Thank you - glad to hear an actual lawyer backing up what I said above. I think the insanity defense has to be pretty high up there as one of the most popularly misunderstood legal concepts. This case has absolutely no basis for an insanity defense whatsoever.
No, it’s not. They call it “beyond a reasonable doubt”, but they never actually use that as the standard.
I am against the death penalty for any offender, ever. It’s more expensive than life in prison anyway (with all the appeals), and it’s not like there’s any chance he could escape from a maximum security prison and do this again. So, put him in solitary for the rest of his life. 50+ years of solitary confinement is a far worse punishment than death, it’s cheaper, and we get to live with ourselves more easily (as a species).
To cite Will Smith- aw, hell yes!
Even if he’s insane.
We don’t keep mad animals alive.
I oppose the death penalty as a principle, foremost is that I don’t believe that the State should be killing people, even those who are the scum of the earth. Second, if you allow the death penalty, then you will execute an innocent person somewhere along the line.
I think he should be incarcerated forever but not killed.
Posting from a country where there’s a 98% conviction rate. While it’s great to think all these criminals are getting nailed, no one can possibly be that good.
So you advocate torture as a way to hold the moral high ground? :dubious:
Only if you suck at it. Executing Holmes and Holmes alone would not guarantee that you would execute an innocent person. Executing only Holmes and others whose guilt is similarly far beyond “beyond a reasonable doubt” would do the same thing. If that means only using it once in a blue moon, so what?
I presume you’ve heard of the Innocent Project? They work on wrongful convictions. People who have been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
I don’t think it makes much legal sense to have a standard of “way beyond a reasonable doubt.” What does that mean?
At any rate, I don’t believe that the State should be intentionally killing people, even horrible criminals.
I don’t care. There’s basically no doubt he did what he did. He’ll almost certainly never be given the chance to kill a lot of people again. He’ll almost certainly never be able to live a normal life. So long as he’s locked up (or cured), it doesn’t seem to make much difference.
In fact, I oppose the death penalty in almost all cases: I don’t think “it was a worse crime, therefore he should suffer more” actually helps, and I think it’s abominable that there can be a lot of pressure to execute people when the crime was heinious, but the evidence that you actually have the right defendant is rather circumstantial. So I think it’s a bad idea here because it will encourage the “decide whether to use the death penalty based on whether there’s a popular outcry or not” habit, but won’t actually make that much difference to this guy personally.
Other. I would like to see him studied rather than executed. There is obviously some sort a pathology at work in there, and better understanding it could help us to prevent further incidents like this. Keep him in solitary in a mental facility.
If you oppose the death penalty except in circumstances x, y or z then you don’t really oppose the death penalty, do you?
I think life without any hope of parole is a proper punishment. I’d like to see killers like this guy placed in a special facility where they could be closely studied so we could maybe get a better handle on how to prevent this kind of massacre.
IOW, “Get your nuance out of my ethics!”
Sorry, ain’t gonna happen. Some folks can hold a complex position on a complex subject. If you want the world to look black and white, that’s on you.
As for the insanity defense, Oakminster raises a good point, that this guy might not qualify for its strict requirements. Rig’s absolutist claim that there’s no way in hell he’d qualify is empty posturing, of course, unless Rig is one of the investigating officers who knows a lot more than we in the general public know.
This. Though, because of the main reasons I oppose the death penalty, I can’t say I’d be all that upset if he just rots in jail the rest of his life. I’m not opposed to the death penalty as a punishment for wrongdoing…I just think that the chance of wrongfully executing an innocent person is so heinous that we shouldn’t have it on the books. People DO get wrongfully convicted. However, since there is absolutely zero doubt this guy did the crime, I won’t shed a tear if they kill the bastard.
I think instead of the death penalty, killers such as this should be used as guinea pigs for drug testing, finding a cure for cancer, aids, etc. Get something useful out of them.
We’ll see what the shrinks say at his trial, but it seems pretty likely to me that he was delusional, in which case it seems wrong, and rather pointless, to kill him.
Wait aminute. Dude is innocent until proven guilty. I say take the accused to trial. If found guilty, *then * execurte him.
I chose other because I’m generally ambivalent about the death penalty. And it isn’t borne of some squeamish, “ooh death is bad,” thing. I just know that they way death penalty cases in general are handled in this country is an unholy clusterfuck.
That said, it seems as cut and dried as it can possibly be in this situation and I would shed no tears seeing this guy checked out from Planet Earth.
Yes. Some people deserve death. I think that goes without saying. Who judges that and how that punishment is meted out is another story. If it were me making all the decisions, I’d have no problem with it.
The legal definition of insanity includes not recognizing the consequences of your actions. Hardly applies here, with all the planning.
Fry the asshole, and then the rest of him.
I am morally opposed to the death penalty, and feel killing a human being is justifiable only in self-defense. Thus, I say lock him up where he will never get out, which will accomplish the goal of protecting the rest of society from a [del]rabid dog[/del] dangerous individual.
If he does escape, though, use of deadly force is justified in order to defend the rest of us from a demonstrably hazardous human being. If he gets shot in the back outside the walls I won’t shed any tears.
Similarly, if you support the death penalty except in circumstances x, y, or z, then you don’t really support the death penalty, do you? All y’all liberal wusses who support the death penalty except in cases of jaywalking, mattress-tag-tearing, or innocence aren’t real death-penalty supporters.
Seriously, Kobayashi, you’re making a ridiculous argument.