:rolleyes: The incredible stupidity of this statement speaks for itself*.
I’d have to say the former – I think it is absolutely unacceptable to execute an innocent individual. To those who say it is inevitable, I always ask them, “Are you willing to be that person?”
As for actually using the death penalty on those who obviously NOT innocent – I’m not a big supporter – prison isn’t a picnic, and I think we’ve established that it’s not a deterent. (Although I confess, I don’t shed any tears for people like Bundy or Wuernos)
In cases like Hitler, or Bin Laden though, that’s my ONLY exception. (Mega-war criminals, such as the Nazis, or I believe the Imperial Japanese. When we’re talking calculated genocide and deliberate terrorism. And those would be pretty rare, I would imagine.
*Note: this is an attack on the POST ITSELF, not the poster.
That pretty well encapsulates my thoughts on the death penalty, which have gone through a lot of changes over the years.
I don’t see the value of it versus life imprisonment. Deterrence seems a weaker argument whenever I look further into it. Leave that aside, and you just have vengeance. Which is an understandable feeling for the friends and relatives of victims, but I don’t ultimately find that a compelling reason for a third party to kill someone.
I don’t know how ‘anti’ death penalty I am. I’m not 100% against it, but I think it is overused. I can think of several sociopathic serial killers and hardcore gang members who deserve it. But I think it is handed out far too often for murder. I don’t think a single episode of murder by someone with no criminal record warrants the death penalty, it should be more for someone who commits a string of unrelated murder after living a life of remorseless crime.
When I am opposed to it I am opposed for class reasons. The death penalty is often reserved for poor people. There are no millionaires on death row. Plus there are massive disparities in race (white victims get you more death row convictions, non-white offenders do too).
A poor black person with a rich white victim is going to get the death sentence far more often than a rich white person who kills a poor black person even if the crimes are identical.
I have always been pro death penalty (asssuming decent certainty of actual guilt).
But, last year I had to put our 17 year old cat to sleep. It was a scheduled thing. The couple day “countdown” was one of the most unpleasant things I have ever had to endure. As silly as it sounds, that made me reconsider the whole death penalty thing. I am now inclined to consider the death penalty inhumane. Not because it is wrong or not because some folks don’t deserve it, but because the very process of a countdown is just too inhumane.
I’m against it not only because of the proven potential for error and inequity, but because I think it’s too easy for those who are guilty of the worst crimes. Getting a shot and going to sleep is no punshment at all. It’s letting them off the hook.
Of course it’s pointless. We don’t need to kill them, doing so accomplishes nothing useful, therefore it is pointless. The death penalty is about self indulgence, not justice or the good of society.
More nonsense. Death penalty cases cost so much and are appealed so much because carrying out the sentence results in death. And because they tend to be prosecuted horribly, with bad evidence, incompetent defense attorneys and blatant prejudice, which creates plenty of grounds for appeal.
And? That isn’t a defense of the death penalty, that is a condemnation of the system in general.
But my opposition to the death penalty is based on the fact that innocent people HAVE been executed and others have been exonorated after years of sitting on death row. That reason, and solely that.
Good deal. If you happen to be one of those innocents who gets killed are you willing to sign a waiver absolving them of any liability?
The police can use non-lethal weapons, whether this will absolutely ensure no innocent people get killed is up in the air but it will certainly reduce innocent casualties.
He said he didn’t think the state should have that power over an individual. I will presume the “that” which he is referring to is the power to put someone to death. Even barring the death penalty the state does have that power in regards to war. Whether for conquest or defense is immaterial. I fully recognize that someone can be against the DP and have no problem with waging war under certain circumstances. However you can’t take that position if your starting point is that the state should not have “that” power.
The death penalty should definitely be banned in today’s U.S.A. because of flaws in our justice system: the too-common conviction of innocents, and unequal treatment of suspects, especially due to race.
A different question would pertain to a hypothetical country where these flaws did not exist. In that case, I think the answer might vary from society to society and depend less on how we want to dispose of the convict, and more on the message we want to send to the rest of society, particularly to impressionable children. Do we want to emphasize “crime will be punished” or instead “no human life is beyond redemption”? Which emphasis is appropriate would depend on the particulars of that society. (I’m not sure which message is most appropriate in today’s U.S.A. but, as I say, this second question is irrelevant given that the flaws in our justice system make death penalty unacceptable.)
This appears to be something thatg may develop into a debate, so I am going to leave it here, but the next time you post in Great Debates a question that is merely a poll without providing an actual position of your own, I will close the thread and issue you a Warning.
You have been told about this before and you need to pay attention to what you are posting, and where.
My opposition to the death penalty is based on its finality. If the person is later found to have been innocent, you can’t exactly bring him back to life. And convictions have been overturned so many times that it’s a real concern.
Aside from that, I have no “theoretical” objection to the death penalty . . . but a theory that doesn’t work in practice is a bad theory.
I think it also qualifies as cruel and unusual; I don’t mean the fact of death itself, it’s the knowing. I can think of few things more distressing than being told the exact hour of my death. That’s just cruel as hell.
But it’s mostly about the fact that too many mistakes are made. I think it can only be considered in cases that are virtually impossible to even question, such as Dahmer. Not only were his crimes just insanely hideous, there was a virtual avalanche of evidence in the form of human body parts all over his apartment, among other things, and he confessed (I think…too lazy to check). So killing him would have been acceptable.
But it’s rare for death penalty cases to be so clear cut. If there is any chance at all that they have the wrong person, death penalty is off the table.
You must have led a pretty sheltered life…it’s one of the most common arguments about death in terms of the DP, euthanasia and palliative care. Empathy is a useful emotion as it prevents perspectives based on a notion solely of ‘other’.
To the first question: No judicial system is infallible. A person wrongfully locked up in prison can at least be released and given some kind of compensation. Death is irreversible. By sanctioning the death penalty, I would be (partly) responsible for the killing of other persons, with a real risk that some of those persons were innocent.
To the second question:
“Either murder is a crime, or it is not. If it is not, why punish it? If it is, then by what perverse logic do you punish it by the same crime? It also is tantamount to bad arithmetic, since now two people are dead instead of one!” (Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade)
“Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety.” (Gandalf, in LOTR)
Don’t ask me what I’d do myself if someone close to me were raped or murdered. But that’s my personal choice and I would have to take the punishment for any revenge I might choose to indulge in. Society should not cater to that kind of primitive reflexes.
Yes to the first reason (real possibility of error), but that’s not in fact the main reason for me to be against the DP.
Yes to the second reason (executing a murderer being morally wrong), and that’s the main reason for me.
I am against the death penalty as practiced by a postulated infallible system not because of what it does to the executees but because of what it does to the society executing them.