. And who could live perfectly peaceful, law-abiding lives. People who might never harm a fly, otherwise; people who might never even raise their voice or lose their temper; people who smile and say hello to you at the supermarket.

Commiting an act of violence doesn’t automatically make you a monster. You don’t have to be a monster to be able to commit an act of violence. What makes violence “evil” depends on who it is performed against, why one is doing it, and even, to a lesser extent, how it is done.

43

In case you didn’t have time to read the link posted by Annie-Xmas here’s an interesting quote …

Her point being that she didn’t want anyone’s death on her hands.

Yes, I am against the Death Penalty, full stop.
No, I have never been raped (although there was minor abuse aged 4 and a couple of lucky escapes in my 20s).

44

We’ve all heard this line of reasoning before and I’m not sure that I follow it. I don’t have the intestinal fortitude to be a prison guard. Does that mean that I can’t or shouldn’t believe that convicted felons should be imprisoned?

45

Moving this from IMHO to Great Debates.

46

How is a member of the armed forces or a police officer more important than another person? Yes, they provide an important service, but that’s no reason to value their life more than others. Sounds like a dangerous precedent to set.

47

I’m against the death penalty. False accusations of rape like the Nordmark case are a prime reason why. (Google gives lots more info). It’s impossible to apologise to a dead man.

I’ve mentioned it before but it bears repeating here: a friend of mine was accused by his wife of assaulting her and spent some time in police custody, simply on her word. Imagine if she had accused him of rape or molesting their children?

Crime in the UK has rocketted, and I do not believe that we are dealing with criminals in an appropriate manner, but that’s a matter for another debate.

48

As I’m against the death penalty in all cases, I don’t think the death penalty should be extended any more than it already is. Especially since rape can vary significantly in severity.

There was a case awhile back where two teenagers were having sex. The girl agreed initially to have sex, but then in the middle of the act said she needed to go home but never explicitly told him to stop. The boy continued to have sex for a couple extra minutes.

The girl pressed rape charges against him, and he was found guilty of forcible rape. The case worked its way up the court system and was upheld by the California Supreme Court.

Does that kid deserve death?

49

Perhaps not, Blalron. If what he says is true.

But the appeals courts, it seems, weren’t very impressed with his side of the case. And the girl, it seems, thought it was rape.

50

One problem with this is if you give the death penalty for rape you are basically telling the rapist to kill his victim. It will limit his chances of getting caught and does not increase the punishment.

51

Beause of our faulty justice system, I do not believe in the death penalty. However, if we could find a way to determine that a person was 100% guilty, without question, then yes, I think a rapist should be put to death.

Three weeks ago, my blind sister was pulled into a field, kicked in the face several times, beaten, raped and left to die. It turns out from DNA evidence that he is a serial rapist that is getting more violent as he goes. If they could find him without a shred of doubt, I might be able to blow his brains out myself from what I had to see at the hospital. Except that might be too quick.

However, if there were any kind of doubt at all that he did it, I wouldn’t want that death on my head.

52

They are in a position of physical authority over other people. At its most basic level, what separates government from everything else is that they are the ones who have the right to kill you. They have the guns, they have the prisons. Soldiers and Police officers are the people who act out these this publicly approved violence, and are thus held to a higher standard.

53

“On her hands?” :eek: Thanks to her rapist, she doesn’t have any hands.

I saw Mary Vincent interviewed on Oprah recently. She’s extremely upset that this guy was allowed out of prison. Even without parole, how do you keep them from escaping? Since this child rapist obviously intended his victim to die and it was her actions that prevented that from happening, why shouldn’t the death penalty be used for “attemped murder?”

54

Sincere apologies **Annie-Xmas ** and to anyone else who thought my comment was tastetless, in fact, although the bolding was mine, I was using Mary Vincent’s own figure of speech.

That was from the April '98 article you gave us a link to, maybe she has made public statements to the contrary since then, but all I know about the case is what I have picked up from this thread - rest assured that being against the Death Penalty doesn’t stop me from being sickened by what we’re discussing here.

(As Annie-Xmas says, in a case like this, perhaps the attacker should have been tried for attempted murder in addition to or instead of rape if that would have got him a stiffer sentence.)

55

See, your earlier post is a bit confusing. Were you saying that the death penalty should be applied in the murder of a cop, or in murder by a cop.

56

Yes. Sexual assault should be a capital felony.

It kills the soul of the victim but leaves the body still walking around. That, to me, is worthy of death. And I think the death should be painful and excruciating.

57

OMG that’s horrible. I’m so sorry Heloise.

58

That’s one of the most awful things i’ve heard in a long time. I really sorry. You said “left to die,” but then mentioned the hospital. Can i take this to mean that she survived? If so, i hope that she is able to make a good physical recovery, and that she can also make some sort of emotional recovery as well.

In such a case, i can fully understand the family and friends of the victim wanting to rip the guy’s heart out with their bare hands. I’m sure i’d have exactly the same reaction. I guess that all i’d have to say on that issue is that this is precisely why we let the legal system, rather than the friends and relatives of the victims, determine the punishment in our system of justice.

That is an admirable sentiment. And, as i’ve said before, my primary objection to the death penalty as it is currently administered is that it has been shown, time and again, that innocent people end up on death row.

Best wishes and good thoughts to your sister, to you, and to your family.

59

So, you’re saying that two previous posters are souless walking bodies?
Vcitims of sexual assaults can recover. Victims of non-sexual assaults can never recover.
No murder victim will ever recover.

60

Meatros said:
Rape, IMO and from everything that I’ve read (as well as the people I know who have been raped), is a very tramatizing event.
[/quote]

So is being stabbed, or beaten, or set on fire. Should we impose the death penalty on the person who burned alive a woman that I know? She will carry around those scars, both visible and invisible, for the rest of her life. Is her trauma less bad than mine because I was raped and she was burned?

Chris Rock may be a very funny comedian, but he is no philosopher. I’ve been raped. I really don’t think that’s worse than if I had been murdered.

Maybe some of them are deserving of death, but should we really be in the business of deciding which non-fatal crimes are ‘bad enough’ to deserve death?

Why do we say that it’s a rape that is the most heinous crime?

Why rape? What other crimes?

Why? We don’t execute people who set their son on fire, people like the parents of [url=http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/tows_2002/tows_past_20020130_b.jhtml]Dave Pelzer**? Or David Rothenberg’s father, who took him to a motel, doused him with kerosene and set him on fire, burning more than 90% of his body and leaving him permanently disfigured?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, dead wrong. I was raped more than five years ago, and I am not just a ‘body still walking around’ with a dead soul. You do an immense disservice to rape survivors to say things like that, things which will hinder their progress in healing by telling them that it’s not possible to heal.

Rape is not death, it’s assault.

I hope that his sister’s injuries heal and I believe that with the love and support of her family it’s entirely possible for her to make much, much more than ‘some sort’ of emotional recovery. The life of a rape survivor can and does go on, not exactly the same as before, but there is absolutely no reason she must be forever a victim.

Absolutely they do. They become survivors. Victims of non-sexual assaults can also recover, but like rape victims may bear physical scars all their lives.

It’s always horrible to be attacked, no matter where your scars are. The only thing I’ve found that’s worse about rape is that so many people tell you that you’ll never recover, that you’ll have emotional baggage all your life, etc. People don’t seem to say that to someone who was stabbed or shot. And in vast contrast, the lady I know who was burned hears people saying how courageous and strong she is every day, whereas total strangers make comments about rape having ‘killed the victim’s soul’. I don’t get it.